LIBRA.RY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 

GIRT  OR 


Received 
Accession  No.       tf $  ^  0  .    Class  No. 


S  E  R  N  S 


ERTSON 


SERMONS 


PREACHED    AT   BRIGHTON 


BY  THE  LATE 


REV.  FREDERICK   W.  ROBERTSON 

THE   INCUMBENT  OF  TRINITY  CHAPEL. 


NEW    EDITION. 


NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON: 

HARPER    &    BROTHERS,    PUBLISHERS, 
1899. 


TO 
THE  CONGREGATION 

WORSHIPPING  IN 

TRINITY    CHAPEL,    BRIGHTON, 

FROM  AUGUST  15,  1847,  TO  AUGUST  15,  1853, 

THESE 

RECOLLECTIONS  OF  SERMONS 

PREACHED     BY    THEIR     LATE     PASTOR 

ARE  DEDICATED. 


PREFACE  TO  THE  ORIGINAL  EDITION. 


IN  publishing  these  Sermons,  a  few  words  of  explana- 
tion are  necessary. 

They  are  not  notes  previously  prepared,  nor  are  they 
Sermons  written  before  delivery.  They  are  simply  "Rec- 
ollections:" sometimes  dictated  by  the  Preacher  himself 
to  the  younger  members  of  a  family  in  which  he  was  inter- 
ested, at  their  urgent  entreaty;  sometimes  written  out  by 
himself  for  them  when  they  were  at  a  distance  and  unable 
to  attend  his  ministry.* 

They  have  been  carefully  preserved,  and  are  now  pub- 
lished without  corrections  or  additions,  just  as  they  were 
found.  Mr.  Robertson  attached  no  value  whatever  to 
them,  and  never  gave  any  directions  concerning  them. 
The  only  Sermon  which  saw  the  light  in  his  lifetime  is 
now  republished  in  this  volume,  with  his  own  preface,  ex- 
plaining how  it  was  preserved,  and  that  it  was  printed  by 
desire  of  his  congregation. 

Unfortunately,  in  some  instances  this  series  is  incom- 
plete. The  fourth  of  the  Advent  Lectures  f  was  never 
written  out,  owing  to  his  uncertain  and  suffering  state  of 
health;  and  this  cause,  combined  with  his  remarkable  dis- 
like to  recalling  his  discourses— a  peculiarity  known  to  all 
who  were  intimately  acquainted  with  him — has  made  these 

*  A  reference  to  a  paragraph  in  his  own  preface  to  "The  Israelite's  Grave" 
(page  235)  explains  this. 

t  The  fourth  and  last  Advent  Lecture  was  "The  Jewish;"  on  the  text, 
"  He  came  unto  his  own,  and  his  own  received  him  not." — John  i.  11. 


vi  Preface. 

recollections  more  broken  and  imperfect  than  they  would 
otherwise  have  been. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  say  one  word  in  this  place  of  the 
character  of  Mr.  Robertson's  teaching;  it  is  best  illustrated 
in  the  published  volumes  of  his  Sermons ;  and  yet  it  seema 
needful  to  say,  that  even  these  suggest  but  a  very  faint  idea 
of  the  influence  that  teaching  exercised  on  all  who  came 
within  its  sphere. 


PREFACE  TO  THE  FOURTH  SERIES. 


IT  is  proposed  shortly  to  issue  a  volume  entitled  "  Pulpit 
Notes,"  which  will  consist  of  the  skeleton  or  outline  which 
Mr.  Kobertson  prepared  before  delivering  his  Sermons.  In 
some  cases  only  a  line  or  a  single  word  is  given  to  indicate 
a  division  of  his  subject;  in  others  he  has  written  out  a 
whole  thought,  to  be  further  amplified  and  completed  in 
course  of  preaching. 

The  Editor  believes  that  such  a  volume  will  be  of  serv- 
ice in  two  ways — first,  as  offering  suggestions  to  preachers 
in  the  preparation  or  consideration  of  their  addresses;  and, 
secondly,  as  being  sufficiently  complete  for  purposes  of 
home-reading  where  it  is  the  custom  at  family  prayers,  or 
on  Sundays,  to  read  a  short  discourse,  occupying  but  a  few 
minutes. 

With  reference  to  the  first  of  these,  it  seems  to  be  felt 
very  generally  that  the  pulpit  is  not  what  it  was  originally 
intended  to  be.  There  is  a  wide-spread  opinion  that  it 
was  designed  for  the  edification  of  the  mind  as  well  as  the 
heart;  and  it  may  be  that  one  great  cause  of  the  indiffer- 
ence with  which  men  are  said  to  listen  to  preachers,  arises 
from  the  fact,  that  for  the  most  part  their  addresses  are  far 
below  the  intelligence  of  their  audience,  who  are  wearied 
•with  the  trite  repetitions  of  platitudes  that  neither  instruct 
nor  inform.  These  Sermons  and  "  Pulpit  Notes"  evidence 
the  character  of  a  teaching,  not  only  earnestly  listened  to, 
but  also  most  influential.  Perhaps  the  contrast  between 


viii  Preface. 

these  and  the  sermons  usually  preached,  may  suggest  a 
means  of  re-awakening  an  interest  now  almost  dormant  in 
the  minds  of  listeners.  In  this  view,  a  volume  will  shortly 
be  issued,  and  if  it  be  found  successful  another  will  be  put 
to  press. 

The  Editor  appends  a  portion  of  a  letter  from  a  friend 
on  the  subject  of  preaching,  because  it  serves  to  show  that 
the  indifference  he  has  adverted  to  springs  from  other 
causes  than  mere  irreligiousness. 

MY  DEAR , — I  think  one  great  need  in  our  pulpit  ministrations  is  nat- 
uralness ;  by  which  I  mean  an  exact  recognition  of  the  facts  of  our  daily  life. 
The  phrase,  "the  dignity  of  the  pulpit,"  has  given  a  fatally  artificial  charac- 
ter to  the  mass  of  sermons.  Mr.  Spurgeon  and  his  vulgar  slang  is  a  violent 
reaction  from  the  cold  unfelt  conventionalities  with  which  men  have  grown 
so  familiar ;  and  his  success  is  due  to  the  fact  that  he  recognizes  the  men 
and  women  before  him  as  flesh  and  blood — sinning,  suffering,  tempted,  fail- 
ing, struggling,  rising.  Like  all  extreme  reactions,  it  shocks  a  great  many 
by  its  levity,  its  irreverence,  and  its  vulgarity. 

But  it  is  in  this  direction  must  come  our  pulpit  reform.  We  come  day  after 
day  to  God's  house,  and  the  most  careless  one  of  us  there,  is  still  one  who,  if 
he  could  really  hear  a  word  from  God  to  his  own  soul,  would  listen  to  it — 
ay,  and  be  thankful  for  it.  No  heart  can  tell  out  to  another  what  waves  of 
temptation  have  been  straggled  through  during  the  week  past — with  what 
doubtful  success.  How,  after  the  soul  has  been  beaten  down  and  defiled, 
with  what  bitter  anguish  of  spirit  it  has  awoke  to  a  knowledge  of  its  back- 
slidings  and  its  bondage  to  sin : — not  to  this  or  that  sin  merely,  but  to  a  gen- 
eral sense  of  sinfulness  pervading  the  whole  man,  so  that  Redemption  would 
be  indeed  a  joyful  sound. 

Many  are  miserable  in  their  inmost  hearts,  who  are  light-hearted  and  gay 
before  the  world.  They  feel  that  no  heart  understands  theirs,  or  can  help 
them.  Now,  suppose  the  preacher  goes  down  into  the  depths  of  his  own 
being,  and  has  the  courage  and  fidelity  to  carry  all  he  finds  there,  first  to  God 
in  confession  and  prayer,  and  then  to  his  flock  as  some  part  of  the  general 
experience  of  Humanity,  do  you  not  feel  that  he  must  be  touching  close  upon 
some  brothei'-man's  sorrows  and  wants?  "Be  ye  as  I  am,  for  I  am  as  ye 
are."  Many  a  weaiy  and  heavy-laden  soul  has  taken  his  burden  to  the  Sav- 
iour, because  he  has  found  some  man  of  "like  passions  with  himself." who 
has  suffered  as  he  has,  and  found  relief.  I  think  a  bold  faithful  experimental 
preaching  rarely  fails  to  hit  some  mark,  and  oftentimes  God's  Spirit  witnesses 
to  the  truth  of  what  is  said,  by  rousing  this  and  that  man  to  the  feeling, 


Preface.  ^ 

"Why  I,  too,  have  been  agonizing,  and  falling,  and  crying  for  just  such  help 
as  this.     Ah,  this  man  has  indeed  something  to  say  to  me." 


I  may  be  wrong  in  my  opinion,  but  it  is  one  of  deep  conviction,  gained 
long  ago,  that  no  amount  of  external  evidence  in  the  way  of  proof  of  the 
truth  of  Christianity  is  worth  any  thing  in  the  way  of  saving  a  human 
soul. 

There  is  always  as  much  to  be  said  on  one  side  as  the  other,  because,  just 
as  Archimedes  could  not  move  the  earth  without  a  fulcrum,  so  there  must  be 
something  taken  for  granted  in  all  external  evidence,  which  a  rigid  logician 
might  fairly  demur  to  granting.  But  when,  as  with  the  Spirit  of  God,  the 
voice  of  a  man  reaches  his  fellow-man,  telling  him  of  his  inner  aspirations 
and  failures,  his  temptations,  his  sins,  his  weakness — not  in  generals,  but  in 
details — of  light  that  has  come  and  has  been  extinguished ;  of  hopes  bora, 
yet  not  nourished ;  of  fears  which  have  grown  stronger  and  stronger,  and 
which  refuse  altogether  to  be  silent,  even  in  the  midst  of  the  engagements  or 
pleasures  of  life — does  not  the  man  feel  that  here  is  a  revelation  of  God's 
truth  as  real  and  fresh  as  if  he  had  stood  in  the  streets  of  Jerusalem,  and 
heard  the  Saviour's  very  voice  ?  The  man  feels  that,  in  this  word,  which  has, 
so  to  speak,  "told  him  all  that  ever  he  did,"  there  must  be  a  divine  life. 
"One  touch  of  nature  makes  the  whole  word  kin." 


I  think  that  a  ministry  which  should  work  mightily  amongst  a  people 
would  be  one  in  which  very  rarely  is  heard  any  development  of  the  modus 
operandi  or  '•'•plan  of  salvation  ;"  in  which  proof  of  the  divine  mission  of 
Christ,  or  of  God's  revelation,  was  never  attempted,  but  in  which  the  great 
facts  themselves  were  set  forth  as  the  alone  solution  of  the  wants,  sorrows, 
and  sins  of  the  hearers ;  in  which  the  fact  of  Adam's  fall,  and  any  conse- 
quences it  had  on  the  human  race,  were  only  touched  upon  incidentally ; 
but  in  which  the  individual  man's  fall  was  pressed  home  upon  him  from  his 
own  certain  convictions.  Not  because  Adam  fell,  and  the  race  fell  in  him, 
but  because  you  have  fallen — therefore  you  need  a  Saviour,  and  divine  life 
and  light  are  indispensable. 

The  man  who  quietly  slumbers  under  Adam's  sin  and  its  tremendous  con- 
sequences— his  relation  to  which  consequences  how  is  it  possible  for  a  poor 
uneducated  person  to  comprehend  ? — may  be  aroused  to  a  sense  of  his  con- 
nection with  the  fact  of  a  fall  in  himself,  and  a  need  of  such  a  restorer  as 
Christ.  I  am  sure  I  don't  know  whether  this  is  orthodox  or  not;  but  I 
doubt  whether  orthodox  creeds  and  confessions  of  doctrine  have  ever  turned 
one  soul  from  the  error  of  his  ways,  or  brought  him  in  real  earnest  to  Christ 


Preface. 


Let  «  look  at  ttts  boldlT.  Sefotteen  thousand  pahvte  echo  m  oar  land 
erar  Smday,  to  idirt  «di  pracfaer  consider*  the  soundest  fcan  of  draft 
GoqieL  Is hGo^sworfdiaxfe  preached?  His  He  dunged  His  purpose? 

d  does  He  BO  longer  intend  that  "His 
Yet  where  is  the 


UNIVERSITY 
CALIFOJ* 


CONTENTS. 


Setfes. 

SERMON   I. 

Preached  April  29, 1849. 

GOD'S  REVELATION  OF  HEAVEN. 

1  COR.  ii.  9, 10.—"  Eye  hath  not  seen,  nor 
ear  heard,  neither  have  entered  into  the 
heart  of  man,  the  things  which  God  hath 
prepared  for  them  that  love  him.  But 
God  hath  revealed  them  unto  us  by  his 
Spirit " Page  '23 


SERMON   II. 

Preached  June  6, 1849. 

PARABLE  OP  THE  SOWER. 

CONFIRMATION   LECTURE. 

MATT.  xiii.  1-9.— "The  same  day  went  Je- 
sus out  of  the  house,  and  sat  by  the  sea- 
side. And  great  multitudes  were  gath- 
ered together  unto  him,  so  that  he  went 
into  a  ship,  and  sat ;  and  the  whole  mul- 
titude stood  on  the  shore.  And  he  spake 
many  things  unto  them  in  parables,  say- 
ing, Behold,  a  sower  went  forth  to  sow ; 
and  when  he  sowed,  some  seeds  fell  by 
the  wayside,  and  the  fowls  came  and  de- 
voured them  up:  Some  fell  upon  stony 
places,  where  they  had  not  much  earth : 
and  forthwith  they  sprung  up,  because 
they  had  no  deepness  of  earth:  And 
when  the  sun  was  up,  they  were  scorch- 
ed ;  and  because  they  had  no  root,  they 
withered  away.  And  some  fell  among 
thorns ;  and  the  thorns  sprung  up,  and 
choked  them :  But  others  fell  into  good 
ground,  and  brought  forth  fruit,  some  a 
hundred-fold,  some  sixty-fold,  some  thir- 
ty-fold. Who  hath  ears  fco  hear,  let  Mm 
Oear" .  33 


SERMON   III. 

Preached  June  10,  1849. 

JACOB'S  WRESTLING. 

CONFIRMATION   LECTURE. 

GEN.  xxxii.  28,  29.  — "And  he  said,  Thy 
name  shall  be  called  no  more  Jacob,  but 
Israel :  for  as  a  prince  hast  thou  power 
with  God  and  with  men,  and  hast  pre- 1 
vailed.  And  Jacob  asked  him,  and  s;iid 


Tell  me,  I  pray  thee,  thy  name.  4,nfl 
he  said,  Wherefore  is  it  that  thou  dost 
ask  after  my  name?  And  he  blessed 
him  there" Page  46 


SERMON   IV. 

Preached  August  12, 1849. 

CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS  BY  OBLIVION 
OF  THE  PAST. 

PHIL.  iii.  13, 14.— "Brethren,  I  count  not 
myself  to  have  apprehended :  but  this 
one  thing  I  do,  forgetting  those  things 
which  are  behind,  and  reaching  forth 
unto  those  things  which  are  before,  I 
press  toward  the  mark  for  the  prize  of 
the  high  calling  of  God  in  Christ  Je- 
sus " 51 


SERMON   V. 

Preached  October  21, 1849. 

TRIUMPH  OVER  HINDRANCES— 
ZACCHEUS. 

LUKE  xix.  8.— "And  Zaccheus  stood,  and 
said  unto  the  Lord;  Behold,  Lord,  the 
half  of  my  goods  I  give  to  the  poor  ;  and 
if  I  have  taken  any  thing  from  any  man 
by  false  accusation,  I  restore  him  four- 
fold"   68 


SERMON   VI. 

Preached  October  S8, 1849. 

THE  SHADOW  AND  SUBSTANCE  OF 
THE  SABBATH. 

COL.  ii.  16, 17.  —  "  Let  no  man  therefore 
judge  you  in  meat,  or  in  drink,  or  in  re- 
spect of  a  holyday,  or  of  the  new  moon, 
or  of  the  sabbath -days:  Which  are  a 
shadow  of  things  to  come ;  but  the  body 
is  of  Christ " T8 


SERMON   VII. 

Preached  November  4, 1849. 

THE  SYMPATHY  OF  CHRIST. 

HEB.  iv.  15, 16.—"  For  we  have  not  a  high- 
priest  which  can  not  be  touched  with 
the  feeling  of  our  infirmities ;  but  wafl 


Xll 


Contents. 


in  all  points  tempted  like  as  we  are,  yet 
without  sin.  Let  us  therefore  come 
boldly  \uito  the  throne  of  grace,  that  we 
may  obtain  mercy,  and  find  grace  to  help 
in  time  of  need" Page  SS 


SERMON    VIII. 

Preached  November  11, 1849. 

'HARISEES  AND  SADDUCEES  AT 
JOHN'S  BAPTISM. 

TT.  iii.  7. — "But  when  he  saw  many  of 
he  Pharisees  and  Sadducees  come  to  his 
)aptism,  he  said  unto  them,  O  genera- 
tion of  vipers,  who  hath  warned  yon  to 
flee  from  the  wrath  to  come?" 99 


SERMON    IX. 

Preached  November  5, 1849. 

CAIAPHAS'S  VIEW  OF  VICARIOUS 
SACRIFICE. 

JOHN  xi.  49-53. — "And  one  of  them,  named 
Caiaphasjbeing  thehigh-priestthat  same 
year,  said  unto  them,  Ye  know  nothing 
at  all,  nor  consider  that  it  is  expedient 
for  us,  that  one  man  should  die  for  the 
people,  and  that  the  whole  nation  perish 
not.  And  this  spake  he  not  of  himself: 
but  being  high-priest  that  year,  heproph- 
esied  that  Jesus  should  die  for  that  na- 
tion ;  and  not -for  that  nation  only,  bnt 
that  also  he  should  gather  together  in 
one  the  children  of  God  that  were  scat- 
tered abroad.  Then  from  that  day  forth 
they  took  counsel  together  for  to  put  him 
to  death"  110 

SERMON    X. 

Preached  December  2, 1849. 

REALIZING  THE  SECOND  ADVENT. 

JOB  xix.  25-27.—"  For  I  know  that  my  Re- 
deemer liveth,  and  that  he  shall  stand 
at  the  latter  day  npon  the  earth :  And 
though  after  my  skin  worms  destroy  this 
body,  yet  in  my  flesh  shall  I  see  God: 
Whom  I  shall  see  for  myself,  and  mine 
eyes  shall  behold,  and*  not  another ; 
though  my  reins  be  consumed  within 
me" 120 


SERMON   XI. 

Preached  December  6, 1849. 

FIRST  ADVENT  LECTURE. 

TJ1E    GREEK. 


unto  salvation  to  every  one  that  believ. 
eth  :  to  the  Jew  first,  and  also  to  the 
Greek.  For  therein  is  the  righteous- 
ness of  God  revealed  from  faith  to  faith  : 
as  it  is  written,  The  just  shall  live  by 
faith  " Page  130 


SERMON    XII. 

Preached  December  13, 1849. 

SECOND  ADVENT  LECTURE. 

THE   ROMAN. 

ROM.  i.  14-16.— "I  am  debtor  both  to  the 
Greeks,  and  to  the  Barbarians;  both  to 
the  wise,  and  to  the  unwise.  So,  as  much 
as  in  me  is,  I  am  ready  to  preach  the  gos- 
pel to  you  that  are  at  Rome  also.  For  I 
am  not  ashamed  of  the  gospel  of  Christ: 
for  it  is  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation 
to  every  one  that  believeth  ;  to  the  Jew 
fir^t,  and  also  to  the  Greek  " 1ST 


SERMON  XIII. 

Preached  December  20,  1849. 

THIRD  ADVENT  LECTURE. 

THE   BARBARIAN. 

ACTS  xxviii.  i-7. — "And  when  they  were 
escaped,  then  they  knew  that  the"  island 
was  called  Melita.  And  the  barbarous 
people  showed  us  no  little  kindness  :  for 
they  kindled  a  fire,  and  received  us  every 
one,  because  of  the  present  rain,  and  be'- 
cause  of  the  cold.  And  when  Paul  had 
gathered  a  bundle  of  sticks,  and  laid  them 
on  the  fire,  there  came  a  viper  out  of  the 
heat,  and  fastened  on  his  hand.  And 
when  the  barbarians  saw  the  venomous 
beast  hang  on  his  hand,  they  said  among 
themselves,  No  doubt  this  man  is  a  mur- 
derer, whom,  though  he  hath  escaped  the 
sea,  yet  vengeance  snfferetb.  not  to  live* 
And  he  shook  off  the  beast  into  the  fire, 
and  felt  no  harm.  Howbeit  they  looked 
when  he  should  have  swollen,  or  fallen 
down  dead  suddenly :  but  after  they  had 
looked  a  great  while,  and  saw  no  harm 
come  to  him,  they  changed  their  minds, 
aud  said  that  he  was  a  god.  In  the  same 
quarters  were  possessions  of  the  chief 
man  of  the  island,  whose  name  was  Pub- 
lius;  who  received  us,  and  lodged  us 
three  days  courteously  " - . .  148 


SERMON    XIV. 

Preached  December  15, 1849. 

THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL 
HARVEST. 


ROM.  i.  14-17.— "I  am  debtor  both  to  the! GAT-  vi.  7,  S.~ "Be  not  deceived;  God  is 


Greeks,  and  to  the  Barbarians;  both  to; 
the  wise,  and  to  the  unwise.  So,  as  much  i 
as  in  me  is,  I  am  ready  to  preach  the 
eospel  to  you  that  are"  at  Rome  also. 
For  I  am  not  ashamed  of  the  gospel ' 
of  Christ:  for  it  is  the  power  of  God  I 


not  mocked :  for  whatsoever  a  man  sow- 
eth,  that  shall  he  also  reap.  For  he  that 
soweth  to  his  flesh  shall  of  the  flesh  reap 
corruption;  but  he  that  soweth  to  the 
Spirit  shall  of  the  Spirit  reap  life  ever- 
lasting"   158 


Contents. 


Xlll 


SERMON    XV, 

Preached  December  31, 1849. 

THE  LONELINESS  OP  CHRIST. 

JOHN  xvi.  31,  32.— "Jesus  answered  them, 
Do  ye  now  believe  ?  Behold,  the  hour 
cometh,  yea,  is  now  come,  that  ye  shall 
be  scattered,  every  man  to  his  own,  and 
shall  leave  me  alone:  aud  yet  I  am 
pot  alone,  because  the  Father  is  with 
me" Page  168 


SERMON   XVI. 

Prsached  October  20,1850. 

THE  NEW  COMMANDMENT  OF  LOVE 
TO  ONE  ANOTHER. 

JOIJN  xiii.  34.— "A  new  commandment  I 
give  unto  you,  That  ye  love  one  another ; 
as  I  have  loved  you,  that  ye  also  love  one 
another  " 177 


SERMON    XVII. 

Preached  June  15, 1851. 

THE  MESSAGE  OF  THE  CHURCH  TO 
MEN  OF  WEALTH. 

1  SAM.  xxv.  10, 11.— "And  Nabal  answered 
David's  servants,  and  said,  Who  is  Da- 
vid? and  who  is  the  son  of  Jesse  ?  there 
be  many  servants  nowadays  that  break 
away  every  man  from  his  master.  Shall 
I  then  take  my  bread,  and  my  water,  and 
my  flesh  that  I  have  killed  for  my  shear- 
ers, and  give  it  unto  men,  whom  I  know 
not  whence  they  be  ?" 185 


SERMON    XVIII. 

Preached  June  22, 1851. 

CHRIST'S  JUDGMENT   RESPECTING 
INHERITANCE. 

LUKE  xii.  13-15. — "And  one  of  the  com- 
pany said  unto  him,  Master,  sneak  to 
my  brother,  that  he  divide  the  inherit- 
ance with  me.  And  he  said  unto  him, 
Man,  who  made  me  a  judge  or  a  divider 
over  you  ?  And  he  said  unto  them,  Take 
heed,  and  beware  of  covetonsness ;  for  a 
man's  life  consisteth  not  in  the  abun- 
dance of  the  things  which  he  possess- 
ed"   198 


SERMON    XIX. 

Preached  July  13,1851. 

FREEDOM  BY  THE  TRUTH. 

JOHN  viii.  32.— "And  ye  shall  know  the 
truth,  and  the  truth  shall  make  yon 
free" '209 


SERMON   XX. 

Preached  at  the  Autumn  Assizes,  held  at  Lewes,  1853 

THE  KINGDOM  OF  THE  TRUTH. 

JOHN  xviii.  37 —  "  Pilate  therefore  said 
unto  him,  Art  thou  a  king  then  ?  Jesui 
answered,  Thou  sayest  that  I  am  a  king. 
To  this  end  was  I  born,  and  for  this 
cause  came  I  into  the  world,  that  I 
should  bear  witness  unto  the  truth. 
Every  one  that  is  of  the  truth  heareth 
my  voice  " Page  2T& 


SERMON  XXI. 

Preached  November  7, 1852. 

THE  SKEPTICISM  OF  PILATE. 

JOHN  xviii.  38. — "Pilate  saith  unto  him, 
What  is  truth  ?" 226 

SERMON  XXII. 

Preached  on  the  first  day  of  Public  Mourning  for  the 
Queen  Dowager,  Dec.  1849. 

THE   ISRAELITE'S    GRAVE   IN   A 
FOREIGN  LAND. 

GEN.  1.  24-26. — "And  Joseph  said  unto  his 
brethren,  I  die ;  and  God  will  surely  visit 
you,  and  bring  you  out  of  this  land  unto 
the  land  which  he  sware  to  Abraham,  to 
to  Isaac,  and  to  Jacob.  And  Joseph 
took  an  oath  of  the  children  of  Israel, 
saying,  God  will  surely  visit  you,  and  ye 
shall  carry  up  my  bones  from  hence.  So 
Joseph  died,  being  a  hundred  and  ten 
years  old :  and  they  embalmed  him,  and 
lie  was  put  in  a  coffin  in  Egypt "... .  236 


Seconti  Serfes. 

SERMON    I. 

Preached  January  6,1850. 

THE  STAR  IN  THE  EAST. 

MATT.  ii.  1, 2.— "Now  when  Jesus  was  born 
in  Bethlehem  of  Judea  in  the  days  of 
Herod  the  king,  behold,  there  came  wise 
men  from  the  east  to  Jerusalem,  saying, 
Where  is  he  that  is  born  King  of  the 
Jews?  for  we  have  seen  his  star  in  the 
east,  and  are  come  to  worship  him".  249 


SERMON    II. 

Preached  February  10, 1850. 

THE  HEALING  OF  JAIRUS'S  DAUGH- 
TER. 

MATT.  ix.  23-25. — "And  when  Jesus  camo 
into  the  ruler's  house,  and  saw  the  min- 
strels and  the  people  making;  a  noise, 


XIV 


Contents. 


he  said  unto  them,  Give  place :  for  the 
maid  is  not  dead,  but  sleepeth.  And 
they  laughed  him  to  scorn.  But  when 
the  people  were  put  forth,  he  went  in, 
and  took  her  by  the  hand,  and  the  maid 
•rose  " Page  25' 


SERMON    III. 
Preached  March  10,  1850. 

BAPTISM. 


i.  26-29.—  "For  ye  are  all  the  chil- 
dren of  God  by  faith  in  Christ  Jesus. 
For  as  many  of  you  as  have  been  bap- 
tized into  Christ  have  pnt  on  Christ. 
Thert;  is  neither  Jew  nor  Greek,  there 
is  neither  bond  nor  free,  there  is  neither 
male  nor  female  :  for  ye  are  all  one  in 
Christ  Jesus,  And  if  ye  be  Christ's, 
then  are  ye  Abraham's  seed,  and  heirs 
according  to  the  promise  ".  .  .......  207 


SERMON   IV. 

Preached  March  17,1850. 

BAPTISM. 

I  PETEB  iii.  21.— "  The  like  figure  where- 
unto  even  baptism  doth  also  now  save 
us" 277 


SERMON  V. 

Preached  October  13, 1S50. 

ELIJAH. 

1  KINGS  xix.  4. — "Bat  he  himself  went  a 
day's  journey  into  the  wilderness,  and 
came  and  sat  down  under  a  juniper-tree : 
and  he  requested  for  himself  that  he 
uiight  die  ;  and  said,  It  is  enough ;  now, 
O  Lord,  take  away  my  life ;  for  I  am  not 
better  than  my  fathers  " 286 


SERMON   VI. 

F.-eached  January  12, 1851. 

NOTES  ON  PSALM  LL 

Written  by  David,  after  a  double  crime : — 
Uriah  put  in  the  fore-front  of  the  battle 
— the  wife  of  the  murdered  man  taken, 
etc.  293 


SERMON   VII. 
Preached  March  2,  1851. 

OBEDIENCE  THE  ORGAN  OF  SPIR- 
ITUAL KNOWLEDGE. 

JOHN  vii.  17. — "If  any  man  will  do  his 
will,  he  shall  know  of  the  doctrine, 
whether  it  be  of  God,  or  whether  I  speak 
of  myself"...  ,. 300 


SERMON  Vin. 

Preached  March  30, 1851. 

RELIGIOUS  DEPRESSION. 

PSALM  xlii.  1-3.— "As  the  hart  panteth 
after  the  water  brooks,  so  pauteth  my 
soul  after  thee,  O  God.  My  soul  thirst- 
eth  for  God,  for  the  living  God :  when 
shall  I  come  and  appear  before  God? 
My  tears  have  been  my  meat  day  and 
night,  while  they  continually  say  unto 
me,  Where  is  thy  God  ?" Page  308 


SERMON   IX. 

Preached  April  6, 1851. 

FAITH  OF  THE  CENTURION. 

MATT.  viii.  10.—"  When  Jesus  heard  it,  he 
marvelled,  and  said  to  them  that  follow- 
ed, Verily  I  say  unto  you,  I  have  not 
found  so  great  faith,  no,  not  in  Is- 
rael " 313 


SERMON    X. 

Preached  July  27,  1851. 


f 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  THE 
ERRING. 

GAL.  vi.  1,  2.—"  Brethren,  if  a  man  be  over- 
taken in  a  fault,  ye  which  are  spiritual, 
restore  such  a  one  in  the  spirit  of  meek- 
ness ;  considering  thyself,  lest  thou  also 
be  tempted.  Bear  ye  one  another's 
burdens,  and  so  fulfill  the  law  of 
Christ " 318 


SERMON   XI. 

Preached  Christmas  Day,  1851. 

CHRIST   THE   SON. 

HEB.  L  1,  2. — "  God,  who  at  sundry  times 
and  in  divers  manners  spake  in  time 

East  unto  the  fathers  by  the  prophets, 
ath  in  these  last  days  spoken  unto  us 
by  his  Son" S21 


SERMON    XII. 

Preached  April  25, 185J. 

WORLDLINESS 

1  JOHN  ii.  15-17. — "If  any  man  love  the 
world,  the  love  of  the  Father  is  not  in 
him.  For  all  that  is  in  the  world,  the 
lust  of  the  flesh,  and  the  lust  of  the  eyes, 
and  the  pride  of  life,  is  not  of  the  Fa- 
ther, but  is  of  the  world.  And  the  world 
passeth  away,  and  the  lust  thereof:  but 
he  that  doeth  the  will  of  God  abideth 
forever  " 33? 


Contents. 


xv 


SERMON   XIII. 

Preached  November  14, 1852 

THE  SYDENHAM  PALACE,  AND  THE 
RELIGIOUS  NON-OBSERVANCE  OF 
THE  SABBATH. 

ROM.  xiv.  5,  6.— "One  man  esteemeth  one 
day  above  another :  another  esteemeth 
every  day  alike.  Lei  every  man  be  fully 
persuaded  in  his  own  mind.  He  that 
regardeth  the  day,  regardeth  it  unto  the 
Lord;  and  he  that  regardeth  not  the 
day,  to  the  Lord  he  doth  not  regard  it. 
He  that  eateth,  eateth  to  the  Lord  for  he 
giveth  God  thanks ;  and  he  that  eateth 
not,  to  the  Lord  he  eateth  not,  and  giveth 
God  thanks  " Page  343 


SERMON  XIV. 

Preached  Januarys,  1853. 

THE  EARLY  DEVELOPMENT  OF 

JESUS. 

LUKE  ii.  40. — "And  the  child  grew,  and 
waxed  strong  in  spirit,  filled  with  wis- 
dom ;  and  the  grace  of  God  was  upon 
him"..,  ..  353 


SERMON   XV. 

Preached  January  9, 1853. 

CHRIST'S  ESTIMATE  OF  SIN. 

LUKE  xix.  10.— "The  Son  of  man  is  come 
to  seek  and  to  save  that  which  was 
lost" 363 

SERMON  XVI. 

Preached  January  16, 1853 

THE  SANCTIFICATION  OF  CHRIST. 

JOHN  xvii.  19.— "And  for  their  sakes  1'j 
sanctify  myself,  that  they  also  might  be 
sanctified  through  the  truth  " 372 1 

SERMOX   XVII. 

Preached  January  23, 1853. 

THE  FIRST  MIRACLE. 

I.   THE  GLORY   OF  THE  VIRGIN    MOTHER. 


ifested  forth  his  glory ;  and  his  disciples 
believed  on  him  " Page  393 


SERMON   XIX. 

Preached  March  20, 1853. 

THE  GOOD  SHEPHERD. 

JOHN  x.  14, 15. — "  I  am  the  good  shepherd, 
and  know  my  sheep,  and  am  known  of 
mine.  As  the  Father  knoweth  me,  even 
so  know  I  the  Father :  and  I  lay  down 
my  life  for  the  sheep" 404 


SERMON    XX. 

Preached  Easter  Day,  March  27, 1853. 

THE  DOUBT  OF  THOMAS. 

JOHN  xx.  29.  —  "Jesus  saith  unto  him, 
Thomas,  because  thou  hast  seen  me, 
thou  hast  believed:  blessed  are  they 
that  have  not  seen,  and  yet  have  be- 
lieved"   415 


SERMON  XXI. 

Preached  May  8, 1853. 
THE  IRREPARABLE  PAST. 

MARK  xiv.  41,  42. — "And  he  cometh  the 
third  time,  and  saith  unto  them,  Sleep 
on  now,  and  take  your  rest :  it  is  enough, 
the  hour  is  come ;  behold  the  Son  of  man 
is  betrayed  into  the  hands  of  sinners. 
Rise  up,  let  us  go ;  lo,  he  that  betrayeth 
me  is  at  hand" 420 


3Tf)frt»  Series. 

SERMON   I. 

Preached  April  28, 1850. 

THE   TONGUE. 

ST.  JAMES  iii.  5,  6. — "  Even  so  the  tongue 
is  a  little  member,  and  boasteth  great 
things.  Behold,  how  great  a  matter  a 
little  fire  kindleth  !  And  the  tongue  is 
a  fire,  a  world  of  iniquity:  so  is  the 
tongue  among  our  members,  that  it  de- 
fileth  the  whole  body,  and  setteth  on 


JOHN  ii.  11.-"  This  beginning  of  miracles      flre  .the  course  of  nature ;  and  it  is  set 
f\\A  T^oiif*  i«  f«~rt  ~r/^~iii 3  i     on  nrfi  nrnfili  ..  <4i>7 


did  Jesus  in  Cana  of  Galilee,  and  man- 
ifested forth  his  glory ;  and  his  disciples 
believed  on  him" 383 


SERMON    XVIII. 

Proached  January  30,  1853. 

THE  FIRST  MIRACLE. 

II.  .THE   GLORY    OF   THE   DIVINE  SON. 

JOHN  11. 11.— "This  beginning  of  miracles 
did  J«sus  in  Cana  of  Galilee,  and  man- 


SERMON   II. 

Preached  May  5, 1850. 

THE  VICTORY  OF  FAITH. 

1  JOHN  v.  4,  5. — "  For  whatsoever  is  born 
of  God  overcometh  the  world:  and  thifl 
is  the  victory  that  overcometh  the  world, 
even  our  faith.  Who  is  he  that  over- 
cometh the  world,  but  he  that  believeth 
that  J«sus  is  the  Son  of  God  ?" 440 


XVI 


Contents, 


SERMON   III. 

Preached  Whitsunday,  May  19, 18oO. 

THE  DISPENSATION  OF  THE 
SPIRIT. 

1  COB.  xii.  4.— "Now  there  are  diversities 
of  gifts,  bat  the  same  Spirit  "..Page  455 

SERMON   IV. 

Preached  May  26,  J850. 

THE  TRINITY. 

2  THESS.  v.  23.— "And  the  very  God  of 
peace  sanctify  you  wholly;  and  I  pray 
God  yocr  whole  spirit  and  soul  and  body 
be  preserved  blameless  unto  the  coming 
of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ " 464 


SERMON   V. 

Preached  June  2, 1850. 
ABSOLUTION. 

LUKE  v.  21.  —  "And  the  scribes  and  the 
Pharisees  began  to  reason,  saying, 
Who  is  this  which  speaketh  blasphe- 
mies? Who  can  forgive  sins,  but  God 
alone  ?" 476 


SERMON   VI. 

Preached  June  9, 1850. 

THE  fLLUSIVENESS  OF  LIFE. 

HEE.  xi.  &-10.— "  By  faith  Abraham,  when 
he  was  called  to  go  out  into  a  place 
Which  he  should  after  receive  for  an  in- 
heritance, obeyed ;  and  he  went  out, 
not  knowing  whither  he  went.  By  faith 
he  sojourned  in  the  land  of  promise,  as 
in  a  strange  country,  dwelling  in  taber- 
nacles with  Isaac  and  Jacob,  the  heirs 
with  him  of  the  same  promise  :  for  he 
looked  for  a  city  which  hath  founda- 
tions, whose  builder  and  maker  is 
God"...  ..  4ST 


SERMON    VII. 

Preached  June  23,  1830. 

THE  SACRIFICE  OF  CHRIST. 

8  COR.  v.  14, 15.— "For  the  love  of  Christ 
constraineth  us ;  because  we  thus  judge, 
that  if  one  died  for  all,  then  were  all 
dead:  and  that  he  died  for  all,  that 
they  which  live  should  not  henceforth 
live  unto  themselves, but  unto  him  which 
died  for  them,  and  rose  again  " 495 


SERMON   VIII. 

Preached  June  30, 1850. 

THE  POWER  OF  SORROW. 

2  COR.  vii.  9, 10. — "  Now  I  rejoice,  not  that 
ye  were  made  sorry»  but  that  ye  sorrow- 


ed to  repentance:  for  ye  were  made 
sorry  after  a  godly  manner,  that  ye 
might  receive  damage  by  us  in  nothing. 
For  godly  sorrow  worketh  repentance 
to  salvation  not  to  be  repented  of:  but 
the  sorrow  of  the  world  worketh 
death" Page  504 


SERMON    IX. 

Preached  August  4,  1830. 

SENSUAL  AND  SPIRITUAL  EXCITE- 
MENT. 

Em.  v.  17,18.— "Wherefore  be  ye  not  un- 
wise, but  understanding  what  the  will 
of  the  Lord  is.  And  be  not  drunk  with 
wine,  wherein  is  excess;  but  be  filled 
with  the  Spirit" 510 

SERMON    X. 

Preached  August  11, 1850. 
PURITY. 

TITCS  i.  15.— "Unto  the  pure  all  things 
are  pure:  but  unto  them  that  are  de- 
filed and  unbelieving  is  nothing  pure; 
but  even  their  mind  and  conscience  is 
defiled  " 516 


SERMON    XI. 

Preached  February  9, 1851. 

UNITY  AND  PEACE. 

]  COL.  iii.  15.— "And  let  the  peace  of  God 

I     rule  in  your  hearts,  to  the  which  also  ye 

are  called  in  one  body ;  and  be  ye  thank- 

1     ful" ..522 


SERMON    XII. 

Preached  January  4, 1858. 

!  THE  CHRISTIAN  AIM  AND  MOTIVE. 

MATT.  v.  48.  —  "  Be  ye  therefore  perfect, 
even  as  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven 
is  perfect" 530 

SERMON    XIII. 

Preached  January  4, 1852. 

CHRISTIAN  CASUISTRY. 

1  COR.  vii.  18-24. —  "Is  any  man  called 
being  circumcised?  let  him  not  become 
uncircumcised.  Is  any  called  in  nncir- 
cumcision  ?  let  him  not  be  circumcised. 
Circumcision  is  nothing,  and  uncimim- 
cisiou  is  nothing,  but  the  keeping  of  the 
commandments  of  God.  Let  every  man 
abide  in  the  same  calling  wherein  he 
was  called.  Art  thou  called  being  a 
servant?  care  not  for  it:  but  if  thon 
niayest  be  made  free,  use  it  rather. 
For  he  that  is  called  in  the  Lord,  being 
a  servant,  is  the  Lord's  freeman  :  like- 
wise also  he  that  is  called,  being  free, 


Contents. 


xvn 


IS  Christ's  servant.  Ye  are  bought  with 
a  price ;  be  not  ye  the  servants  of  men. 
Brethren,  let  every  man,  wherein  he  is 
called,  therein  abide  with  God".  Page  539 


SERMON    XIV. 

Preached  January  11, 1852. 

MARRIAGE  AND  CELIBACY. 

1  COB.  vii.  29-31.— "But  this  I  say,  breth- 
ren, the  time  is  short :  it  remaineth,  that 
both  they  that  have  wives  be  as  though 
they  had  none ;  and  they  that  weep,  as 
though  they  wept  not ;  and  they  that  re- 
joice, as  though  they  rejoiced  not ;  and 
they  that  buy,  as  though  they  possessed 
not;  and  they  that  use  this  world,  as 
not  abusiug  it:  for  the  fashion  of  this 
world  passeth  away  " 547 


SERMON    XV. 

Preached  January  11,  1850. 

THE  CHRISTIAN   CHURCH  A  FAM- 
ILY. 

EPII.  iii.  14, 15.—"  Our  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
of  whom  the  whole  family  in  heaven 
and  earth  is  named  " 555 


SERMON  XVI. 

Preached  January  25,  1852. 

THE  LAW  OF  CHRISTIAN  CON- 
SCIENCE. 

1  COB.  viii.  7-13.— "Howbeit  there  is  not 
in  every  man  that  knowledge :  for  some 
with  conscience  of  the  idol  unto  this 
hour  eat  it  as  a  thing  offered  unto  an 
idol;  and  their  conscience  being  weak 
is  defiled.  But  meat  commendeth  us 
not  to  God:  for  neither,  if  we  eat,  are 
we  the  better ;  neither,  if  we  eat  not, 
are  we  the  worse.  But  take  heed  lest 
by  any  means  this  liberty  of  yours  be- 
come a  stumbling-block  to  them  that 
are  weak.  For  if  any  man  see  thee 
which  hast  knowledge  sit  at  meat  in 
the  idol's  temple,  shall  not  the  con- 
science of  him  which  is  weak  be  em- 
boldened to  eat  those  things  which  are 
offered  to  idols ;  and  through  thy  knowl- 
edge shall  the  weak  brother  perish,  for 
whom  Christ  died  ?  '  But  when  ye  sin  so 
against  the  brethren,  and  wound  their 
weak  conscience,  ye  sin  against  Christ. 
Wherefore,  if  meat  make  my  brother  to 
offend,  I  will  eat  no  flesh  while  the 
world  standeth,  lest  I  make  my  brother 
to  offend  " 565 


SERMON    XVII. 

I  /  Preached  May  16,  1852. 

VICTORY  OVER  DEATH. 

I  COB.  xv.  5S,  5T.— "The  sting  of  death  is? 
sin ;  and  the  strength  of  sin  is  the  law. 


But  thanks  be  to  God,  which  giveth  us 
the  victory  through  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ" :... Page  57(1 


SERMON    XVIII. 

Preached  June  20,  1852. 

MAN'S    GREATNESS    AND    GOD'S 
GREATNESS. 

ISA.  Ivii.  15.—"  For  thus  saith  the  high  and 
lofty  One  that  inhablteth  eternity,  whose 
name  is  Holy;  I  dwell  in  the  high  and 
holy  place,  with  him  also  that  is  of  a 
couta-ite  and  humble  spirit " 588 


SERMON  XIX. 

Preached  June  27, 1852. 

THE  LAWFUL  AND  UNLAWFUL  USE 
OF  LAW. 

A   FEAGMKNT. 

1  TIM.  i.  8.— "But  we  know  that  the  law 
is  good,  if  a  man  use  it  lawfully  "...  598 


SERMON    XX. 

Preached  February  21, 1858. 

THE  PRODIGAL  AND  HIS  BROTHER. 

LUKE  xv.  31,  32.— "And  he  said  unto  him, 
Son,  thou  art  ever  with  me,  and  all  that 
I  have  is  thine.  It  was  meet  that  we 
should  make  merry,  and  be  glad:  for 
this  thy  brother  was  dead,  and  is  alive 
again  ;  and  was  lost,  and  is  found".  603 


SERMON   XXI. 

Preached  May  15,1853. 

JOHN'S  REBUKE  OF  HEROD. 

LUKE  iii.  19, 20.—"  But  Herod  the  tetrarch, 
being  reproved  by  him  for  Herodiae, 
his  brother  Philip's  wife,  and  for  all  the 
evils  which  Herod  had  done,  added  yet 
this  above  all,  that  he  shut  up  John  in 
prison  " 614 


Jfourt!)  .Series. 

SERMON    I. 

Preafehed  January,  1848. 

THE  CHARACTER  OF  ELL 

1  SAM.  iii.  1. — "And  the  child  Samuel  min* 
istered  unto  the  Lord  before  Eli.  And 
the  word  of  the  Lord  was  precious  in 
those  days;  there  was  no  open  vis- 
ion I? . .  623 


XV111 


Contents. 


SERMON   II. 

Preached  March,  1848. 

THE  APPOINTMENT  OF  THE  FIRST 
KING  IN  ISRAEL. 

1  SAM.  xii.  1.— "Aud  Samuel  said  unto  all 
Israel,  Behold,  I  have  hearkened  unto 
your  voice  in  all  that  ye  said  unto  me, and 
have  made  a  king  over  you  ". . .  Page  CSS 


SERMON   III. 

PRAYER. 

MATT.  xxvi.  39. — "And  he  went  a  little 
further,  and  fell  on  his  face,  and  prayed, 
saying,  O  my  Father,  if  it  be  possible, 
let  this  cup  pass  from  me ;  nevertheless, 
not  as  I  will,  but  as  thou  wilt " 644 


SERMON   IV. 

Preached  January  25, 1852. 

PERVERSION,    AS    SHOWN    IN    BA- 
LAAM'S CHARACTER 

NUMB.  xxii.  34,  35.  — "And  Balaam  said 
nuto  the  angel  of  the  Lord,  I  have 
sinned ;  for  I  knew  not  that  thou  stood- 
est  in  the  way  against  me :  now  there- 
fore, if  it  displease  thee,  I  will  get  me 
back  again.  And  the  angel  of  the  Lord 
said  unto  Balaam,  Go  with  the  men : 
but  only  the  word  that  I  shall  speak 
nnto  thee,  that  thou  shalt  speak.  So 
Balaam  went  with  the  princes  of  Ba- 
lak" 651 


SERMON    V. 

Preached  February  1,1852. 

SELFISHNESS,    AS    SHOWN    IN    BA- 
LAAM'S CHARACTER. 

NUMB,  xxiii.  10.  —  "Who  can  count  the 
dust  of  Jacob,  and  the  number  of  the 
fourth  part  of  Israel  ?  Let  me  die  the 
death  of  the  righteous,  and  let  my  last 
end  be  like  his !" 657 


SERMON   VI. 

Preached  December  28, 1851. 

THE  TRANSITORINESS  OF  LIFE. 

PBALM  xc.  12.  —  "So  teach  us  to  number 
onr  days,  that  we  may  apply  our  hearts 
unto  wisdom  " 663 


SERMON   VII. 

Prenched  July  7, 1850. 

VIEWS  OF  DEATH. 

ECCT.KS.  ii.  15,  16.— "Then  said  I  in  my 
heart,  As  it  happeneth  to  the  fool,  so  it 


happeneth  even  to  me ;  and  why  was  1 
then  more  wise?  Then  I  said  in  my 
heart,  that  this  also  is  vanity.  For  there 
is  no  remembrance  of  the  wise  more 
than  of  the  fool  forever;  seeing  that 
which  now  is  in  the  days  to  come  shall 
all  be  forgotten.  Aud  how  dieth  the 
wise  man  ?  as  the  fool " Page  670 


SERMON  VIII. 
Preached  December  12, 1859. 

WAITING    FOR    THE    SECOND    AD~ 
VENT. 

2  THESS.  iii.  5.— "And  the  Lord  direct  your 
hearts  into  the  love  of  God,  and  into  the 
patient  waiting  for  Christ " 674 


SERMON   IX. 

Preached  November  IS,  1849. 
THE  SINLESSNESS  OF  CHRIST. 

1  JOHN  iii.  4,  5. — "  Whosoever  committeth 
sin  transgresseth  also  the  law:  for  sin 
is  the  transgression  of  the  law.  And  ye 
know  that  he  was  manifested  to  take 
away  our  sins;  and  in  him  is  no 
sin" 680 


SER3ION   X. 

Preached  November  9, 1851. 

CHRIST'S  WAY  OF  DEALING  WITH 
SIN. 

MARK  ii.  8-11. — "And  immediately,  when 
Jesus  perceived  in  his  spirit  that  they 
so  reasoned  within  themselves,  he  said 
unto  them,  Why  reason  ye  these  things 
in  your  hearts'?  Whether  is  it  easier 
to  say  to  the  sick  of  the  palsy,  Thy  sins 
be  forgiven  thee ;  or  to  say/Arise,  and 
take  up  thy  bed,  and  walk?  But  that 
ye  may  knoAV  that  the  Son  of  man  hath 
power  on  earth  to  forgive  sins,  (he  saith 
to  the  sick  of  the  palsy,)  I  say  unto  thee, 
Arise,  and  take  up  thy  bed,  and  go  thy 
way  into  thine  house" " 690 


SERMON    XI. 

Preached  June  6,  1852. 

REGENERATION. 

JOHN  iii.  5-7.  —  "Jesus  answered,  Verily, 
verily,  I  say  unto  thee,  Except  a  man  be 
born  of  water  and  of  the  Spirit,  he  can 
not  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God. 
That  which  is  born  of  the  flesh  is  flesh; 
and  that,  which  is  born  of  the  Spirit  is 
spirit.  Marvel  not  that  I  said  nnto  thee, 
Ye  must  be  born  again  " .  .  69' 


Contents. 


XIX 


SERMON   XII. 

Preached  July  4, 1858. 

AN  ELECTION  SERMON. 

ACTS  i.  23-26.— "And  they  appointed  two, 
Joseph  called  Barsabas,  who  was  sur- 
named  Justus,  and  Matthias.  And  they 
prayed,  and  said,  Thou,  Lord,  which 
knowest  the  hearts  of  all  men,  shew 
whether  of  these  two  thou  hast  chosen, 
that  he  may  take  part  of  this  ministry 
and  apostleship,  from  which  Judas  by 
transgression  fell,  that  he  might  go  to 
his  own  place.  And  they  gave  forth 
their  lots;  and  the  lot  fell  upon  Mat- 
thias; and  be  was  numbered  with  the 
eleven  apostles  " Page  704 


SERMON    XIII. 

Preached  November  24, 1850. 

ISAAC  BLESSING  HIS  SONS. 

GEN.  xxvii.  1-4.  — "And  it  came  to  pass, 
that  when  Isaac  was  old,  and  his  eyes 
were  dim,  so  that  he  could  not  see,  he 
called  Esau  his  eldest  son,  and  said 
unto  him,  My  son:  and  he  said  unto 
him,  Behold,  here  am  I.  And  he  said, 
Behold  now,  I  am  old,  I  know  not  the 
day  of  my  death :  Now  therefore  take, 
I  pray  thee,  thy  weapons,  thy  quiver 
and  thy  bow,  and  go  out  to  the  field, 
and  take  me  some  venison  ;  and  make 
me  savory  meat,  such  as  I  love,  and  bring 
it  to  me,  that  I  may  eat ;  that  my  soul 
may  bless  thee  before  I  die  " 710 


SERMON  XIV. 

Preached  April,  1849. 

SALVATION  OUT  OF  THE  VISIBLE 
CHURCH. 

ACTS  ix.  36. — "Now  there  was  at  Joppa  a 
certain  disciple  named  Tabitha,  which 
by  interpretation  is  called  Dorcas:  this 
woman  was  full  of  good  works  and 
almsdeeds  which  she  did,"  etc. 

ACTS  x.  1.— "There  was  a  certain  man  in 
Caesarea  called  Cornelius,  a  centurion  of 
the  band  called  the  Italian  band," 
etc. 716 


SERMON   XV. 

Preached  1849. 

THE  WORD  AND  THE  WORLD. 

AOTB  xix.  1, 2.— "And  it  came  to  pass,  that 
while  Apollos  was  at  Corinth,  Paul  hav- 
ing passed  through  the  upper  coasts 
came  to  Ephesus;  and  finding  certain 
disciples,  he  said  unto  them,  Have  ye 
received  the  Holy  Ghost  since  ye  be- 
lieved? And  they  said  unto  him,  We 
have  not  so  much  as  heard  whether 
there  be  any  Holy  Ghost,"  etc 724 


SERMON  XVI. 

Preached  June  24, 184ft 

SOLOMON'S  RESTORATION. 

NEH.  xiii.  26.— "  Did  not  Solomon  king  of 
Israel  sin  by  these  things?  yet  among 
many  nations  was  there  no  king  like  him, 
who  was  beloved  of  his  God  ".  .Page  735 


SERMON  XVII. 

Preached  June  1,1851. 

JOSEPH'S  FORGIVENESS  OF  HIS 
BRETHREN. 

GEN.  1. 15-21.— "And  when  Joseph's  breth- 
ren saw  that  their  father  was  dead,  they 
said,  Joseph  will  peradventure  hate  us, 
and  will  certainly  requite  us  all  the  evil 
which  we  did  unto  him.  And  they  sent 
a  messenger  unto  Joseph,  saying,  Thy 
father  did  command  before  he  died,  say- 
ing, So  shall  ye  say  unto  Joseph,  For- 
!,  I  pray  thee  now,  the  trespass  of 
brethren,  and  their  sin ;  for  they 


give,  I  pray  thee  now,  the  trespass  of 
thy  brethren,  and  their  sin ;  for  they 
did  unto  thee  evil :  and  now,  we  pray 
thee,  forgive  the  trespass  of  the  serv- 
ants of  the  God  of  thy  father.  And  Jo- 
seph wept  when  they  spake  unto  him. 
And  his  brethren  also  went  and  fell 
clown  before  his  face;  and  they  said, 
Behold,  we  be  thy  servants.  And  Jo- 
seph said  unto  them,  Fear  not:  for  am 
I  in  the  place  of  God  ?  But  as  for  you, 
ye  thought  evil  against  me;  but  God 
meant  it  unto  good,  to  bring  to  pass,  as 
it  is  this  day,  to  save  much  people  alive. 
Now  therefore  fear  ye  not:  I  will  nour- 
ish you,  and  your  little  ones.  And  he 
comforted  them,  and  spake  kindly  unto 
them" 745 


SERMON    XVIII. 

Pleached  November  16,  1849. 

A  THANKSGIVING   DAY  AFTER 
CHOLERA. 

JOHN  v.  14, 15.— "Afterward  Jesus  findeth 
him  in  the  temple,  and  said  unto  him, 
Behold,  thou  art  made  whole:  sin  no 
more,  lest  a  worse  thing  come  unto  thee. 
The  man  departed,  and  told  the  Jews 
that  it  was  Jesus,  which  had  made  him 
whole" 752 


SERMON   XIX. 

Preached  August  8, 185!. 

CHRISTIAN  FRIENDSHIP. 

MAL.  iii.  16.— "Then  they  that  feared  the 
Lord  spake  often  one  to  another:  and 
the  Lord  hearkened,  and  heard  it,  and 
a  boi-k  of  remembrance  was  written  be- 
fore him  for  them  that  feared  the  Lord, 
and  that  thought  upon  his  name  "  ,  76J 


XX 


Contents. 


SERMON    XX. 

Preached  February  2,  1851. 

RECONCILIATION  BY  CHRIST. 

COI.OSB.  i.  21. — "And  yon,  that  were  some- 
time alienated  and  enemies  in  your  mind 
by  wicked  works,  yet  now  hath  he  rec- 
onciled " Page  766 


SERMON  XXI. 

Preaehed  March  13,  1853. 

THE  PRE-EMINENCE  OF  CHARITY. 

1  PETER  iv.  8.  —  "And  above  all  things 
have  fervent  charity  among  yourselves: 
for  charity  shall  cover  the  multitude  of 
sins" 776 


SERMON   XXII. 
Preaehed  January  8, 1849. 

THE  UNJUST  STEWARD. 

LUKE  xvi.  8, 9. — "And  the  lord  commend- 
ed the  unjust  steward  because  he  had 
done  wisely:  for  the  children  of  this 
world  are  iii  their  generation  wiser  than 
the  children  of  light.  And  I  say  unto 
you,  Make  to  yourselves  friends  of  the 
mammon  of  unrighteousness ;  that, 
when  ye  fail,  they  may  receive  you  into 
everlasting  habitations  " 787 


SERMON    XXIII. 

Preached  February  16, 1851. 

THE  ORPHANAGE  OF  MOSES. 

A  SERMON  PREACHED  ON  BEHALF  OF  THE  | 
ORPHAN  SOCIETY. 

Exoi>.  ii.  6-9.— "And  when  she  had  opened  | 
it,  she  saw  the  child :  and,  behold,  the ! 
babe  wept.  And  she  had  compassion 
on  him,  and  said,  This  is  one  of  the 
Hebrews'  children.  Then  said  his  sis- 
ter to  Pharaoh's  daughter,  Shall  I  go 
and  call  to  thee  a  nurse  of  the  Hebrew  | 
women,  that  she  may  nurse  the  child 
for  thee  ?  And  Pharaoh's  daughter  said  I 
to  her,  Go.  And  the  maid  went  and  | 
called  the  child's  mother.  And  Pha- 
raoh's daughter  said  unto  her,  Take 
this -child  away,  and  nurse  it  for  me, 
and  I  will  give  thee  thy  wages.  And  i 
the  woman  took  the  child,  and  nursed 
t>:  794 


SERMON    XXIV. 
Preached  December,  1347. 

CHRISTIANITY  AND  HINDOOISM. 

AN   ADVENT   LEOfCRE. 

DEUT.  vi.  4, 5.—"  Hear,  O  Israel :  The  Lord 
our  God  is  one  Lord :  And  thou  shalt 


love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thine 
heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul,  and  with 
all  thy  might" Page  SOI 


SERMON    XXV. 

Preached  January  13,1850. 
REST. 

MATT.  xi.  28,  29.— "  Come  unto  me,  nil  y« 
that  labor  and  are  heavy  laden,  and  I 
will  give  you  rest.  Take  my  yoke  upon 
you,  and' learn  of  me;  for  I  am  meek 
and  lowly  in  heart:  and  ye  shall  find 
rest  unto  your  souls  " 806 


SERMON    XXVI. 
THE  HUMANE  SOCIETY. 

A    SERMON    PREACHED    ON    ITS   1JEHALF. 

MARK  v.  35-43.  —  "  While  he  yet  epake, 
there  came  from  the  ruler  of  the  syna- 
gogue's house  certain  which  said,  Thy 
daughter  is  dead;  why  troublest  thou 
the  "Master  any  further  ?  As  soon  as 
Jesus  heard  the  word  that  was  spoken, 
he  saith  unto  the  ruler  of  the  syna- 
gogue, Be  not  afraid,  only  believe.  And 
he  suffered  no  man  to  follow  him,  save 
Peter,  and  James,  and  John  the  brother 
of  James.  And  he  cometh  to  the  house 
of  the  ruler  of  the  synagogue,  and  seeth 
the  tumult,  and  them  that  wept  and 
wailed  greatly.  And  when  he  was  come 
in,  he  saith  unto  them,  Why  make  ye 
this  ado,  and  weep?  the  damsel  is  not 
dead,  but  sleepeth.  And  they  laughed 
him  to  scorn.  But  when  he  had  put 
them  all  out,  he  taketh  the  father  and 
mother  of  the  damsel,  and  them  that 
were  with  him,  and  entereth  in  where 
the  damsel  was  lying.  And  he  took  the 
damsel  by  the  baud,  and  said  unto  her, 
Talitha  cumi ;  which  is,  being  inter- 
preted, Damsel,  (I  say  unto  thee,)  arise. 
And  straightway  the  damsel  arose,  and 
walked ;  for  she  was  of  the  age  of  twelve 
years.  And  they  were  astonished  with 
a  great  astonishment.  And  he  charged 
them  straitly  that  no  man  should  know 
it;  and  commanded  that  something 
should  be  jriveu  her  to  eat " 813 


SERMON    XXVII. 

Preached  December  1, 1850. 

THREE  TIMES  IN  A  NATION'S  HIS- 
TORY. 

LUKE  xix.  41^4. — "And  when  he  was  coma 
near,  he  beheld  the  city,  and  wept  over 
it,  saying,  If  thon  hadst  known,  even 
thou,  at  least  in  this  thy  day,  the  things 
which  belong  unto  thy  peace!  but  now 
they  are  hid  from  thine  eyes.  For  the 
days  shall  come  upon  thee,  that  thine 
enemies  shall  cast  a  trench  about  thee. 
and  compass  thee  round,  and  keep  thee 
in  on  every  side,  and  shall  lay  thee  even 


Contents. 


xxi 


with  the  ground,  and  thy  children  within 
thce;  and  they  shall  not  leave  in  thee 
one  stone  upon  another;  because  thon 
tmetreet  not  the  time  of  thy  visita- 
tion"  Page  81S 


SERMON    XXVIII. 

Preached  December  8, 1850. 

INSPIRATION. 

ROM.  xv.  1-4.—"  We  then  that  are  strong 
ought  to  bear  the  infirmities  of  the 
weak,  and  not  to  please  ourselves.  Let 
every  one  of  us  please  his  neighbor  for 
his  good  to  edification.  For  even  Christ 
pleased  not  himself;  but,  as  it  is  writ- 


ten,  The  reproaches  of  them  that  re 
proached  thee  fell  on  me.  For  whatso- 
ever things  were  written  aforetime  were 
written  for  our  learning,  that  we  through 
patience  and  comfort  of  the  Scriptures 
might  have  hope  " Page  825 


SERMON    XXIX. 

Preached  Good  Friday.  1851 

THE  LAST  UTTERANCES  OF  CHRIST 

JOHN  xix.  30.  —  "When  Jesus  therefore 
had  .received  the  vinegar,  he  said,  It  is 
finished :  and  he  bowed  his  head,  and 
gave  up  the  ghost" §32 


SERMONS 


Jir0t  Series. 


GOD'S  REVELATION  OF  HEAVEN. 

*•  Eye  hath  not  seen,  nor  ear  heard,  neither  have  entered  into  the  heart  oi 
man,  the  things  which  God  hath  prepared  for  them  that  love  him.  But  God 
hath  revealed  them  unto  us  by  his  Spirit." — 1  Cor.  ii.  9,  10. 

THE  preaching  of  the  Apostle  Paul  was  rejected  by  num- 
bers in  the  cultivated  town  of  Corinth.  It  was  not  wise 
enough,  nor  eloquent  enough  : — nor  was  it  sustained  by  mir- 
acles. The  man  of  taste  found  it  barbarous  :  the  Jew  miss- 
ed the  signs  and  wonders  which  he  looked  for  in  a  new  dis- 
pensation :  and  the  rhetorician  missed  the  convincing  argu- 
ments of  the  schools.  To  all  which  the  Apostle  was  content 
to  reply,  that  his  judges  were  incompetent  to  try  the  ques- 
tion. The  princes  of  this  world  might  judge  in  a  matter  of 
politics  :  the  leaders  in  the  world  of  literature  were  qualified 
to  pronounce  on  a  point  of  taste :  the  counsellors  of  this 
world  to  weigh  an  amount  of  evidence.  But  in  matterp 
spiritual,  they  were  as  unfit  to  judge,  as  a  man  without  ea 
is  to  decide  respecting  harmony  ;  or  a  man  judging  alone  bj 
sensation,  to  supersede  the  higher  truth  of  science  by  an  ap- 
peal to  his  own  estimate  of  appearances.  The  world,  to 
sense,  seems  stationary.  To  the  eye  of  reason  it  moves 
with  lightning  speed,  and  the  cultivation  of  reason  alone  can 
qualify  for  an  opinion  on  the  matter.  The  judgment  of  the 
senses  is  worth  nothing  in  such  matters.  For  every  kind  ot 
truth  a  special  capacity  or  preparation  is  indispensable. 

For  a  revelation  of  spiritual  facts  two  things  are  needed : 
— First,  a  Divine  Truth  ;  next,  a  spirit  which  can  receive  it. 

Therefore  the  Apostle's  whole  defense  resolved  itself  into 
this :  The  natural  man  receiveth  not  the  things  which  are  of 


24  God^s  Revelation  of  Heaven. 

the  Spirit  of  God.  The  world  by  wisdom  knew  not  God, 
And  his  vindication  of  his  teaching  was :  These  Revealed 
Truths  can  not  be  seen  by  the  eye,  heard  by  the  ear,  nor 
guessed  by  the  heart ;  they  are  visible,  audible,  imaginable, 
only  to  the  spirit.  By  the  spiritually  prepared,  they  are 
recognized  as  beautiful,  though  they  be  folly  to  all  the  world 
besides,  as  his  Master  had  said  before  him,  "  Wisdom  is  justi- 
fied by  her  children."  In  whatever  type  of  life  fche  might  be 
exhibited,  whether  in  the  austere  Man  of  the  Desert,  or  in 
the  higher  type  of  the  social  life  of  Christ,  the  Children  of 
Wisdom  recognized  her  lineaments,  justified  and  loved  her — 
She  was  felt  by  them. 

Two  things  are  contained  in  this  verse : — 

I.  The  inability  ot  the  lower  parts  of  human  nature — the 
natural  man — to  apprehend  the  higher  truths. 

II.  The  nature  and  laws  of  Revelation. 

I.  By  the  natural  man  is  meant  the  lower  faculties  ot  man ; 
and  it  is  said  of  these  that  they  can  not  discover  spiritual 
truth. 

1.  Eternal  truth  is  not  perceived  through  sensation.  "  Eye 
hath  not  seen  the  things  which  God  hath  prepared  for  them 
that  love  Him." 

There  is  a  life  of  mere  sensation.  The  degree  of  its  enjoy- 
ment depends  upon  fineness  of  organization.  The  pleasures 
of  sense  arise  from  the  vibration  of  a  nerve,  or  the  thrilling 
of  a  muscle — nothing  higher. 

The  highest  pleasure  of  sensation  comes  through  the  eye. 
She  ranks  above  all  the  rest  of  the  senses  in  dignity.  He 
whose  eye  is  so  refined  by  discipline  that  he  can  repose  with 
pleasure  upon  the  serene  outline  of  beautiful  form,  has  reach- 
ed the  purest  of  the  sensational  raptures. 

Xow,  the  Corinthians  could  appreciate  this.  Theirs  was 
the  land  of  beauty.  They  read  the  Apostle's  letter,  sur- 
rounded by  the  purest  conceptions  of  Art.  In  the  orders  of 
architecture,  the  most  richly  graceful  of  all  columnar  forms 
receives  its  name  from  Corinth.  And  yet  it  was  to  these 
men,  living  in  the  very  midst  of  the  chastely  beautiful,  upon 
whom  the  Apostle  emphatically  urged — "Eye  hath  not  seen 
the  things  which  God  hath  prepared  for  them  that  love 
Him." 

Let  us  not  depreciate  what  God  has  given.  There  is  s 
rapture  in  gazing  on  this  wondrous  world.  There  is  a  joy 
in  contemplating  the  manifold  forms  in  which  the  All  Beau- 
ful  has  concealed  His  essence — the  Living  Garment  in  which 
the  Invisible  has  robed  His  mysterious  loveliness.  In  every 


God^s  Revelation  of  Heaven.  .25 

aspect  of  Nature  there  is  joy ;  whether  it  be  the  purity  of 
virgin  morning,  or  the  sombre  gray  of  a  day  of  clouds,  or  the 
solemn  pomp  and  majesty  of  night ;  whether  it  be  the  chaste 
lines  of  the  crystal,  or  the  waving  outline  of  distant  hills, 
tremulously  visible  through  dim  vapors  ;  the  minute  petals 
of  the  fringed  daisy,  or  the  overhanging  form  of  mysterious 
forests.  It  is  a  pure  delight  to  see. 

But  all  this  is  bounded.  The  eye  can  only  reach  the  finite 
Beautiful.  It  does  not  scan  "  the  King  in  his  beauty,  nor 
the  land  that  is  very  far  off."  The  Kingdom,  but  not  the 
King — something  measured  by  inches,  yards,  and  miles — not 
the  land  which  is  very  far  off  in  the  Infinite. 

Again,  it  is  perishable  beauty — a  sight  to  sadden  rather 
than  delight.  Even  while  you  gaze,  and  feel  how  fair  it  is, 
joy  mingles  with  melancholy,  from  a  consciousness  that  it 
all  is  fading : — it  is  the  transient — not  the  Eternal  Loveliness 
for  which  our  spirits  pant. 

Therefore,  when  He  came  into  this  world,  who  was  the 
Truth  and  the  Life,  in  the  body  which  God  had  prepared  for 
Him,  He  came  not  in  the  glory  of  form  :  He  was  "  a  root  out 
of  a  dry  ground :  He  had  no  form  nor  comeliness ;"  when 
they  saw  Him,  "  there  was  no  beauty  that  they  should  desire 
Him."  The  eye  did  not  behold,  even  in  Christ,  the  things 
which  God  had  prepared. 

Now  observe,  this  is  an  Eternal  Truth  ;  true  at  all  times — 
true  now  and  forever.  In  the  quotation  of  this  verse,  a  false 
impression  is  often  evident.  It  is  quoted  as  if  the  Apostle 
by  "  the  things  prepared  "  meant  heaven,  and  the  glories  of 
a  world  which  is  to  be  visible  hereafter,  but  is  at  present  un- 
seen. This  is  manifestly  alien  from  his  purpose.  The  world 
of  which  he  speaks  is  not  a  future,  but  a  present  revelation. 
God  hath  revealed  it.  He  speaks  not  of  something  to  be 
manifested  hereafter,  but  of  something  already  shown,  only 
not  to  eye  nor  ear.  The  distinction  lies  between  a  kingdom 
which  is  appreciable  by  the  senses,  and  another  whose  facts 
and  truths  are  seen  and  heard  only  by  the  spirit.  Never  yet 
hath  the  eye  seen  the  Truths  of  God — but  then  never  shall 
it  see  them.  In  heaven  this  shall  be  as  true  as  now.  Shape 
and  color  give  them  not.  God  will  never  be  visible — nor 
will  His  blessedness.  He  has  no  form.  The  pure  in  heart 
will  see  Him, but  never  with  the  eye;  only  in  the  same  way, 
but  in  a  different  degree,  that  they  see  Him  now.  In  the  an- 
ticipated vision  of  the  Eternal,  what  do  you  expect  to  see  ? 
A  shape  ?  Hues  ?  You  will  never  behold  God.  Eye  hath 
not  seen,  and  never  shall  see  in  finite  form,  the  Infinite  One, 
nor  the  Infinite  of  feeling  or  of  Truth. 

2 


26  God's  Revelation  of  Heaven. 

Again — no  scientific  analysis  can  discover  the  truths  of 
God.  Science  can  not  give  a  Revelation.  Science  proceeds 
upon  observation.  It  submits  every  thing  to  the  experience 
of  the  senses.  Its  law,  expounded  by  its  great  lawgiver,  is, 
that  if  you  would  ascertain  its  truth  you  must  see,  feel,  taste. 
Experiment  is  the  test  of  truth.  Now,  you  can  not,  by 
searching,  find  out  the  Almighty  to  perfection,  nor  a  single 
one  of  the  blessed  Truths  He  has  to  communicate. 

Men  have  tried  to  demonstrate  Eternal  Life  from  an  ex 
ainination  of  the  structure  of  the  body.  One  fancies  he  has 
discovered  the  seat  of  life  in  the  pineal  gland — another  Jn 
the  convolution  of  a  nerve — and  thence  each  infers  the  con 
tinuance  of  the  mystic  principle  supposed  to  be  discovered 
there.  But  a  third  comes,  and  sees  in  it  all  nothing  really 
immaterial:  organization,  cerebration,  but  not  Thought  or 
Mind  separable  from  these ;  nothing  that  must  necessarily 
subsist  after  the  organism  has  been  destroyed. 

Men  have  supposed  they  discovered  the  law  of  Deity  writ- 
ten on  the  anatomical  phenomena  of  disease.  They  have  ex- 
hibited the  brain  inflamed  by  intoxication,  and  the  structure 
obliterated  by  excess.  They  have  shown  in  the  disordered 
frame  the  inevitable  penalty  of  transgression.  But  if  a  man, 
startled  by  all  this,  gives  up  this  sin,  has  he  from  this  selfish 
prudence  learned  the  law  of  Duty  ?  The  penalties  of 
wrong-doing,  doubtless :  but  not  the  sanction  of  Right  and 
Wrong  written  on  the  conscience,  of  which  penalties  are  only 
the  enforcements.  He  has  indisputable  evidence  that  it  is 
expedient  not  to  commit  excesses ;  but  you  can  not  manu- 
facture a  conscience  out  of  expediency :  the  voice  of  con- 
science says  not,  It  is  better  not  do  so,  but  "  Thou  shall 
not." 

No :  it  is  in  vain  that  we  ransack  the  world  for  probable 
evidences  of  God  and  hypotheses  of  his  existence.  It  is  idle 
to  look  into  the  materialism  of  man  for  the  Revelation  of  his 
immortality  ;  or  to  examine  the  morbid  anatomy  of  the  body 
to  find  the  rule  of  Right.  If  a  man  go  to  the  eternal  worlcl 
with  convictions  of  Eternity,  the  Resurrection,  God,  already 
in  his  spirit,  he  will  find  abundant  corroborations  of  that 
which  he  already  believes.  But  if  God's  existence  be  not- 
thrilling  every  fibre  of  his  heart,  if  the  Immortal  be  not  al- 
ready in  him  as  the  proof  of  the  Resurrection,  if  the  law  of 
Duty  be  not  stamped  upon  his  soul  as  an  Eternal  Truth,  un- 
questionable, a  Jhing  that  must  be  obeyed,  quite  separately 
from  all  considerations  of  punishment  or  impunity,  science 
will  never  reveal  these — observation  pries  in  vain — the  phy- 
sician comes  away  from  the  laboratory  an  infidel.  Eye  hath 


God"  s  Revelation  of  Heaven.  27 

not  seen  the  truths  which  are  clear  enough  to  Love  and  to 
the  Spirit. 

2.  Eternal  truth  is  not  reached  by  hearsay — "Ear  hath 
not  heard  the  things  which  God  hath  prepared  for  them  that 
love  Him." 

No  revelation  can  be  adequately  given  by  the  address  of 
man  to  man,  whether  by  writing  or  orally,  even  if  he  be  put 
in  possession  of  the  Truth"  itself.  For  all  such  revelation 
must  be  made  through  words :  and  words  are  but  counters 
— the  coins  of  intellectual  exchange.  There  is  as  little  re- 
semblance between  the  silver  coin  and  the  bread  it  pur- 
chases, as  between  the  word  and  the  thing  it  stands  for. 
Looking  at  the  coin,  the  form  of  the  loaf  does  not  suggest 
itself.  Listening  to  the  word,  you  do  not  perceive  the  idea 
for  which  it  stands,  unless  you  are  already  in  possession  of 
it.  Speak  of  ice  to  an  inhabitant  of  the  torrid  zone,  the 
word  does  not  give  him  an  idea,  or  if  it  does,  it  must  be  a 
false  one.  Talk  of  blueness  to  one  who  can  not  distinguish 
colors,  what  can  your  most  eloquent  description  present  to 
him  resembling  the  truth  of  your  sensation  ?  Similarly  in 
matters  spiritual,  no  verbal  revelation  can  give  a  single  sim- 
ple idea.  For  instance,  what  means  justice  to  the  unjust — • 
or  purity  to  the  man  whose  heart  is  steeped  in  licentious- 
ness ?  What  does  infinitude  mean  to  a  being  who  has  never 
stirred  from  infancy  beyond  a  cell,  never  seen  the  sky,  or  the 
sea,  or  any  of  those  occasions  of  thought  which,  leaving 
vagueness  on  the  mind,  suggest  the  idea  of  the  illimitable  ? 
It  means,  explain  it  as  you  will,  nothing  to  him  but  a  room : 
vastly  larger  than  his  own,  but  still  a  room,  terminated  by  a 
wall.  Talk  of  God  to  a  thousand  ears,  each  has  his  own  dif- 
ferent conception.  Each  man  in  this  congregation  has  a 
God  before  him  at  this  moment,  who  is,  according  to  his 
own  attainment  in  goodness,  more  or  less  limited  and  im- 
perfect. The  sensual  man  hears  of  God,  and  understands 
one  thing.  The  pure  man  hears,  and  conceives  another 
thing.  Whether  you  speak  in  metaphysical  or  metaphorical 
language,  in  the  purest  words  of  inspiration,  or  the  grossest 
images  of  materialism,  the  conceptions  conveyed  by  the  same 
word  are  essentially  different,  according  to  the  soul  which 
receives  them. 

So  that  apostles  themselves,  and  prophets,  speaking  to  the 
ear,  can  not  reveal  truth  to  the  soul — no,  not  if  God  Himself 
were  to  touch  their  lips  with  fire.  A  verbal  revelation  19 
only  a  revelation  to  the  ear. 

Now  see  what  a  hearsay  religion  is.  There  are  men  who 
believe  on  authority.  Their  minister  believes  all  this  Chris- 


2  8  God  V  Revelation  of  Heaven. 

tianity  true  :  therefore  so  do  they.  He  calls  this  doctrine  es- 
sential :  they  echo  it.  Some  thousands  of  years  ago,  men 
communed  with  God  :  they  have  heard  this  and  are  content 
it  should  be  so.  They  have  heard  with  the  hearing  of  the 
ear,  that  God  is  love — that  the  ways  of  holiness  are  ways 
of  pleasantness,  and  all  her  paths  peace.  But  a  hearsay  be- 
lief saves  not.  The  Corinthian  philosophers  heard  Paul,  the 
Pharisees  heard  Christ.  How  much  did  the  ear  convey  ? 
To  thousands  exactly  nothing.  He  alone  believes  truth  who 
feels  it.  He  alone  has  a  religion  whose  soul  knows  by  expe- 
rience that  to  serve  God  and  know  Him  is  the  richest  treas- 
ure. And  unless  Truth  come  to  you,  not  in  word  only,  but 
in  power  besides — authoritative  because  true,  not  true  because 
authoritative — there  has  been  no  real  revelation  made  to  you 
from  God. 

3.  Truth  is  not  discoverable  by  the  heart — "  neither  have 
entered  into  the  heart  of  man  the  things  which  God  hath 
prepared  for  them  that  love  Him." 

The  heart — two  things  we  refer  to  this  source  :  the  power 
of  imagining,  and  the  power  of  loving. 

Imagination  is  distinct  from  the  mere  dry  faculty  of  rea- 
soning. Imagination  is  creative — it  is  an  immediate  intui- 
tion ;  not  a  logical  analysis — we  call  it  popularly  a  kind  of 
inspiration.  Now  imagination  is  a  power  of  the  heart. 
Great  thoughts  originate  from  a  large  heart :  a  man  must 
have  a  heart,  or  he  never  could  create. 

It  is  a  grand  thing,  when  in  the  stillness  of  the  soul, 
thought  bursts  into  flame,  and  the  intuitive  vision  comes  like 
an  inspiration  ;  when  breathing  thoughts  clothe  themselves 
in  burning  words,  winged  as  it  were  with  lightning ;  or  when 
a  great  law  of  the  universe  reveals  itself  to  the  mind  of 
Genius,  and  where  all  was  darkness,  his  single  word  bids 
Light  be,  and  all  is  order  where  chaos  and  confusion  were  be- 
fore. Or  when  the  truths  of  human  nature  shape  themselves 
forth  in  the  creative  fancies  of  one  like  the  myriad-minded 
poet,  and  you  recognize  the  rare  power  of  heart  which  sym- 
pathizes with,  and  can  reproduce  all  that  is  found  in  man. 

But  all  this  is  nothing  more  than  what  the  material  man 
can  achieve.  The  most  ethereal  creations  of  fantastic  fancy 
were  shaped  by  a  mind  that  could  read  the  life  of  Christ, 
and  then  blaspheme  the  Adorable.  The  truest  utterances, 
and  some  of  the  deepest  ever  spoken,  revealing  the  unrest 
and  the  agony  that  lie  hid  in  the  heart  of  man,  came  from 
one  whose  life  was  from  first  to  last  selfish.  The  highest 
astronomer  of  this  age,  before  whose  clear  eye  Creation  lay 
revealed  in  all  its  perfect  order,  was  one  whose  spirit  refused 


God's  Revelation  of  Heaven.  29 

to  recognize  the  Cause  of  causes.  The  mighty  heart  of 
Genius  had  failed  to  reach  the  things  which  God  imparts  to 
a  humble  spirit. 

There  is  more  in  the  heart  of  man — it  has  the  power  of 
affection.  The  highest  moment  known  on  earth  by  the 
merely  natural,  is  that  in  which  tha  mysterious  union  of 
heart  with  heart  is  felt.  Call  it  friendship  —love— what  you 
will,  that  mystic  blending  of  two  souls  in  one.  when  self  is 
lost  and  found  again  in  the  being  of  another,  when,  as  it 
were,  moving  about  in  the  darkness  and  loneliness  of  exist- 
ence, we  suddenly  come  in  contact  with  something,  and  we 
find  that  spirit  has  touched  spirit.  This  is  the  purest, 
serenest  ecstasy  of  the  merely  human — more  blessed  than 
any  sight  that  can  be  presented  to  the  eye,  or  any  sound 
that  can  be  given  to  the  ear:  more  sublime  than  the  sub- 
limest  dream  ever  conceived  by  genius  in  its  most  gifted 
hour,  when  the  freest  way  was  given  to  the  shaping  spirit  of 
imagination. 

This  has  entered  into  the  heart  of  man,  yet  this  is  of  the 
lower  still.  It  attains  not  to  the  things  prepared  by  God, 
it  dimly  shadows  them.  Human  love  is  but  the  faint  type 
of  that  surpassing  blessedness  which  belongs  to  those  who 
love  God. 

II.  We  pass,  therefore,  to  the  nature  and  laws  of  Revela- 
tion. 

First,  Revelation  is  made  by  a  Spirit  to  a  spirit — "  God 
hath  revealed  them  to  us  by  His  Spirit."  Christ  is  the  voice 
of  God  without  the  man — the  Spirit  is  the  voice  of  God  with- 
in the  man.  The  highest  revelation  is  not  made  by  Christ, 
but  comes  directly  from  the  universal  Mind  to  our  minds. 
Therefore,  Christ  said  Himself,  "  He,  the  Spirit,  shall  take  of 
mine  and  shall  show  it  unto  you."  And  therefore  it  is  writ 
ten  here — "The  Spirit  searches  all  things,  yea,  the  deep 
things  of  God." 

Now  the  Spirit  of  God  lies  touching,  as  it  were,  the  soul 
of  man — ever  around  and  n'ear.  On  the  outside  of  earth 
man  stands  with  the  boundless  heaven  above  him :  nothing 
'between  him  and  space — space  around  him  and  above  him 
— the  confines  of  the  sky  touching  him.  So  is  the  spirit  of 
man  to  the  Spirit  of  the  Ever  Near.  They  mingle.  In  every 
man  this  is  true.  The  spiritual  in  him,  by  which  he  might 
become  a  recipient  of  God,  may  be  dulled,  deadened  by  2 
life  of  sense,  but  in  this  world  never  lost.  All  men  are  not 
spiritual  men,  but  all  have  spiritual  sensibilities  which  might 
awake.  All  that  is  wanted  is  to  become  conscious  of  the 


30  God^s  Revelation  of  Heaven. 

nearness  of  God.     God  has  placed  men  here  to  feel  aftei 
Him  if  haply  they  may  find  Him,  albeit  He  be  not  far  from 
any  one  of  them.     Our  souls  float  in  the  immeasurable  ocean  v/ 
of  Spirit.     God  lies  around  us  :  at  any  moment  we  might  be 
conscious  of  the  contact. 

The  condition  upon  which  this  self-revelation  of  the  Spirit 
is  made  to  man  is  love.  These  things  are  "prepared  for 
them  that  love  Him,"  or,  which  is  the  same  thing,  revealed 
to  those  who  have  the  mind  of  Christ. 

Let  us  look  into  this  word  love.  Love  to  man  may  mean 
several  things.  It  may  mean  love  to  his  person,  which  is 
very  different  from  himself,  or  it  may  mean  simply  pity. 
Love  to  God  can  only  mean  one  thing:  God  is  a  Character. 
To  love  God  is  to  love  His  character.  For  instance — God 
is  Purity.  And  to  be  pure,  in  thought  and  look ;  to  turn 
away  from  unhallowed  books  and  conversation,  to  abhor  the 
moment  in  which  we  have  not  been  pure,  is  to  love  God. 

God  is  love — and  to  love  men  till  private  attachments 
have  expanded  into  a  philanthropy  which  embraces  all — at 
last  even  the  evil  and  enemies,  with  compassion — that  is  to 
love  God.  God  is  truth.  To  be  true,  to  hate  every  form 
of  falsehood,  to  live  a  brave,  true,  real  life,  that  is  to  love 
God.  God  is  Infinite ;  and  to  love  the  boundless,  reaching 
on  from  grace  to  grace,  adding  charity  to  faith,  and  rising 
upward  ever  to  see  the  Ideal  still  above  us,  and  to  die  with 
it  unattaiued,  aiming  insatiably  to  be  perfect  even  as  the 
Father  is  perfect,  that  is  love  to  God. 

This  love  is  manifested  in  obedience;  love  is  the  life  of 
which  obedience  is  the  form.  "  He  that  hath  my  command- 
ments and  keepeth  them,  he  it  is  that  loveth  me He 

that  loveth  me  not  keepeth  not  my  sayings."  Now  here 
can  be  no  mistake.  Nothing  can  be  love  to  God  which  does 
not  shape  itself  into  obedience.  We  remember  the  anecdote 
of  the  Roman  commander  who  forbade  an  engagement  with 
the  enemy,  and  the  first  transgressor  against  whose  prohibi- 
tion was  *his  own  son.  He  accepted  the  challenge  of  the 
leader  of  the  other  host,  met,  slew,  spoiled  him,  and  then  in  tri- 
umphant feeling  carried  the  spoils  to  his  father's  tent.  But 
the  Roman  father  refused  to  recognize  the  instinct  which 
prompted  this  as  deserving  of  the  name  of  love ;  disobedience 
contradicted  it,  and  deserved  death : — weak  sentiment,  what 
was  it  worth  ? 

So  with  God :  strong  feelings,  warm  expressions,  varied  in- 
ternal experience  co-existing  with  disobedience,  God  counts 
not  as  love.  Mere  weak  feeling  may  not  usurp  that  sacred 
name. 


God 's  Revelation  of 'Heaven.  31 

To  this  love,  adoring  and  obedient,  God -reveals  His  truth 
—for  such  as  love  it  is  prepared :  or  rather,  by  the  well- 
known  Hebrew  inversion,  such  are  prepared  for  it.  Love  is 
the  condition  without  which  revelation  does  not  take  place. 
As  in  the  natural,  so  in  the  spiritual  world :  By  compliance 
with  the  laws  of  the  universe,  we  put  ourselves  in  possession 
of  its  blessings.  Obey  the  laws  of  health,  and  you  obtain 
health :  temperance,  sufficiency  of  light  and  air,  and  exercise, 
these  are  the  conditions  of  health.  .Arm  yourselves  with  the 
laws  of  nature,  and  you  may  call  down  the  lightning  from  the 
sky:  surround  yourself  with  glass,  and  the  lightning  may 
play  innocuously  a  few  inches  from  you  ;  it  can  not  touch 
you ;  you  may  defy  it ;  you  have  obeyed  the  conditions  of 
nature,  and  nature  is  on  your  side  against  it. 

In  the  same  way,  there  are  conditions  in  the  world  of 
Spirit,  by  compliance  with  which  God's  Spirit  comes  into 
the  soul  with  all  its  revelations,  as  surely  as  lightning  from 
the  sky,  and  as  invariably : — such  conditions  as  these :  "  The 
secret  of  the  Lord  is  with  them  that  fear  Him."  "  No  man 
hath  seen  God  at  any  time."  "  If  we  love  one  another,  God 
dwelleth  in  us."  "  With  this  man  will  I  dwell,  even  with  him 
that  is  of  a  meek  and  contrite  spirit."  "  If  any  man  will  do 
His  will,  he  shall  know  of  the  doctrine  " — reverence,  love, 
meekness,  contrition,  obedience — these  conditions  having 
taken  place,  God  enters  into  the  soul,  whispers  His  secret,  be- 
comes visible,  imparts  knowledge  and  conviction. 

Now  these  laws  are  universal  and  invariable .  they  are 
subject  to  no  caprice.  There  is  no  favorite  child  of  nature 
who  may  hold  the  fire-ball  in  the  hollow  of  his  hand  and 
trifle  with  it  without  being  burnt ; — there  is  no  selected 
child  of  grace  who  can  live  an  irregular  life  without  unrest ; 
or  be  proud,  and  at  the  same  time  have  peace ;  or  indolent, 
and  receive  fresh  inspiration  ;  or  remain  unloving  and  cold, 
and  yet  see  and  hear  and  feel  the  things  which  God  hath 
prepared  for  them  that  love  Him. 

Therefore  the  apostle  preached  the  Cross  to  men  who  felt, 
and  to  men  who  felt  not,  the  Revelation  contained  in  it. 
The  Cross  is  humbleness,  love,  self-surrender — these  the 
apostle  preached.  To  conquer  the  world  by  loving  it — to 
be  blest  by  ceasing  the  pursuit  of  happiness,  and  sacrificing 
life  instead  of  finding  it — to  make  a  hard  lot  easy  by  submit- ^ 
ting  to  it :  this  was  his  divine  philosophy  of  life.  And  the 
princes  of  this  world,  amidst  scoffs  and  laughter,  replied,  Is 
that  all  ?  Nothing  to  dazzle — nothing  to  captivate.  But 
the  disciples  of  the  inward  life  recognized  the  Divine  Truth 
which  this  doctrine  of  the  Cross  contained  The  humble  of 


32  God's  Revelation  oj  Heaven. 

heart  and  the  loving  felt  that  in  this  lay  the  mystery  of  life, 
of  themselves,  and  of  God,  all  revealed  and  plain.  It  wau 
God's  own  wisdom,  felt  by  those  who  had  the  mind  of 
Christ. 

The  application  of  all  this  is  very  easy :  Love  God,  and 
He  will  dwell  with  you.  Obey  God,  and  He  will  reveal  the 
truths  of  His  deepest  teaching  to  your  soul.  Not  perhaps : 
— as  surely  as  the  laws  of  the  spiritual  world  are  irreversi- 
ble, are  these  things  prepared  for  obedient  love.  An  inspira- 
tion as  true,  as  real,  and  as  certain  as  that  which  ever  prophet 
or  apostle  reached,  is  yours,  if  you  will  have  it  so. 

And  if  obedience  were  entire  and  love  were  perfect,  then 
would  the  revelation  of  the  Spirit  to  the  soul  of  man  be  per- 
fect too.  There  would  be  trust  expelling  care,  and  enabling 
a  man  to  repose ;  there  would  be  a  love  which  would  cast 
out  fear;  there  would  be  a  sympathy  with  the  mighty  All 
of  God.  Selfishness  would  pass,  isolation  would  be  felt  no 
longer;  the  tide  of  the  universal  and  eternal  Life  would 
come  with  mighty  pulsations  throbbing  through  the  soul. 
To  such  a  man  it  would  not  matter  where  he  was,  nor  what : 
to  live  or  die  would  be  alike.  If  he  lived,  he  would  live 
unto  the  Lord ;  if  he  died,  he  would  die  to  the  Lord.  The 
bed  of  down  surrounded  by  friends,  or  the  martyr's  stake 
girt  round  with  curses  —  what  matter  which  ?  Stephen, 
dragged,  hurried,  driven  to  death,  felt  the  glory  qf_God 
streaming  on  his  face :  when  the  shades  of  faintness  were 
gathering  round  his  eyes,  and  the  world  was  fading  away 
into  indistinctness,  "  the  things  prepared  "  were  given  him. 
His  spirit  saw  what  "  eye  had  never  seen."  The  later  martyr 
bathes  his  fingers  in  the  flames,  and  while  the  flesh  shrivels 
and  the  bones  are  cindered,  says,  in  unfeigned  sincerity,  that 
he  is  lying  on  a  bed  of  roses.  It  would  matter  little  what 
he  was — the  ruler  of  a  kingdom,  or  a  tailor  grimed  with  the 
smoke  and  dust  of  a  workshop.  To  a  soul  filled  with  God, 
the  difference  between  these  two  is  inappreciable — as  if,  from 
a  distant  star,  you  were  to  look  down  upon  a  palace  and  a 
hovel,  both  dwindled  into  distance,  and  were  to  smile  at  the 
thought  of  calling  one  large  and  the  other  small. 

Xo  matter  to  such  a  man  what  he  saw  or  what  he  heard ; 
for  every  sight  would  be  resplendent  with  beauty,  and  every 
sound  would  echo  harmony;  things  common  would  become 
transfigured,  as  when  the  ecstatic  state  of  the  inward  soul 
reflected  a  radiant  cloud  from  the  form  of  Christ.  The 
human  would  become  divine,  Life  —  even  the  meanest  — 
noble.  In  the  hue  of  every  violet  there  would  be  a  glimpse 
of  Divine  affection,  and  a  dream  of  Heaven.  The  forest 


Parable  of  the  Sower.  33 

would  blaze  with  Deity,  as  it  did  to  the  eye  of  Moses.  The 
creations  of  genius  would  breathe  less  of  earth  and  more  of 
Heaven.  Human  love  itself  would  burn  with  a  clearer  and 
intenser  flame,  rising  from  the  altar  of  self-sacrifice. 

These  are  "  the  things  which  God  hath  prepared  for  them 
that  love  Him."  Compared  with  these,  what  are  loveliness 
— the  eloquent  utterances  of  man — the  conceptions  of  the 
heart  of  Genius  ?  What  are  they  all  to  the  serene  stillness 
of  a  spirit  lost  in  love :  the  full  deep  rapture  of  a  soul  int< 
which  the  Spirit  of  God  is  pouring  itself  in  a  mighty  tide  of 
Revelation  ? 


II. 
PARABLE  OF  THE  SOWER. 

"The  same  day  went  Jesus  out  of  the  house,  and  sat  by  the  sea-side. 
And  great  multitudes  were  gathered  together  unto  him,  so  that  he  went  into 
a  ship,  and  sat ;  and  the  whole  multitude  stood  on  the  shore.  And  he  spake 
many  things  unto  them  in  parables,  saying,  Behold,  a  sower  went  forth  to  sow ; 
and  when  he  sowed,  some  seeds  fell  by  the  way-side,  and  the  fowls  came  and 
devoured  them  up  :  Some  fell  upon  stony  places,  where  they  had  not  much 
earth  :  and  forthwith  they  sprung  up,  because  they  had  no  deepness  of  earth  : 
And  when  the  sun  was  up,  they  were  scorched ;  and  because  they  had  no 
root,  they  withered  away.  And  some  fell  among  thorns  ;  and  the  thorns 
sprung  up,  and  choked  them  :  But  others  fell  into  good  ground,  and  brought 
forth  fruit,  some  a  hundred-fold,  some  sixty-fold,  some  thirty-fold.  Whe 
hath  ears  to  hear,  let  him  hear." — Matt.  xiii.  1-9. 

BEFORE  the  reception  of  the  Lord's  Supper  on  Sunday 
next,  I  have  been  anxious  to  address  you  once  more,  my 
young  friends,  in  order  to  carry  on  the  thoughts,  and,  if  pos- 
sible, deepen  the  impressions  of  Tuesday  last.  During  the 
last  few  weeks  you  have  been  subjected  to  much  that  is 
exciting;  and  in  proportion  to  the  advantage  is  the  danger 
of  that  excitement.  A  great  part  of  the  value  of  the  rite  of 
Confirmation  consists  in  its  being  a  season  of  excitement  or 
impression.  The  value  of  excitement  is,  that  it  breaks  up 
the  old  mechanical  life  which  has  become  routine.  It  stirs 
the  stagnancy  of  our  existence,  and  causes  the  stream  of  life 
to  flow  more  fresh  and  clear.  The  danger  of  excitement  is 
the  probability  of  reaction.  The  heart,  like  the  body  and 
the  mind,  can  not  be  long  exposed  to  extreme  tension  with- 
out giving  way  afterwards.  Strong  impressions  are  suc- 
ceeded by  corresponding  listlessness.  Your  work,  to  which 
you  have  so  long  looked  forward,  is  done.  The  profession 
has  been  made,  and  now  left  suddenly,  as  it  were,  with  noth- 

2* 


34  Parabie  of  the  Sower. 

ing  before  you,  and  apparently  no  answer  to  the  question, 
What  are  we  to  do  now  ?  Insensibly  you  will  feel  that  all  is 
over,  and  the  void  within  your  hearts  will  be  inevitably 
filled,  unless  there  be  great  vigilance,  by  a  very  different 
class  of  excitements.  This  danger  will  be  incurred  most  by 
precisely  those  who  felt  most  deeply  the  services  of  the  past 
week. 

The  parable  I  have  selected  dwells  upon  such  a  class  of 
dangers. 

No  one  who  felt,  or  even  thought,  could  view  the  scene  ol 
Tuesday  last  without  emotion.  Six  or  seven  hundred  young 
persons  solemnly  pledged  themselves  to  renounce  evil  in 
themselves  and  in  the  world,  and  to  becpme  disciples  of  the 
Cross.  The  very  color  of  their  garments,  typical  of  purity, 
seemed  to  suggest  the  hope  and  the  expectation  that  the 
day  might  come  when*  they  shall  be  found  clothed  with  that 
inward  righteousness  of  which  their  dress  was  but  a  symbol, 
when  "they  shall  walk  with  Him  in  white,  for  they  are  wor- 
thy." As  yet  fresh  in  feeling,  as  yet  untainted  by  open  sin, 
who  could  see  them  without  hoping  that? 

Aly  young  friends,  experience  forces  us  to  correct  that 
sanguine  anticipation.  Of  the  seven  hundred  who  were 
earnest  then,  it  were  an  appalling  question  to  ask  how  many 
will  have  retained  their  earnestness  six  months  hence,  and 
how  much  of  all  that  which  seemed  so  real  will  be  recognized 
as  pure,  true  gold  at  the  last  Great  Day.  Soon  some  will 
have  lost  their  innocence,  and  some  will  have  become  frivolous 
and  artificial,  and  the  world  will  have  got  its  cold,  deaden- 
ing hand  on  some.  Who  shall  dare  to  guess  in  how  many 
the  best  raised  hopes  will  be  utterly  disappointed  ? 

Now  the  question  which  presents  iuelf  is,  How  comes  so 
much  promise  to  end  in  failure?  And  to  th..s  the  parable  of 
the  sower  returns  a  reply. 

Three  causes  are  conceivable :  It  m'ght  be  the  will,  or,  if 
you  venture  so  to  call  it,  the  fault  01  Him  who  gave  the 
truth ;  or  it  might  be  some  inherent  impotency  in  the  truth 
itself;  or,  lastly,  the  fault  mighi  lie  solely  in  the  soil  of  the 
heart. 

This  parable  assures  us  that  fie  rault  does  not  lie  in  God, 
the  sower.  God  does  not  predesni  ate  men  to  fail.  That  is 
strikingly  told  in  the  history  of  Judas — "From  a  ministry 
and  apostleship  Judas  fell,  that  he  might  go  to  his  own 
place."  The  ministry  and  apostleship  were  that  to  which 
God  had  destined  him.  To  work  out  that  was  the  destiny 
appointed  to  him,  as  truly  as  to  any  of  the  other  apostles. 
He  was  called,  elected  to  that.  But  when  he  refused  to  ex- 


Parable  of  the  Sower.  35 

ecute  that  mission,  the  very  circumstances  which,  by  God's 
decree,  were  leading  him  to  blessedness,  hurried  him  to  ruin. 
Circumstances  prepared  by  Eternal  Love,  became  the  desti 
ny  which  conducted  him  to  everlasting  doom.  He  was  a 
predestined  man — crushed  by  his  fate.  But  he  went  to  hia 
"  own  place."  He  had  shaped  his  own  destiny.  So  the  ship 
is  wrecked  by  the  winds  and  waves — hurried  to  its  fate. 
But  the  winds  and  waves  were  in  truth  its  best  friends 
Rightly  guided,  it  would  have  made  use  of  them  to  reach 
the  port ;  wrongly  steered,  they  became  the  destiny  which 
drove  it  on  the  rocks.  Failure — the  wreck  of  life — is  not  to 
be  impiously  traced  to  the  will  of  God.  "  God  will  have  all 
men  to  be  saved,  and  come  to  a  knowledge  of  the  truth." 
God  willeth  not  the  death  of  a  sinner. 

Nor,  again,  can  we  find  the  cause  in  any  impotency  of 
truth  : — an  impotency,  doubtless,  there  is  somewhere.  The 
old  thinkers  accounted  for  it  by  the  depravity  of  Matter. 
God  can  do  any  thing,  they  said.  Being  good,  God  would 
do  all  good.  If  he  do  not,  it  is  because  of  the  materials  He 
has  to  deal  with.  Matter  thwarts  Him  :  Spirit  is  pure,  but 
Matter  is  essentially  evil  and  unspiritual :  the  body  is  cor- 
rupt. Against  this  doctrine  St.  Paul  argues  in  the  text, 
u  For  we  that  are  in  this  tabernacle  do  groan,  being  bur- 
dened: not  for  that  we  would  be  unclothed,  but  clothed 
upon,  that  mortality  might  be  swallowed  up  of  life." — • 
2  Cor.  v.  4. 

The  true  account  is  this :  God  has  created  in  man  a  will 
which  has  become  a  cause.  "  God  can  do  any  thing  ?"  I 
know  not  that.  God  can  not  deny  himself;  God  can  not  do 
wrong ;  God  can  not  create  a  number  less  than  one ;  God 
can  not  make  a  contradiction  true.  It  is  a  contradiction  to 
let  man  be  free,  and  force  him  to  do  right.  God  has  per- 
formed this  marvel,  of  creating  a  being  with  free-will,  inde- 
pendent, so  to  speak,  of  Himself — a  real  cause  in  His  uni- 
verse. To  say  that  He  has  created  such  a  one,  is  to  say  that 
He  has  given  him  the  power  to  fail.  Without  free-will  there 
could  be  no  human  goodness.  It  is  wise,  therefore,  and  good 
in  God,  to  give  birth  to  free-will.  But  once  acknowledge 
free-will  in  man,  and  the  origin  of  evil  does  not  lie  in  God. 

And  this  leads  us  to  the  remaining  cause  of  failure  which 
is  conoeivable.  In  our  own  free-will — in  the  grand  and  fear- 
ful power  we  have  to  ruin  ourselves — lies  the  real  and  only 
religious  solution  of  the  mystery..  In  the  soil  of  the  heart  is 
found  all  the  nutriment  of  spiritual  life,  and  all  the  nutriment 
of  the  weeds  and  poisons  which  destroy  spiritual  life.  And 
it  is  this  which  makes  Christian  character,  when  complete,  a 


36  Parable  of  the  Sower. 

thing  so  inestimably  precious.  There  are  things  precious, 
not  from  the  materials  of  which  they  are  made,  but  from  the 
risk  and  difficulty  of  bringing  them  to  perfection.  The 
speculum  of  the  largest  telescope  foils  the  optician's  skill  in 
casting.  Too  much  or  too  little  heat — the  interposition  of  a 
grain  of  sand,  a  slight  alteration  in  the  temperature  of  the 
weather,  and  all  goes  to  pieces — it  must  be  recast.  Therefore, 
when  successfully  finished,  it  is  a  matter  for  almost  the  con- 
gratulation of  a  country.  Rarer,  and  more  difficult  still 
than  the  costliest  part  of  the  most  delicate  of  instruments, 
is  the  completion  of  Christian  character.  Only  let  there 
come  the  heat  of  persecution,  or  the  cold  of  human  deser- 
tion, a  little  of  the  world's  dust,  and  the  rare  and  costly 
thing  is  cracked,  and  becomes  a  failure. 

In  this  parable  are  given  to  us  the  causes  of  failure,  and 
the  requirements  which  are  necessary  in  order  to  enable  im- 
•pressions  to  become  permanent. 

I.  The  causes  of  failure. 

1.  The  first  of  these  is  want  of  spiritual  perception.  Some 
of  the  seed  fell  by  the  way-side.  There  are  persons  whose 
religion  is  all  outside ;  it  never  penetrates  beyond  the  intel- 
lect. Duty  is  recognized  in  word,  not  felt.  They  are  reg- 
ular at  church,  understand  the  Catechism  and  Articles,  con- 
sider the  Church  a  most  venerable  institution,  have  a  respect 
for  religion,  but  it  never  stirs  the  deeps  of  their  being. 
They  feel  nothing  in  it  beyond  a  safeguard  for  the  decencies 
and  respectabilities  of  social  life ;  valuable,  as  parliaments 
and  magistrates  are  valuable,  but  by  no  means  the  one  aw- 
ful question  which  fills  the  soul  with  fearful  grandeur. 

Truth  of  life  is  subject  to  failure  in  such  hearts  in  two 
ways : — By  being  trodden  down  :  wheat  dropped  by  a  harvest- 
cart  upon  a  road  lies  outside.  There  comes  a  passenger's 
foot,  and  crushes  some  of  it ;  then  wheels  come  by — the 
wrheel  of  traffic  and  the  wheel  of  pleasure — crushing  it  grain 
by  grain.  It  is  "trodden  down." 

The  fate  of  religion  is  easily  understood  from  the  parallel 
fate  of  a  single  sermon.  Scarcely  has  its  last  tone  vibrated 
on  the  ear,  when  a  fresh  impression  is  given  by  the  music 
which  dismisses  the  congregation.  That  is  succeeded  by  an- 
other impression,  as  your  friend  puts  his  arm  in  yours  and 
talks  of  some  other  matter,  irrelevant,  obliterating  any  slight 
seriousness  which  the  sermon  produced.  Another,  and  an- 
other, and  another — and  the  word  is  trodden  down.  Ob« 
serve,  there  is  nothing  wrong  in  these  impressions.  The 
farmer's  cart  which  crushes  the  grain  by  the  way-side  is  roil- 


Parable  of  the  Sower.  37 

ing  bv  on  rightful  business,  and  the  stage  and  the  pedestrian 
are  in  their  place ;  simply  the  seed  is  not.  It  is  not  the 
wrong-ness  of  the  impressions  which  treads  religion  down, 
but  only  this,  that  outside  religion  yields  in  turn  to  other 
sutside  impressions  which  are  stronger. 

Again  conceptions  of  religious  life,  which  are  only  concep- 
tions outward,  having  no  lodgment  in  the  heart,  disappear. 
Fowls  of  the  air  came  and  devoured  the  seed.  Have  you 
ever  seen  grain  scattered  on  the  road?  The  sparrow  from 
the  housetop,  and  the  chickens  from  the  barn  rush  in,  and 
within  a  minute  after  it  has  been  scattered  not  the  shadow 
of  a  grain  is  left.  This  is  the  picture,  not  of  thought  crushed 
by  degrees,  but  of  thought  dissipated,  and  no  man  can  tell 
when  or  how  it  went.  Swiftly  do  these  winged  thoughts 
come,  when  we  pray,  or  read,  or  listen ;  in  our  inattentive, 
sauntering,  way-side  hours :  and  before  we  can  be  upon  our 
guard,  the  very  trace  of  holier  purposes  has  disappeared.  In 
our  purest  moods,  when  we  kneel  to  pray,  or  gather  round 
the  -altar,  down  into  the  very  Holy  of  holies  sweep  these 
foul  birds  of  the  air,  villain  fancies,  demon  thoughts.  The 
germ  of  life,  the  small  seed  of  impression,  is  gone — where, 
you  know  r.ot.  But  it  is  gone.  Inattentiveness  of  spirit, 
produced  by  want  of  spiritual  interest,  is  the  first  cause  of 
disappointment. 

2.  A  second  cause  of  failure  is  want  of  depth  in  character. 
Some  fell  on  stony  ground.  Stony  gronnd  means  often  the 
soil  with  which  many  loose  stones  are  intermixed ;  but  that 
is  not  the  stony  ground  meant  here :  this  stony  ground  is  the 
thin  layer  of  earth  upon  a  bed  of  rock.  Shallow  soil  is  like 
superficial  character.  You  meet  with  such  persons  in  life. 
There  is  nothing  deep  about  them ;  all  they  do  and  all  they 
have  is  on  the  surface.  The  superficial  servant's  work  is 
done,  but  lazily,  partially — not  thoroughly.  The  superficial 
workman's  labor  will  not  bear  looking  into — but  it  bears  a 
showy  outside.  The  very  dress  of  such  persons  betrays  the 
slatternly,  incomplete  character  of  their  minds.  When  re- 
ligion comes  in  contact  with  persons  of  this  stamp,  it  shares 
the  fate  of  every  thing  else.  It  is  taken  up  in  a  superficial 
way. 

There  is  deep  knowledge  of  human  nature  and  exquisite 
fidelity  to  truth  in  the  single  touch  by  which  the  impression 
of  religion  on  them  is  described.  The  seed  sprang  up  quick- 
ly, and  then  withered  away  as  quickly,  because  it  had  no 
depth  of  root.  There  is  a  quick,  easily-moved  susceptibility 
that  rapidly  exhibits  the  slightest  breath  of  those  emotions 
which  play  upon  the  s  irface  of  the  soul,  and  then  as  rapidly 


38  Parable  of  the  Sower. 

passes  off.  In  such  persons  words  are  ever  at  command^ 
voluble  and  impassioned  words.  Tears  flow  readily.  The 
expressive  features  exhibit  every  passing  shade  of  thought 
Every  thought  and  every  feeling  plays  upon  the  surface  ;  ev- 
ery thing  that  is  sown  springs  up  at  once  with  vehement  veg- 
etation. But  slightness  and  inconstancy  go  together  with 
violence.  "  Out  of  the  abundance  of  the  heart  the  mouth 
speaketh."  True  ;  but  also  out  of  the  emptiness  of  the  heart 
the  mouth  can  speak  even  more  volubly.  He  who  can  always 
find  the  word  which  is  appropriate  and  adequate  to  his  emo- 
tions is  not  the  man  whose  emotions  are  deepest:  warmth 
of  feeling  is  one  thing,  permanence  is  another.  On  Tuesday 
last,  they  who  went  to  the  table  most  moved  and  touched 
were  not  necessarily  those  who  raised  in  a  wise  observer's 
breast  the  strongest  hope  of  persistence  in  the  life  of  Christ. 
Rather  those  who  were  calm  and  subdued :  that  which 
springs  up  quickly  often  does  so  merely  from  this,  that  it  has 
no  depth  of  earth  to  give  it  room  to  strike  its  roots  down  and 
deep. 

A  young  man  of  this  stamp  came  to  Christ,  running,  kneel- 
ing, full  of  warm  expressions,  engaging  gestures,  and  profess- 
ed admiration,  worshipping  and  saying,  "  Good  Master !" 
Lovable  and  interesting  as  such  always  are,  Jesus  loved  him. 
But  his  religion  lay  all  upon  the  surface,  withered  away  when 
the  depth  of  its  meaning  was  explored.  The  test  of  self-sac- 
rifice was  applied  to  his  apparent  love.  He  was  ready  for 
any  thing.  Well,  "  Go,  sell  that  thou  hast,"  "  and  he  went 
away  sorrowful,  for  he  had  great  possessions."  It  had 
sprung  up  quickly ;  but  it  withered  because  it  had  no  root. 

And  that  is  another  stroke  of  truth  in  the  delineation  of 
this  character.  Xot  wealth  nor  comfort  is  the  bane  of  its 
religion ;  but  "  when  tribulation  or  persecution  ariseth  be- 
cause of  the  word,  by-and-by  they  are  offended."  A  pleas- 
ant, sunny  religion  would  be  the  life  to  suit  them.  "They 
receive  the  word  with  joy."  So  long  as  they  have  happiness 
they  can  love  God,  feel  very  grateful,  and  expand  with  gen- 
erous emo'tions.  But  when  God  speaks  as  he  spoke  to  Job 
out  of  the  whirlwind,  and  the  sun  is  swept  from  the  face  of 
their  heaven,  and  the  sharp  Cross  is  the  only  object  left  in 
the  dreary  landscape,  and  the  world  blames,  and  friends 
wound  the  wounded  with  cold  speech  and  hollow  common- 
places, what  is  there  in  superficial  religion  to  keep  the  heart 
in  its  place,  and  vigorous  still  ? 

Another  point.  Xot  without  significance  is  it  represented 
that  the  superficial  character  is  connected  with  the  hard 
heart.  Beneath  the  light  thin  surface  of  easily-stirred  dust 


Parable  of  the  Sower.  39 

fie**  the  bed  of  rock.  The  shallow  ground  was  stony  ground. 
And  it  is  among  the  children  of  light  enjoyment  and  unset- 
tled life  that  we  must  look  for  stony  heartlessness  :  not  in  the 
world  of  business — not  among  the  poor,  crushed  to  the  earth 
by  privation  -and  suffering.  These  harden  the  character,  but 
often  leave  the  heart  soft.  If  you  wish  to  know  what  hol- 
lo wness  and  'heartlessness  atv,  you  must  seek  for  them  in  the 
world  of  light,  elegant,  superficial  fashion — where  frivolity 
has  turned  the  heart  into  a  rook  >ed  of  selfishness.  Say  wrhat 
men  will  of  the  heartlessuess  of  t/uJe,  it.  is  nothing  compared 
with  the  heartlessness  of  fashion.  Say  what  they  will  of  the 
atheism  of  science,  it  is  nothing  to  the  atheism  of  that  round 
of  pleasure  in  which  many  a  heart  lives:  dead  while  it  lives. 

3.  Once  more,  impressions  come  to  nothing  when  the  mind 
is  subjected  to  dissipating  influences,  and  yields  to  them. 
"  Some  fell  among  thorns." 

There  is  nutriment  enough  in  the  ground  for  thorns,  and 
enough  for  wheat ;  but  not  enough,  in  any  ground,  for  both 
wheat  and  thorns.  The  agriculturist  thins  his  nursery- 
ground,  and  the  farmer  weeds  his  field,  and  the  gardener  re- 
moves the  superfluous  grapes  for  that  very  reason,  in  order 
that  the  dissipated  sap  may  be  concentrated  in  a  few  plants 
vigorously. 

So  in  the  same  way  the  heart  has  a  certain  power  of  lov- 
ing. But  love,  dissipated  on  many  objects,  concentrates  it- 
self on  none.  God  or  the  world — not  both.  "  No  man  can 
serve  two  masters."  "  If  any  man  love  the  world,  the  love 
of  the  Father  is  not  in  him."  He  that  has  learned  many  ac- 
complishments or  sciences,  generally  knows  none  thoroughly. 
Multifariousness  of  knowledge  is  commonly  opposed  to 
depth,  variety  of  affections  is  generally  not  found  with  in- 
tensity. 

Two  classes  of  dissipating  influences  distract  such  minds. 
"  The  cares  of  this  world,  and  the  deceit-fulness  of  riches, 
choke  the  word."  The  cares  of  this  world — its  petty  trifling 
distractions — not  wrong  in  themselves — simply  dissipating 
— filling  the  heart  with  paltry  solicitudes  and  mean  anxieties 
— wearing.  Martha  was  u  cumbered  with  much  serving." 
Her  household  and  her  domestic  duties,  real  duties,  divided 
her  heart  with  Christ.  The  time  of  danger,  therefore,  is 
when  life  expands  into  new  situations  and  larger  spheres, 
bringing  with  them  new  cares.  It  is  not  in  the  earlier  stages 
of  existence  that  these  distractions  are  felt.  Thorns  sprang 
up  and  choked  the  wheat  as  they  grew  together.  You  see 
a  religious  man  taking  up  a  new  pursuit  with  eagerness. 
At  first  no  danger  is  suspected.  But  it  is  a  distractioji— 


4O  Parable  of  the  Sower. 

something  that  distracts  or  divides  ;  he  has  become  dissipat> 
ed,  and  by-and-bjr  you  remark  that  his  zest  is  gone ;  he  is  no 
longer  the  man  he  was.  He  talks  as  before,  but  the  life  is 
gone  from  what  he  says :  his  energies  are  frittered.  The 
word  is  "  choked." 

Again,  the  deceitfulness  of  riches  dissipate. .  True  as  al- 
ways to  nature,  never  exaggerating,  never  one-sided  :  Christ 
does  not  say  that  such  religion  brings  forth  no  fruit,  but 
only  that  it  brings  none  to  perfection.  A  fanatic  bans  all 
wealth  and  ail  worldly  care  as  the  department  of  the  devil : 
Christ  says, "  How  hardly  shall  they  that  trust  in  riches  en- 
ter into  the  kingdom  of  heaven."  He  does  not  say  the  di- 
vided heart  has  no  religion,  but  that  it  is  a  dwarfed,  stunted, 
feeble  religion.  Many  such  a  Christian  do  you  find  among 
the  rich  and  the  titled,  who,  as  a  less  encumbered  man, 
might  have  been  a  resolute  soldier  of  the  Cross ;  but  he  is 
only  now  a  realization  of  the  old  Pagan  fable — a  spiritual 
giant  buried  under  a  mountain  of  goTd.  Oh !  many,  many 
such  we  meet  in  our  higher  classes,  pining  with  a  nameless 
want,  pressed  by  a  heavy  sense  of  the  weariness  of  exist- 
ence, strengthless  in  the  midst  of  affluence,  and  incapable 
even  of  tasting  the  profusion  of  comfort  which  is  heaped 
around  them. 

There  is  a  way  God  their  Father  has  of  dealing  with  such 
which  is  no  pleasant  thing  to  bear.  In  agriculture  it  is  call- 
ed weeding.  In  gardening  it  is  done  by  pruning.  It  is  the 
cutting  off  the  over-luxuriant  shoots,  in  order  to  call  back 
the  wandering  juices  into  the  healthier  and  more  living 
parts.  *  In  religion  it  is  described  thus  :  "  Every  branch  that 
beareth  fruit  he  purgeth."  ....  Lot  had  such  a  danger, 
and  was  subjected  to  such  a  treatment.  A  quarrel  had  aris- 
en between  Abraham's  herdsmen  and  his.  It  was  necessary 
to  part.  Abraham,  in  that  noble  way  of  his,  gave  him  the 
choice  of  the  country  when  they  separated.  Either  hand 
for  Abraham — either  the  right  hand  or  the  left : — what 
cared  the  Pilgrim  of  the  Invisible  for  fertile  lands  or  rugged 
sands?  Lot  chose  wisely,  as  they  of  the  world  speak. 
Well,  if  this  world  be  all — he  got  a  rich  soil — became  a 
prince,  had  kings  for  his  society  and  neighbors.  It  was 
nothing  to  Lot  that  "  the  men  of  the  land  were  sinners  be- 
fore the  Lord  exceedingly" — enough  that  it  was  well-water- 
ed everywhere.  But  his  wife  became  enervated  by  volup- 
tuousness, and  his  children  tainted  with  ineradicable  corrup- 
tion— the  moral  miasma  of  the  society  wherein  he  had  made 
his  home.  Two  warnings  God  gave  him  :  first,  his  home 
property  were  spoiled  by  the  enemy ;  then  came  the  fire 


Parable  of  the  Sower.  41 

from  heaven  ;  and  lie  lied  from  the  cities  of  the  plain  a  riun- 
ed  man.  His  wife  looked  back  with  lingering  regret  upon 
the  splendid  home  of  her  luxury  and  voluptuousness,  and 
was  overwhelmed  in  the  encrusting  salt :  his  children  car- 
ried with  them  into  a  new  world  the  plague-spot  of  that 
profligacy  which  had  been  the  child  of  affluence  and  idle- 
ness ;  and  the  spirit  of  that  rain  of  fire — of  the  buried  Cities 
af  the  Plain — rose  again  in  the  darkest  of  the  crimes  which 
the  Old  Testament  records,  to  poison  the  new  society  at  its 
very  fountain.  And  so  the  old  man  stood  at  last  upon  the 
brink  of  the  grave,  a  blackened  ruin  scathed  by  lightning, 
over  the  grave  of  his  wife,,  and  the  shame  of  his  family — 
saved,  but  only  "  so  as  by  fire." 

It  is  a  painful  thing,  that  weeding  work.  -  "  Every  branch 
in  me  that  beareth  fruit,  He  purgeth  it,  that  it  may  bring 
forth  more  fruit."  The  keen  edge  of  God's  pruning-knife 
cuts  sheer  through.  No  weak  tenderness  stops  Him  whose 
love  seeks  goodness,  not  comfort,  for  His  servants.  A  man's 
distractions  are  in  his  wealth — and  perhaps  fire  or  failure 
make  him  bankrupt :  what  he  feels  is  God's  sharp  knife. 
Pleasure  has  dissipated  his  heart,  and  a  stricken  frame  for- 
bids his  enjoying  pleasure — shattered  nerves  and  broken 
health  wear  out  the  Life  of  life.  Or  perhaps  it  comes  in  a 
sharper,  sadder  form ;  the  shaft  of  death  goes  home ;  there 
is  heard  the  wail  of  danger  in  his  household.  •  And  then, 
when  sickness  has  passed  on  to  hopelessness,  and  hopeless-  » 
ness  has  passed  on  to  death,  the  crushed  man  goes  into  the 
chamber Nof  the  dead;  and  there,  when  he  shuts  down  the 
lid  upon  the  coffin  of  his  wife,  or  the  coffin  of  his  child,  his 
heart  begins  to  tell  him  the  meaning  of  all  this.  Thorns 
had  been  growing  in  his  heart,  and  the  sharp  knife  has  been 
at  work  making  room — but  by  an  awful  desolation — tearing 
up  and  cutting  down,  that  the  life  of  God  in  the  soul  may 
not  be  choked. 

II.  For  the  permanence  of  religious  impressions  this  para- 
ble suggests  three  requirements :""  They  on  the  good  ground 
are  they  which,  in  an  honest  and  good  heart,  having  heard 
the  word  keep  it,  and  bring  forth  fruit  with  patience." 
^  1.  *J  An  honest  and  good  heart."  Earnestness :  that  is, 
sincerity  of  purpose.  Now,  sincerity  is  reckoned  by  an  ex- 
aggeration, sometimes,  the  only  virtue.  So  that  a  man  be 
sincere,  they  say,  it  matters  little  what  he  thinks  or  what  he 
is  ;  but  in  truth  is  the  basis  of  all  goodness  ;  without  which 
goodness  of  any  kind  is  impossible.  There  are  faults  more 
heinous,  but  none  more  ruinous,  than  insincerity.  Subtle 


42  Parable  of  the  Sower. 

ininds,  which  have  no  broad,  firm  footing  in  reality,  lose 
every  thing  by  degrees,  and  may  be  transformed  into  any 
.shape  of  evil ;  may  become  guilty  of  any  thing,  and  excuse 
it  to  themselves.  To  this  sincerity  is  given,  in  the  parable, 
success  :  a  harvest  thirty-fold,  sixty-fold,  a  hundred-fold. 

This  earnestness  is  the  first  requisite  for  real  success  in 
svery  thing.  Do  you  wish  to  become  rich  ?  You  may  be- 
come rich :  that  is,  if  you  desire  it  in  no  half-way,  but  thor- 
oughly. A  miser  sacrifices  all  to  this  single  passion  ;  hoards 
farthings,  and  dies  possessed  of  wealth.  Do  you  wish  to 
master  any  science  or  accomplishment  ?  Give  yourself  to  it, 
and  it  lies  beneath  your  feet.  Time  and  pains  will  do  any 
thing.  This  world  is  given  as  the  prize  for  the  men  in  ear- 
nest ;  and  that  which  is  true  of  this  world  is  truer  still  of  the 
world  to  come.  "  The  kingdom  of  heaven  suffereth  violence, 
and  the  violent  take  it  by  force."  Only  there  is  this  differ- 
ence :  In  the  pursuit  of  wealth,  knowledge,  or  reputation, 
circumstances  have  power  to  mar  the  wisest  schemes.  The 
hoard  of  years  may  be  lost  in  a  single  night.  The  wisdom 
hived  up  by  a  whole  life  may  perish  when  some  fever  impairs 
memory.  But  in  the  kingdom  of  Christ,  where  inward  char- 
acter is  the  prize,  no  chance  can  rob  earnestness  of  its  exactly 
proport  ioned  due  of  success.  "  Whatsoever  a  man  soweth, 
that  shall  he  also  reap."  There  is  no  blight,  nor  mildew,  nor 
scorching  sun,  nor  rain-deluge,  which  can  turn  that  harvest 
into  a  failure.  "Lay  not  up  for  yourselves  treasures  on 
earth."  ....  Sow  for  time,  and  probably  you  will  succeed 
in  time.  Sow  the  seeds  of  life — humbleness,  pure-hearted- 
ness,  love;  and  in  the  long  eternity  which  lies  before  the 
soul,  every  minutest  grain  will  come  up  again  with  an  in- 
crease of  thirty,  sixty,  or  a  hundred-fold. 

2.  Meditation  is  a  second  requisite  for  permanence.  They 
keep  the  word  which  they  have  heard. 

Now,  meditation  is  often  confounded  with  something  which 
only  partially  resembles  it.  Sometimes  we  sit  in  a  kind  of  day- 
dream, the  mind  expatiating  far  away  into  vacancy,  whilst 
minutes  and  hours  slip  by,  almost  unmarked,  in  mere  vacuity. 
This  is  not  meditation,  but  reverie — a  state  to  which  the  soul 
resigns  itself  in  pure  passivity.  When  the  soul  is  absent 
and  dreaming,  let  no  man  think  that  that  is  spiritual  medita- 
tion, or  any  thing  that  is  spiritual. 

Meditation  is  partly  a  passive,  partly  an  active  state. 
Whoever  has  pondered  long  over  a  plan  which  he  is  anxious 
to  accomplish,  without  distinctly  seeing  at  first  the  way, 
knows  what  meditation  is.  The  subject  itself  presents  itself 
in  leisure  moments  spontaneously :  but  then  all  this  sets  the 


Parable  of  the  Sower.  43 

mind  at  work — contriving,  imagining,  rejecting,  modifying 
It  is  in  this  way  that  one  of  the  greatest  of  English  engineers, 
a  man  uncouth  and  unaccustomed  to  regular  discipline  of 
mind,  is  said  to  have  accomplished  his  most  marvellous  tri- 
umphs, He  threw  bridges  over  almost  impracticable  tor« 
rents,  and  pierced  the  eternal  mountains  for  his  viaducts. 
Sometimes  a  difficulty  brought  all  the  work  to  a  pause :  then 
he  would  shut  himself  up  in  his  room,  eat  nothing,  speak  to 
no  one,  abandon  himself  intensely  to  the  contemplation  of 
that  on  which  his  heart  was  set ;  and  at  the  end  of  two  or 
three  days,  would  come  forth  serene  and  calm,  walk  to  the 
spot,  and  quietly  give  orders  which  seemed  the  result  of  su- 
perhuman intuition.  This  was  meditation. 

Again,  he  knows  what  it  is,  who  has  ever  earnestly  and 
sincerely  loved  one  living  human  being.  The  image  of  his 
friend  rises  unbidden  by  day  and  night,  stands  before  his  soul 
in  the  street  and  in  the  field,  comes  athwart  his  every 
thought,  and  mixes  its  presence  with  his  every  plan.  So  far 
all  is  passive.  But  besides  this  he  plans  and  contrives  for 
that  other's  happiness,  tries  to  devise  what  would  give  pleas- 
ure, examines  his  own  conduct  and  conversation,  to  avoid 
that  which  can  by  any  possibility  give  pain.  This  is  medi- 
tation. 

So,  too,  is  meditation  on  religious  truths  carried  on.  If  it 
first  be  loved,  it  will  recur  spontaneously  to  the  heart. 

But  then  it  is  dwelt  on  till  it  receives  innumerable  applica- 
tions— is  again  and  again  brought  up  to  the  sun  and  tried  in 
various  lights,  and  so  incorporates  itself  with  the  realities  of 
practical  existence. 

Meditation  is  done  in  silence.  By  it  we  renounce  our  nar- 
row individuality,  and  expatiate  into  that  which  is  infinite. 
Only  in  the  sacredness  of  inward  silence  does  the  soul  truly 
meet  the  secret,  hiding  God.  The  strength  of  resolve,  which 
afterwards  shapes  life  and  mixes  itself  with  action,  is  the  fruit 
of  those  sacred,  solitary  moments.  There  is  a  divine  depth  in 
silence.  We  meet  God  alone. 

For  this  reason,  I  urged  it  upon  so  many  of  you  to  spend 
the  hour  previous  to  your  Confirmation  separate  from  friends, 
from  books,  from  every  thing  human,  and  to  force  yourselves 
into  the  Awful  Presence. 

Have  we  never  felt  how  human  presence,  if  frivolous,  in 
such  moments  frivolizes  the  soul,  and  how  impossible  it  is  to 
come  in  contact  with  any  thoughts  which  are  sublime,  or 
drink  in  one  inspiration  which  is  from  Heaven,  without  de- 
grading it,  even  though  surrounded  by  all  that  would  natu- 
rally suggest  tender  and  awful  feeling,  when  such  are  by  ? 


44  Parable  of  the  Sower. 

It  is  not  the  number  of  books  you  read,  nor  the  variety  of 
sermons  which  you  hear,  nor  the  amount  of  religious  conver- 
sation in  which  you  mix ;  but  it  is  the  frequency  and  the 
earnestness  with  which  you  meditate  on  these  tilings,  till  the 
truth  which  may  be  in  them  becomes  your  own,  and  part  of 
your  own  being,  that  insures  your  spiritual  growth. 

3.  The  third  requisite  is  endurance.  "  They  bring  forth 
fruit  with  patience."  Patience  is  of  two  kinds.  There  is  an 
active,  and  there  is  a  passive  endurance.  The  former  is  a 
masculine,  the  latter  for  the  most  part  a  feminine  virtue. 
Female  patience  is  exhibited  chiefly  in  fortitude — in  bearing 
pain  and  sorrow  meekly  without  complaining.  In  the  old 
Hebrew  life,  female  endurance  shines  almost  as  brightly  as  in 
any  life  which  Christianity  itself  can  mould.  Hannah,  under 
the  provocations  and  taunts  of  her  rival,  answering  not  again 
her  husband's  rebuke,  humbly  replying  to  Eli's  unjust  blame, 
is  true  to  the  type  of  womanly  endurance.  For  the  type  of 
man's  endurance  you  may  look  to  the  patience  of  the  early 
Christians  under  persecution.  They  came  away  from  the  San- 
hedrim to  endure  and  bear;  but  it  was  to  bear  as  conquerors 
rushing  on  to  victory,  preaching  the  truth  with  all  boldness, 
and  defying  the  power  of  the  united  world  to  silence  them. 
These  two  diverse  qualities  are  joined  in  One,  and  only  One  of 
woman  born,  in  perfection.  One  there  was  in  whom  human  na- 
ture was  exhibited  in  all  its  elements  symmetrically  complete. 
One  in  whom,  as  I  lately  said,  there  met  all  that  was  manliest 
and  all  that  was  most  womanly.  His  endurance  of  pain  and 
grief  was  that  of  the  woman  rather  than  the  man.  A  tender 
spirit  dissolving  into  tears,  meeting  the  dark  hour  not  with 
the  stern  defiance  of  the  man  and  the  stoic,  but  with  gentle- 
ness, and  trust,  and  love,  and  shrinking,  like  a  woman.  But 
when  it  came  to  the  question  in  Pilate's  judgment-hall,  or  the 
mockeries  of  Herod's  men  of  war,  or  the  discussion  with  the 
Pharisees,  or  the  exposure  of  the  hollow  falsehoods  by  which 
social,  domestic,  and  religious  life  wrere  sapped,  the  woman 
has  disappeared,  and  the  hardy  resolution  of  the  man,  with 
more  than  manly  daring,  is  found  in  her  stead.  This  is  the 
"patience"  for  us  to  cultivate:  To  bear  and  to  persevere. 
However  dark  and  profitless,  however  painful  and  weary  ex- 
istence may  have  become,  however  any  man  like  Elijah  may 
be  tempted  to  cast  himself  beneath  the  juniper-tree  and  say,. 
"  It  is  enough  :  now,  O  Lord  !"  life  is  not  done,  and  our  Chris- 
tian character  is  not  \von,  so  long  as  God  has  any  thing  left 
for  us  to  suifer,  or  any  thing  left  for  us  to  do. 

Patience,  however,  has  another  meaning.  It  is  the  oppo« 
site  of  that  impatience  which  can  not  wait.  This  is  one  of 


Parable  of  the  Sower.  45 

the  difficulties  of  spiritual  life.  We  are  disappointed  if  the 
harvest  do  not  come  at  once. 

Last  Tuesday,  doubtless,  you  thought  that  all  was  done, 
and  that  there  would  be  no  more  falling  back. 

Alas  !  a  little  experience  will  correct  that.  If  the  hus- 
bandman, disappointed  at  the  delay  which  ensues  before  the 
blade  breaks  the  soil,  were  to  rake  away  the  earth  to  exam- 
ine if  germination  were  going  on,  he  would  have  a  poor  har 
vest  "He  must  have  "  long  patience,  till  he  receive  the  early 
and  the  latter  rain."  The  winter  frost  must  mellow  the  seed 
lying  in  the  genial  bosom  of  the  earth :  the  rains  of  spring 
must  swell  it,  and  the  suns  of  summer  mature  it.  So  with 
you.  It  is  the  work  of  a  long  life  to  become  a  Christian. 
Many,  oh,  many  a  time  are  we  tempted  to  say,  v'  I  make  no 
progress  at  all.  It  is  only  failure  after  failure.  Nothing 
grows."  Now  look  at  the  sea  when  the  flood  is  coming  in. 
Go  and  stand  by  the  sea-beach,  and  you  will  think  that  the 
ceaseless  flux  and  reflux  is  but  retrogression  equal  to  the  ad- 
vance. But  look  again  in  an  hour's  time,  and  the  whole 
ocean  has  advanced.  Every  advance  has  been  beyond  the 
last,  and  every  retrograde  movement  has  been  an  impercep- 
tible trifle  less  than  the  last.  This  is  progress  :  to  be  esti- 
mated at  the  end  of  hours,  not  minutes.  And  this  is  Chris- 
tian progress.  Many  a  fluctuation — many  a  backward  mo- 
tion with  a  rush  at  times  so  vehement  that  all  seems  lost ; 
but  if  the  eternal  work  be  real,  every  failure  has  been  a  real 
gain,  and  the  next  does  not  carry  us  so  far  back  as  we  were 
before.  Every  advance  is  a  real  gain,  and  part  of  it  is  never 
lost.  Both  when  we  advance  and  when  we  fail,  we  gain. 
We  are  nearer  to  God  than  we  were.  The  flood  of  spirit- 
life  has  carried  us  up  higher  on  the  everlasting  shores,  where 
the  waves  of  life  beat  no  more,  and  its  fluctuations  end,  and 
all  is  safe  at  last.  "This  is  the  faith  and  patience  of  the 
saints." 

It  is  because  of  the  second  of  these  requirements,  medita- 
tion, that  I  am  anxious  we  should  meet  on  Sunday  next  for 
an  early  Communion  at  eight  o'clock.  I  desire  that  the  can* 
didates  may  have  a  more  solemn  and  definite  Communion 
of  their  own,  with  few  others  present  except  their  own  rela^ 
tions  and  friends.  In  silence  and  quietness,  we  will  meet 
together  then.  Before  the  world  has  put  on  its  full  robe  of 
light,  and  before  the  busy  gay  crowd  have  begun  to  throng 
our  streets — before  the  distractions  of  the  day  begin,  we  will 
consecrate  the  early  freshness  of  our  souls— untrodden,  un- 
hardened,  undissipated — to  God.  We  will  meet  in  the  sim- 
plicity of  brotherhood  and  sisterhood.  We  will  have  Com« 


46  Jacob's  Wrestling. 

munion  in  a  sacred  meal,  which  shall  exhibit  as  nearly  as 
may  be  the  idea  of  family  affection.  Ye  that  are  beginning 
life,  and  we  who  know  something  of  it — ye  that  offer  your- 
selves for  the  first  time  at  that  table,  and  we  who,  after  sad 
experience  and  repeated  failure,  stil.l  desire  again  to  renew 
our  aspirations  and  our  vows  to  Him — we  will  come  and 
breathe  together  that  prayer  which  I  commended  to  you  at 
your  Confirmation — "  Our  Father,  which  art  in  heaven,  lead 
us  not  into  temptation,  but  deliver  us  from  evil." 


III. 
JACOB'S   WRESTLING. 

"  And  he  said,  Thy  name  shall  be  called  no  more  Jacob,  but  Israel :  for  as 
a  prince  hast  thou  power  with  God  and  with  men,  and  hast  prevailed.  And 
Jacob  asked  him,  and  said,  Tell  me,  I  pray  thee,  thy  name.  And  he  said, 
Wherefore  is  it  that  thou  dost  ask  after  my  name  ?  And  he  blessed  him 
there.' — Gen.  xxxii.  28,  29. 

THE  complexion  of  this  story  is  peculiarly  Jewish.  It 
contains  three  points  which  are  specially  interesting  to  every 
Jew  in  a  national  point  of  view.  It  explained  to  him  why 
he  was  called  Israelite.  It  traces  the  origin  of  his  own 
name,  Israelite,  to  a  distant  ancestor,  who  had  signally  ex- 
hibited religious  strength,  and  been,  in  the  language  of  those 
times,  a  wrestler  with  God,  from  whence  he  had  obtained 
the  name  Israel.  It  casts  much  deep  and  curious  interest 
round  an  otherwise  insignificant  village,  Peniel,  where  this 
transaction  had  taken  place,  and  which  derived  its  name 
from  it,  Peniel,  the  face  of  God.  And,  besides,  it  explained 
the  origin  of  a  singular  custom,  which  might  seem  a  super- 
stitious one,  of  not  suffering  a  particular  muscle  to  be  eaten, 
and  regarding  it  with  a  kind  of  religious  awe,  as  the  part  in 
which  Jacob  was  said  by  tradition  to  have  been  injured,  by 
the  earnest  tension  of  his  frame  during  this  struggle.  So  far 
all  is  Jewish,  narrow,  merely  of  local  interest.  Besides  this, 
much  of  the  story  is  evidently  mythical. 

It  is  clear  at  once  that  it  belongs  to  that  earlier  period 
of  literature  when  traditions  were  preserved  in  a  poetical 
shape,  adapted  to  the  rude  conceptions  of  the  day,  but  en- 
shrining an  inner  and  a  deeper  truth.  To  disengage  this 
truth  from  the  form  in  which  it  is  encased  is  the  duty  of 
the  expositor. 

Now,  putting  aside  the  form  of  this  narrative,  and  looking 


Jacob's  Wrestling.  47 

into  the  heart  and  meaning  of  it,  it  will  become  apparent 
that  we  have  no  longer  any  thing  infantine,  or  Jewish,  or  of 
limited  interest,  but  a  wide  truth,  wide  as  human  nature  ;  and 
that  there  is  before  us  the  record  of  an  inward  spiritual 
struggle,  as  real  now  in  the  nineteenth  century  as  then  :  aa 
real  in  every  earnest  man  as  it  was  in  the  history  of  Jacob. 
We  take  these  points : 

I.  The  nameless  secret  of  existence. 
II.  The  revelation  of  that  secret  to  the  soul. 

The  circumstances  which  preceded  this  event  were  these : 
more  than  twenty  years  before,  Jacob  had  been  guilty  of  a 
deliberate  sin.  He  had  deceived  his  father;  he  had  over- 
reached his  free-spirited,  impetuous,  open-hearted  brother 
Esau.  Never,  during  all  those  twenty  years,  had  he  seen 
the  man  whom  he  had  injured.  But  now,  on  the  point  of 
returning  to  his  native  country,  news  was  brought  to  him  of 
his  brother's  approach,  which  made  a  meeting  inevitable. 
Jacob  made  all  his  dispositions  and  arrangements  to  pre- 
pare for  the  worst.  He  sent  over  the  brook  Jabbok  first 
the  part  of  his  femily  whom  he  valued  least,  and  who  would 
be  the  first  to  meet  Esau  ;  then  those  whom  he  loved  most, 
that,  in  the  event  of  danger,  they  might  have  the  greatest 
facility  in  escaping ;  then  Jacob  was  left  alone,  in  the  still 
dark  night.  It  was  one  of  those  moments  in  existence  when 
a  crisis  is  before  us,  to  which  great  and  pregnant  issues  are 
linked— when  all  has  been  done  that  foresight  can  devise, 
and  the  hour  of  action  being  past,  the  instant  of  reaction  has 
come.  Then  the  soul  is  left  passive  and  helpless,  gazing  face 
to  face  upon  the  anticipated  and  dreadful  moment  which  is 
slowly  moving  on.  It  is  in  these  hours  that,  having  gone 
through  in  imagination  the  whole  circle  of  resources  and 
found  them  nothing,  and  ourselves  powerless,  as  m  the  hands 
of  a  Destiny,  there  comes  a  strange  and  nameless  dread,  a 
horrible  feeling  of  insecurity,  which  give's  the  consciousness 
of  a  want,  and  forces  us  to  feel  out  into  the  abyss  for  some- 
thing that  is  mightier  than  flesh  and  blood  to  lean  upon. 

Then,  therefore,  it  was  that  there  came  the  moment  of  a 
conflict  within  the  soul  of  Jacob,  so  terrible  and  so  violent 
that  it  seemed  an  actual  struggle  with  a  living  man.  In  the 
darkness  he  had  heard  a  voice,  and  came  in  contact  with  a 
Form,  and  felt  a  Presence,  the  reality  of  which  there  was  no 
mistaking.  Now,  to  the  unscientific  mind,  that  which  is 
real  seems  to  be  necessarily  material  too.  What  wonder 
if,  to  the  unscientific  mind  of  Jacob,  this  conflict,  so  real, 
and  attended  in  his  person  with  such  tangible  result^ 


4 8  Jacob's  Wrestling. 

seemed  all  human  and  material — a  conflict  with  a  tangi 
bie  antagonist?  What  wonder  if  tradition  preserved  it  in 
such  a  form  ?  Suppose  we  admit  that  the  Being  whose 
awful  presence  Jacob  felt  had  no  form  which  could  be  grap- 
pled by  a  human  hand,  is  it  less  real  for  that  ?  Are  there  no 
realities  but  those  which  the  hand  can  touch  and  the  eye  see  V 

Jacob  in  that  hour  felt  the  dark  secret  and  mystery  of  ex- 
istence. 

Upon  this  I  shall  make  three  remarks. 

1.  The  first  has  reference  to  the  contrast  observable  be 
tween  this  and  a  former  revelation  made  to  Jacob's  soul. 
This  was  not  the  first  time  it  had  found  itself  face  to  face 
with  God.  Twenty  years  before,  he  had  seen  in  vision  a 
ladder  reared  against  the  sky,  and  angels  ascending  and  de- 
scending on  it.  Exceedingly  remarkable.  Immediately 
after  his  transgression,  when  leaving  his  father's  home,  a  ban- 
ished man,  to  be  a  wanderer  for  many  years,  this  first  meet- 
ing took  place.  Fresh  from  his  sin,  God  met  him  in  tender- 
ness and  forgiveness.  He  saw  the  token  which  told  him  that 
all  communication  between  heaven  and  earth  was  not  sever- 
ed. The  way  was  clear  and  unimpeded  still^  Messages  of 
reciprocated  love  might  pass  between  the  Father  and  His 
sinful  child,  as  the  angels  in  the  dream  ascended  and  de- 
scended on  the  visionary  ladder.  The  possibility  of  saintliness 
was  not  forfeited.  All  that  the  vision  taught  him.  Then 
took  place  that  touching  covenant,  in  which  Jacob  bound 
himself  to  serve  gratefully  his  father's  God,  and  vowed  the 
vow  of  a  consecrated  heart  to  Him.  All  that  was  now  past. 
After  twenty  years  God  met  him  again ;  but  this  second  in- 
tercourse was  of  a  very  different  character.  It  was  no  lon- 
ger God  the  Forgiver,  God  the  Protector,  God  the  covenant- 
ing Love,  that  met  Jacob  ;  but  God  the  Awful,  the  Unnam- 
able,  whose  -breath  blasts,  at  whose  touch  the  flesh,  of  the 
mortal  shrinks  and  shrivels  up.  This  is  exactly  the  reverse 
of  what  might  have  been  anticipated.  You  would  have  ex- 
pected the  darker  vision  of  experience  to  come  first.  First 
the  storm-struggle  of  the  soul;  then  the  vision  of  peace.  It 
was  exactly  the  reverse. 

Yet  all  this,  tried  by  experience,  is  a  most  true  and  living 
account.  The  awful  feelings  about  Life  and  God  are  not 
those  which  characterize  our  earlier  years.  It  is  quite  natu- 
ral that  in  the  first  espousals  of  the  soul  in  its  freshness  to 
God,  bright  and  hopeful  feelings  should  be  the  predominant 
or  the  only  ones.  Joy  marks,  and  ought  to  mark,  early  re- 
ligion. Nay,  by  God's  merciful  arrangement,  even  sin  is  not 
that  crushing  thing  in  early  life  which  it  sometimes  becomes 


Jacob's  Wrestling.  49 

in  later  years,  when  we  mourn  not  so  much  a  calculable 
number  of  sinful  acts,  as  a  deep  pervading  sinfulness.  He- 
morse  does  not  corrode  with  its  evil  power  then.  Forgiveness 
is  not  only  granted,  but  consciously  and  joyfully  felt.  It  is 
as  life  matures,  that  the  weight  of  life,  the  burden  of  this  un- 
intelligible world,  and  the  mystery  of  the  hidden  God,  are 
felt. 

A  vast  amount  of  insincerity  is  produced  by  mistaking 
this.  We  expect  in  the  religion  of  the  child  the  experience 
which  can  only  be  true  in  the  religion  of  the  man.  We 
force  into  their  lips  the  language  which  describes  the  wrest- 
ling of  the  soul  with  God.  It  is  twenty  years  too  soon.  God, 
in  His  awfulness,  the  thought  of  mystery  which  scathes  the 
soul,  how  can  they  know  that  yet  before  they  have  got  the 
thews  and  sinews  of  the  man's  heart  to  master  such  a 
thought  ?  They  know  nothing  yet — they  ought  to  know 
nothing  yet  of  God  but  as  the  Father  who  is  around  their 
beds — they  ought  to  see  nothing  yet  but  Heaven,  and  angels 
ascending  and  descending. 

This  morning,  my  young  brethren,  you  presented  your- 
selves  at  the  communion-table  for  the  first  time.  Some  of 
you,  we  trust,  were  conscious  of  meeting  God.  Only  let  us 
not  confound  the  dates  of  Christian  experience.  If  you  did, 
it  was  not  as  Jacob  met  God  on  this  occasion,  but  rather  as 
he  met  Him  on  the  earlier  one.  It  were  only  a  miserable 
forcing  of  insincerity  upon  you  to  require  that  this  solemn, 
fearful  sensation  of  his  should  be  yours.  Rather,  we  trust, 
you  felt  God  present  as  the  Lord  of  Love.  A  ladder  was 
raised  for  you  to  heaven.  Oh,  we  trust  that  the  feeling  in- 
some  cases  at  least  was  this — as  of  angels  ascending  and  de- 
scending upon  a  child  of  God. 

2.  Again  I  remark,  that  the  end  and  aim  of  Jacob's  strug- 
gle was  to  know  the  name  of  God.  "  Tell  me,  I  pray  thee, 
thy  name."  A  very  unimportant  desire  at  first  sight.  For 
what  signifies  a  name  ?  In  these  days,  when  names  are  only 
epithets,  it  signifies  nothing.  "  Jehovah,  Jove,  or  Lord,"  as 
the  "  Universal  Prayer  "  insinuates,  are  all  the  same.  Now, 
to  assert  that  it  matters  not  whether  God  be  called  Jehovah, 
Jove,  or  Lord,  is  true,  if  it  mean  this,  that  a  devout  and  ear- 
nest heart  is  accepted  by  God,  let  the  name  be  what  it  will 
by  which  He  is  addressed.  But  if  it  mean  that  Jove  and  Je- 
hovah express  the  same  Being — that  the  character  of  Him 
whom  the  Pagan  worshipped  was  the  same  as  the  character 
of  Him  whom  Israel  adored  under  the  name  of  Jehovah — - 
that  they  refer  to  the  same  group  of  ideas,  or  that  always 
names  are  but  names,  then  we  must  look  much  deeper. 


50  Jacob's  Wrestling. 

In  the  Hebrew  history  are  discernible  three  periods  dis- 
tinctly marked,  in  which  names  and  words  bore  very  differ- 
ent characters.  These  three,  it  has  been  observed  by  acute 
philologists,  correspond  to  the  periods  in  which  the  nation 
bore  the  three  different  appellations  of  Hebrews,  Israelites^ 
Jews, 

In  the  first  of  these  periods  names  meant  truths,  and  words 
were  the  symbols  of  realities.  The  characteristics  of  the 
names  given  then  were  simplicity  and  sincerity.  They  were 
drawn  from  a  few  simple  sources:  either  from  some  charac- 
teristic of  the  individual,  as  Jacob,  The  Supplanter,  or  Moses, 
Drawn  from  the  Water  ;  or  from  the  idea  of  family,  as  Ben- 
jamin, The  Son  of  my  Right  Hand;  or  from  the  conception 
of  the  tribe  or  nation,  then  gradually  consolidating  itself;  or, 
lastly,  from  the  religious  idea  of  God,  But  in  this-  ease  not 
the  highest  notion  of  God — not  Jah  or  Jehovah,  but  simply 
the  earlier  and  simpler  idea  of  Deity :  El — Israel,  Tlie  Prince 
of  El ;  Peniel,  The  Face  of  EL 

Ii.  these  days  names  were  real,  but  the  conceptions  they 
contained  were  not  the  loftiest, 

The  second  period  begins  about  the  time  of  the  departure 
from  Egypt,  and  it  is  characterized  by  unabated  simplicity, 
with  the  addition  of  sublime  r  thought  and  feeling  more  in- 
tensely religious.  The  heart  of  the  nation  was  big  with 
mighty  and  new  religious  truth — and  the  feelings  with  which 
the  national  heart  was  swelling  found  vent  in  the  names 
which  were  given  abundantly.  God,  under  His  name  Jah, 
the  noblest  assemblage  of  spiritual  truths  yet  conceived,  be- 
came the  adjunct  to  names  of  places  and  persons.  Oshea's 
name  is  changed  into  Je-hoshua. 

Observe,  moreover,  that  in  this  period  there  was  no  fas- 
tidious, over-refined  chariness  in  the  use  of  that  name.  Men 
conscious  of  deep  and  real  reverence  are  not  fearful  of  the 
appearance  of  irreverence.  The  word  became  a  common 
word,  as  it  always  may,  so  long  as  it  is  felt,  and  awe  is  real. 
A  mighty  cedar  was  called  a  cedar  of  Jehovah,  a  lofty  mount- 
ain, a  mountain  of  Jehovah,  Hirman  beauty  even  was  praised 
by  such  an  epithet,  Moses  was  divinely  fair,  beautiful  to 
God.  The  Eternal  name  became  an  adjunct.  No  beauty- 
no  greatness — no  goodness,  was  conceivable,  except  as  ema- 
nating from  Him :  therefore  His  name  was  freely  but  most 
devoutly  used. 

Like  the  earlier  period,  in  this  too,  words  mean  realities ; 
but,  unlike  the  earlier  period,  they  are  impregnated  with 
deeper  religions  thought. 

The  third  period  was  at  its  zenith  in  the  time  of  Christ' 


Jacob's  Wrestling.  51 

words  had  lost  their  meaning,  and  shared  the  hollow,  unreal 
state  of  all  things.  A  man's  name  might  be  Judas,  and  still 
he  might  be  a  traitor.  A  man  might  be  called  Pharisee — ex- 
clusively religious — and  yet  the  name  might  only  cover  the 
hollowness  of  hypocrisy  ;  or  he  might  be  called  most  noble 
Festus,  and  be  the  meanest  tyrant  that  ever  sat  upon  a  pro- 
consular chair.  This  is  the  period  in  which  every  keen  and 
wise  observer  knows  that  the  decay  of  national  religions  feel- 
ing has  begun.  That  decay  in  the  meaning  of  words,  that 
lowering  of  the  standard  of  the  ideas  for  which  they  stand, 
is  a  certain  mark  of  this.  The  debasement  of  a  language  is 
a  sure  mark  of  the  debasement  of  a  nation.  The  insincerity 
of  a  language  is  a  proof  of  the  insincerity  of  a  nation  :  for  a 
time  comes  in  the  history  of  a  nation  when  words  no  longer 
stand  for  things ;  when  names  are  given  for  the  sake  of  an 
euphonious  sound  ;  and  when  titles  are  but  the  epithets  of 
unmeaning  courtesy  : — a  time  when  Majesty- — Defender  of 
the  Faith — Most  Noble — Worshipful,  and  Honorable  —  not 
only  mean  nothing,  but  do  not  flush  the  cheek  with  the 
shame  of  convicted  falsehood  when  they  are  worn  as  empty 
ornaments. 

The  name  of  God  shares  this  fate.  A  nation  may  reach 
the  state  in  which  the  Eternal  Name  can  be  used  to  point 
a  sentence,  or  adorn  a  familiar  conversation,  and  no  longer 
shock  the  ear  with  the  sound  of  blasphemy,  because  in  good 
truth  the  name  .no  longer  stands  for  the  highest,  but  for  a 
meaner  conception,  an  idol  of  the  debased  mind.  For  exam- 
ple, in  a  foreign  language,  the  language  of  a  light  and  irre- 
ligious people,  the  Eternal  Name  can  be  used  as  a  light  ex- 
pletive and  conversational  ejaculation,  and  not  shock  any 
religious  sensibility.  You  could  not  do  that  in  English.  It 
would  sound  like  a  blasphemy  to  say,  in  light  talk,  My  God  J 
or  Good  God !  Your  flesh  would  creep  at  hearing  it.  But 
in  that  language  the  word  has  lost  its  sacredness,  because  il 
has  lost  its  meaning.  It  means  no  more  than  Jove  or  Baal, 
It  means  a  being  whose  existence  has  become  a  nursery  fable. 
No  marvel  that  we  are  taught  to  pray,  "Hallowed  be  Thy 
name."  We  can  not  pray  a  deeper  prayer  for  our  country 
than  to  say,  Never  may  that  name  in  English  stand  for  a 
lower  idea  than  it  stands  for  now.  There  is  a  solemn  powet 
in  words,  because  words  are  the  expression  of  character. 
"By  thy  words  thou  shalt  be  justified,  and  by  thy  words 
thou  shalt  be  condemned." 

Yet  in  this  period,  exactly  in  proportion  as  the  solemnity 
of  the  idea  was  gone,  reverence  was  scrupulously  paid  to  the 
corpse-like  word  which  remained  and  had  once  inclosed  it 


52  Jacob's  Wrestling. 

In  that  hollow,  artificial  age,  the  Jew  would  wipe  his-  pen 
before  he  ventured  to  write  the  name — he  would  leave  out 
the  vowels  of  the  sacred  Jehovah,  and  substitute  those  of  the 
less  sacred  Elohim.  In  that  kind  of  age,  too,  men  bow  to 
the  liame  of  Jesus  often  just  in  that  proportion  in  which  they 
have  ceased  to  recognize  His  true  grandeur  and  majesty  of 
character. 

In  such  an  age  it  would  be  indeed  preposterous  to  spend 
the  strength  upon  an  inquiry  such  as  this:  "Tell  me  Thy 
Name  ?"  Jehovah,  Jove,  or  Lord — what  matter  ?  But  Jacob 
did  not  live  in  this  third  period,  when  names  meant  nothing, 
nor  did  he  live  in  the  second,  when  words  contained  the  deep- 
est truth  the  nation  is  ever  destined  to  receive.  But  he  lived 
in  the  first  age,  when  men  are  sincere,  and  truthful,  and  ear- 
nest, and  names  exhibit  character.  To  tell  Jacob  the  name 
of  God  was  to  reveal  to  him  what  God  is  and  who. 

3.  I  observe  a  third  thing.  This  desire  of  Jacob  was  not 
the  one  we  should  naturally  have  expected  on  such  an  occa- 
sion. He  is  alone — his  past  fault  is  coming  retributively  on 
a  guilty  conscience — he  dreads  the  meeting  with  his  brother. 
His  soul  is  agonized  with  that,  and  that  we  naturally  expect 
will  be  the  subject  and  the  burden  of  his  prayer.  No  such 
thing  !  Not  a  word  about  Esau — not  a  word  about  person- 
al danger  at  all.  All  that  is  banished  completely  for  the 
time,  and  deeper  thoughts  are  grappling  with  his  soul. 
To  get  safe  through  to-morrow  ?  No,  no,  no  !  To  be 
blessed  by  God — to  know  Him,  and  what  He  is — that  is  the 
battle  of  Jacob's  soul  from  sunset  till  the  dawn  of  day. 

And  this  is  our  struggle — the  struggle.  Let  any  true 
man  go  down  into  the  deeps  of  his  own  being,  and  answer 
us — what  is  the  cry  that  comes  from  the  most  real  part  of 
his  nature  ?  Is  it  the  cry  for  daily  bread?  Jacob  asked  for 
that  in  his  first  communing  with  God — preservation,  safety. 
Is  it  even  this — to  be  forgiven  our  sins  ?  Jacob  had  a  sin  to 
be  forgiven,  and  in  that  most  solemn  moment  of  his  exist- 
ence he  did  not  say  a  syllable  about  it.  Or  is  it  this — 
"Hallowed  be  thy  name?"  No,  my  brethren.  Out  of  our 
frail  and  yet  sublime  humanity,  the  demand  that  rises  in  the 
earthlier  hours  of  our  religion  may  be  this — Save  my  soul ; 
but  in  the  most  unearthly  moments  it  is  this — "  Tell  me  thy 
Name."  We  move  through  a  world  of  mystery ;  and  the 
deepest  question  is,  What  is  the  being  that  is  ever  near, 
sometimes  felt,  never  seen — That  which  has  haunted  us 
from  childhood  with  a  dream  of  something  surpassingly  fair, 
which  has  never  yet  been  realized — That  which  sweeps 
through  the  soul  at  times  as  a  desolation,  like  the  blast 


Jacob's  Wrestling.  53 

from  the  wings  of  the  Angel  of  Death,  leaving  us  stricken 
and  silent  in  our  loneliness — That  which  has  touched  us  in 
our  tenderest  point,  and  the  flesh  has  quivered  with  agony, 
and  our  mortal  affections  have  shrivelled  up  with  pain — 
That  which  comes  to  us  in  aspirations  of  nobleness,  and  con- 
ceptions of  superhuman  excellence  ?  Shall  we  say  It  or  He  ? 
What  is  It?  Who  is  He?  Those  anticipations  of  Immor- 
tality and  God — what  are  they  ?  Are  they  the  mere  throb- 
bings  of  my  own  heart,  heard  and  mistaken  for  a  living 
something  beside  me?  Are  they  the  sound  of  my  own 
wishes,  echoing  through  the  vast  void  of  nothingness  ?  or 
shall  I  call  them  God,  Father,  Spirit,  Love  ?  A  living  Be- 
ing within  me  or  outside  me  ?  Tell  me  Thy  Name,  thou 
awful  "mystery  of  Loveliness  !  This  is  the  struggle  of  all 
earnest  life. 

We  come  now  to — 

II.  The  revelation  of  the  mystery. 

1.  It  was  revealed  by  awe.  Very  significantly  are  we 
told,  that  the  Divine  antagonist  seemed,  as  it  were,  anxious 
to  depart  as  the  day  was  about  to  dawn,  and  that  Jacob 
held  Him  more  convulsively  fast,  as  if  aware  that  the  day- 
light was  likely  to  rob  him  of  his  anticipated  blessing,  in 
which  there  seems  concealed  a  very  deep  truth.  God  is  ap- 
proached more  nearly  in  that  which  is  indefinite  than  in 
that  which  is  definite  and  distinct.  He  is  felt  in  awe,  and 
wonder,  and  worship,  rather  than  ia  clear  conceptions. 
There  is  a  sense  in  which  darkness  has  more  of  God  than 
light  has.  He  dwells  in  the  thick  darkness.  Moments  of 
tender,  vague  mystery  often  bring  distinctly  the  feeling  of 
His  presence.  When  day  breaks  and  distinctness  comes, 
the  Divine  has  evaporated  from  the  soul  like  morning  dew. 
In  sorrow,  haunted  by  uncertain  presentiments,  we  feel  the 
Infinite  around  us.  The  gloom  disperses,  the  world's  joy 
comes  again,  and  it  seems  as  if  God  were  gone — the  Being 
who  had  touched  us  with  a  withering  hand,  and  wrestled 
with  us,  yet  whose  presence,  even  when  most  terrible,  was 
more  blessed  than  His  absence.  It  is  true,  even  literally, 
that  the  darkness  reveals  God.  Every  morning  God  draws 
the  curtain  of  the  garish  light  across  His  eternity,  and  wo 
lose  the  Infinite.  We  look  down  on  earth  instead  of  up  to 
heaven,  on  a  narrower  and  more  contracted  spectacle — that 
which  is  examined  by  the  microscope  when  the  telescope  is 
laid  aside — smallness,  instead  of  vastness.  "Man  goeth 
forth  unto  his  work  and  to  his  labor  till  the  evening ;"  and 
in  the  dust  and  pettiness  of  life  we  seem  to  cease  to  behold 


54  Jacob's  Wrestling. 

Him :  then  at  night  He  undraws  the  curtain  again,  and  we 
see  how  much  of  God  and  eternity  the  bright  distinct  day 
has  hidden  from  us.  Yes,  in  solitary,  silent,  vague  darkness, 
the  Awful  One  is  near. 

This  morning,  young  brethren,  we  endeavored  to  act  on 
this  belief;  we  met  in  stillness,  before  the  full  broad  glare  of 
day  had  rested  on  our  world.  Your  first  Communion  im- 
plored His  blessing  in  the  earlier  hour  which  seems  so  pecu- 
liarly His.  Before  the  dull,  and  deadening,  and  earthward 
influences  of  the  worJd  had  dried  up  the  dew  of  fresh  morn- 
ing feeling,  you  tried  to  fortify  your  souls  with  a  sense  of 
His  presence.  This  night,  before  to-morrow's  light  shall 
dawn,  pray  that  He  will  not  depart  until  He  has  left  upon 
your  hearts  the  blessing  of  a  strength  which  shall  be'  yours 
through  the  garish  day,  and  through  dry,  scorching  life,  even 
to  the  close  of  you)*  days. 

2.  Again,  this  revelation  was  made  in  an  unsyllabled 
blessing.  Jacob  requested  two  things.  He  asked  for  a 
blessing  and  he  prayed  to  know  the  name  of  God.  God 
gave  him  the  blessing.  "  He  blessed  him  there,"  but  refused 
to  tell  His  name.  "  Wherefore  dost  thou  ask  after  ray 
name  ?"  ' 

In  this,  too,  seems  to  lie  a  most  important  truth.  Names 
have  a  power,  a  strange  power,  of  hiding  God.  Speech  has 
been  bitterly  defined  as  the  art  of  hiding  thought.  Well, 
that  sarcastic  definition  has  in  it  a  truth.  The  Eternal 
Word  is  the  Reveal&r  of  God's  thought,  and  every  true  word 
of  man  is  originally  the  expression  of  a  thought;  but  by  de- 

frees  the  word  hides  the  thought.  Language  is  valuable 
>r  the  things  of  this  life ;  but  for  the  things  of  the  other 
world,  it  is  an  encumbrance  almost  as  much  as  an  assistance. 
Words  often  hide  from  us  our  ignorance  of  even  earthly 
truth.  The  child  asks  for  information,  and  we  satiate  his 
curiosity  with  words.  Who  does  not  know  how  we  satisfy 
ourselves  with  the  name  of  some  strange  bird  or  plant,  or  the 
name  of  some  new  law  in  nature?  It  is  a  mystery  perplex- 
ing us  before.  We  get  the  name,  and  fancy  we  understand 
something  more  than  we  did  before,  but,  in  truth,  we  are 
more  hopelessly  ignorant;  for  before  we  felt  there  was  a 
something  we  had  not  attained,  and  so  we  inquired  and 
searched  :  now,  we  fancy  we  possess  it,  because  we  have  got 
the  name  by  which  it  is  known,  and  the  word  covers  over  the 
abyss  of  our  ignorance.  If  Jacob  had  got  a  worc7,that  word 
might  have  satisfied  him.  He  would  have  said,  Now  I  un- 
derstand God,  and  know  all  about  Him. 

Besides,  names  and  words  soon  lose  their   meaning.     In 


JacoBs  Wrestling.  55 

trie  process  of  years  and  centuries  the  meaning  dies  oil  tnern 
like  the  sunlight  from  the  hills.  The  hills  are  there— the 
color  and  life  are  gone.  The  words  of  that  creed,  for  exam- 
ple, which  we  read  last  Sunday  (the  Athanasian),  were  living 
words  a  few  centuries  ago.  They  have  changed  their  mean- 
ing, and  are,  to  ninety-nine  out  of  every  hundred,  only  dead 
words.  Yet  men  tenaciously  hold  to  the  expressions  of 
which  they  do  not  understand  the  meaning,  and  which  have 
a  very  different  meaning  now  from  what  they  had  once — 
Person,  Procession,  Substance :  and  they  are  almost  worse 
with  them  than  without  them — for  they  conceal  their  igno- 
rance, and  place  a  barrier  against  the  earnestness  of  inquiry, 
We  repeat  the  creed  by  rote,  but  the  profound  truths  of  -Be- 
ing which  the  creed  contains,  how  many  of  us  understand  ? 

All  this  affords  an  instructive  lesson  to  parents  and  to 
teachers.  In  the  education  of  a  pupil  or  a  child,  the  wise 
way  is  to  deal  with  him  as  God  dealt  with  his  pupil,  the 
child-man  Jacob  :  for  before  the  teaching  of  God,  the  wisest 
man,  what  is  he  but  a  child  ?  God's  plan  was  not  to  give 
names  and  words,  but  truths  of  feeling.  That  night,  in  that 
strange  scene,  He  impressed  on  Jacob's  soul  a  religious  awe 
which  was  hereafter  to  develop,  not  a  set  of  formal  expres- 
sions, which  would  have  satisfied  with  husks  the  cravings  of 
the  intellect  and  shut  up  the  soul.  Jacob  felt  the  Infinite, 
who  was  more  truly  felt  when  least  named.  Words  would 
have  reduced  that  to  the  Finite :  for,  oh,  to  know  all  about 
God  is  one  thing — to  know  the  living  God  is  another.  Our 
rule  seems  to  be  this :  Let  a  child's  religion  be  expansive — 
capable  of  expansion — as  little  systematic  as  possible :  let  it 
lie  upon  the  heart  like  the  light  loose  soil,  which  can  be 
broken  through  as  the  heart  bursts  into  fuller  life.  If  it  be 
trodden  down  hard  and  stiff  in  formularies,  it  is  more  than 
probable  that  the  whole  must  be  burst  through,  and  broken 
violently,  and  thrown  off  altogether,  when  the  soul  requires 
roorh  to  germinate. 

And  in  this  way,  my  young  brethren,  I  have  tried  to  deal 
with  you.  Not  in  creeds,  nor  even  in  the  stiffness  of  the 
catechism,  has  truth  been  put  before  you.  Rather  has  it 
been  trusted  to  the  impulses  of  the  heart — on  which,  we 
believe,  God  works  more  efficaciously  than  we  can  do.  A 
few  simple  truths :  and  then  these  have  been  left  to  work, 
and  germinate,  and  swell.  Baptism  reveals  to  you  this  truth 
for  the  heart,  that  God  is  your  Father,  and  that  Christ  has 
encouraged  you  to  live  as  your  Father's  children.  It  has  re- 
vealed that  name  which  Jacob  knew  not — Love.  Confirma- 
tion has  told  you  another  truth,  that  of  self-dedication  to 


56  Jacob's  Wrestling. 

Him.  Heaven  is  the  service  of  God.  The  highest  blessed- 
ness of  life  is  powers  and  self  consecrated  to  His  will.  These 
are  the  germs  of  truth ;  but  it  would  have  been  miserable 
self-delusion,  and  most  pernicious  teaching,  to  have  aimed  at 
exhausting  truth,  or  systematizing  it.  We  are  jealous  of  over- 
systematic  teaching.  God's  love  to  you — the  sacrifice  of 
your  lives  to  God — but  the  meaning  of  that?  Oh,  a  long, 
long  life  will  not  exhaust  the  meaning — the  Name  of  God. 
Feel  him  more  and  more — all  else  is  but  empty  words. 

Lastly,  the  effect  of  this  revelation  was  to  change  Jacob's 
character.  His  name  was  changed  from  Jacob  to  Israel, 
because  himself  was  an  altered  man.  Hitherto  there  had 
been  something  subtle  in  his  character — a  certain  cunning 
and  craft — a  want  of  breadth,  as  if  he  had  no  firm  footing 
upon  reality.  The  forgiveness  of  God  twenty  years  before 
had  not  altered  this.  He  remained  Jacob,  the  subtle  sup- 
planter  still.  For,  indeed,  a  man  whose  religion  is  chiefly 
the  sense  of  forgiveness,  does  not  thereby  rise  into  integrity 
or  firmness  of  character — a  certain  tenderness  of  character 
may  very  easily  go  along  writh  a  great  deal  of  subtlety. 
Jacob  was  tender  and  devout,  and  grateful  for  God's  pardon, 
and  only  half  honest  still.  But  this  half-insincere  man  is 
brought"  into  contact  with  the  awful  God,  and  his  subtlety 
falls  from  him.  He  becomes  real  at  once.  Every  insincere 
habit  of  mind  shrivels  in  the  face  of  God.  One  clear,  true 
glance  into  the  depths  of  Being,  and  the  whole  man  is  altered. 
The  name  changes  because  the  character  is  changed.  No 
longer  Jacob,  The  Supplanter,  but  Israel,  The  Prince  of  God — 
the  champion  of  the  Lord,  who  had  fought  with  God  and 
conquered ;  and  who,  henceforth,  will  fight  for  God,  and  be 
His  true,  loyal  soldier :  a  larger,  more  unselfish  name — a 
larger  and  more  unselfish  man — honest  and  true  at  last. 
No  man  becomes  honest  till  he  has  got  face  to  face  with 
God.  There  is  a  certain  insincerity  about  us  all — a  some- 
thing dramatic.  One  of  those  dreadful  moments  which 
throw  us  upon  ourselves,'and  strip  off  the  hollowness  ot  our 
outside  show,  must  come  before  the  insincere  is  true. 

And  again,  young  brethren,  such  a  moment,  at  least  of 
truthfulness,  ought  to  have  been  this  morning.  Let  the  old 
pass.  Let  the  name  of  the  world  pass  into  the  Christian 
name.  Baptism  and  Confirmation,  the  one  gives,  and  the 
other  reminds  us  of  the  giving  of  a  better  name  and  a  truer. 
Henceforth  be  men.  Lose  the  natural  frailty,  whatever  it  is. 
See  God,  and  you  will  lose  it. 

To  conclude,  here  is  a  question  for  each  man  separately—- 
What is  the  name  of  vour  God  ?  Not  in  the  sense  of  this 


Christian  Progress  by  Oblivion  oj  the  Past.    5  7 

age,  but  in  the  sense  of  Jacob's  age.  What  is  the  Name  of 
the  Deity  you  worship?  In  the  present  modern  sense  of 
Name,  by  which  nothing  more  than  epithet  is  meant,  of 
course  the  reply  is  easy.  The  Name  of  yours  is  the  God  of 
Christian  worship — the  Threefold  One — the  Author  of  Exist- 
ence, manifested  in  Divine  Humanity,  commingling  with  us 
as  pure  Spirit — the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost.  That,  of 
course,  you  say  is  the  name  of  your  God.  Now,  put  away 
names — give  words  to  the  winds.  What  do  you  adore  in 
your  heart  of  hearts  ?  What  is  the  name  oftenest  on  your 
lips  in  your  unfettered,  spontaneous  moments  ?  If  we  over- 
heard your  secret  thoughts,  who  and  what  is  it  which  is  to 
you  the  greatest  and  the  best  that  you  would  desire  to  real-* 
ize  ?  The  character  of  the  rich  man,  or  the  successful,  or  the 
admired  ?  Would  the  worst  misery  which  could  happen  to 
you  be  the  wreck  of  property — the  worst  shame,  not  to  have 
done  wrong,  but  to  have  sunk  in  the  estimation  of  society  ? 
Then  in  the  classifications  of  earth,  which  separate  men  into 
Jews,  Christians,  Mohammedans,  you  may  rank  as  a  worship* 
perN  of  the  Christian's  God.  But  in  the  nomenclature  ot 
Heaven,  where  names  can  not  stand  for  things,  God  sees  you 
as  an  idolator — your  highest  is  not  His  highest.  The  Name 
that  is  above  every  name  is  not  the  description  of  your  God. 
For  life  and  death  we  have  made  our  choice.  The  life  of 
Christ — the  life  of  Truth  and  Love;  and  if  it  must  be,  as  the 
result  of  that,  the  Cross  of  Christ,  with  the  obloquy  and 
shame  that  wait  on  truth — that  is  the  name  before  which  we 
bow.  In  this  world  "there  are  gods  many,  and  lords 
many  :  but  to  us  there  is  but  one  Lord,  the  Father  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ." 


IV. 

CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS   BY   OBLIVION   OF 
THE   PAST. 

"Brethren,  I  count  not  myself  to  have  apprehended:  but  this  one  thing  \ 
ao ;  forgetting  those  things  which  are  behind,  and  reaching  forth  unto  those 
things  which  are  before,  I  press  towards  the  mark  for  the  prize  of  the  high 
calling  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus.  "—Phil.  iii.  13,  14. 

THE  first  thing  which  strikes  us  on  reading  these  verses 
is,  that  the  Apostle  Paul  places  himself  on  a  level  with  the 
persons  whom  he  addresses.  He  speaks  to  them  as  frail, 
weak  men,  and  he  gives  them  in  himself  a  specimen  of  what 

3* 


58     Christian  Progress  by  Oblivion  of  the  Past. 

frailty  and  weakness  can  achieve  in  the  strength  of  Christ, 
And  it  is  for  this  reason  that  the  passage  before  us  is  one  of 
the  most  encouraging  in  all  the  writings  of  St.  Paul.  For 
there  is  one  aspect  in  which  the  apostle  is  presented  to  us, 
which  is  perhaps  a  depressing  one.  When  we  look  at  his  al- 
most superhuman  career,  reverence  and  admiration  we  must 
feel ;  but  so  far  does  he  seem  removed  from  ordinary  life  that 
imitation  appears  out  of  the  question.  Let  us  select  but  two 
instances  of  this  discouraging  aspect  of  the  apostle's  life. 
Most  of  us  know  the  feeling  of  unaccountable  depression 
which  rests  upon  us  when  we  find  ourselves  alone  in  a  foreign 
town,  with  its  tide  of  population  ebbing  and  flowing  past  us, 
a  mass  of  human  life,  in  which  we  ourselves  are  nothing. 
But  that  was  St.  Paul's  daily  existence.  He  had  consecrated 
himself  to  an  almost  perpetual  exile.  He  had  given  up  the 
endearments  of  domestic  life  forever.  Home,  in  this  world, 
St.  Paul  had  none.  With  a  capacity  for  the  tenderest  feel- 
ings of  our  nature,  he  had  chosen  for  his  lot  the  task  of  living 
among  strangers,  and  as  soon  as  they  ceased  to  be  strangers, 
quitting  them  again.  He  went  on  month  by  month,  attach- 
ing congregations  to  himself,  and  month  by  month  dooming 
himself  to  severance.  And  yet  I  know  not  that  we  read  of 
ono  single  trace  of  depression  or  discouragement  suffered  to 
rest  on  the  apostle's  mind.  He  seems  to  have  been  ever  fresh 
and  sanguine,  the  salient  energy  of  his  soul  rising  above  the 
need  of  all  human  sympathy.  It  is  the  magnificent  spectacle 
of  missionary  life,  with  more  than  missionary  loneliness. 
There  is  something  almost  awful  in  the  thought  of  a  man 
who  was  so  thoroughly  in  the  next  world  that  he  needed  not 
the  consolations  of  this  world.  And  yet,  observe,  there  is 
nothing  encouraging  for  us  in  this.  It  is  very  grand  to  look 
upon,  very  commanding,  very  full  of  awe  ;  but  it  is  so  much 
above  us,  so  little  like  any  thing  human  that  we  know  of, 
that  we  content  ourselves  with  gazing  on  him  as  on  the  glid- 
ing swallow's  flight,  which  we  wonder  at,  but  never  think  of 
imitating. 

Now  let  us  look  at  one  other  feature  in  St.  Paul's  character 
— his  superiority  to  those  temptations  which  are  potent  with 
ordinary  men.  We  say  nothing  of  his  being  above  the  love 
of  money,  of  his  indifference  to  a  life  of  comfort  and  personal 
indulgence.  Those  temptations  only  assail  the  lower  part  of 
our  nature,  and  it  is  not  saintliness  to  be  above  these :  com- 
mon excellence  is  impossible  otherwise.  But  when  we  come 
to  look  for  those  temptations  which  master  the  higher  and 
the  nobler  man — ambition,  jealousy,  pride — it  is  not  that  we 
see  them  conquered  by  the  apostle ;  they  scarcely  seem  to 


Christian  Progress  by  Oblivion  of  the  Past.    59 

have  even  lodged  in  his  bosom  at  all.  It  was  open  to  the 
apostle,  if  he  had  felt  the  ambition,  to  make  for  himself  a 
name,  to  become  the  leader  of  a  party  in  Corinth  and  in  the 
world.  And  yet  remember  we  not  how  sternly  he  put  down 
the  thought,  and  how  he  labored  to  merge  his  individuality  in 
the  cause,  and  make  himself  an  equal  of  inferior  men? 
"  Who  then  is  Paul,  and  who  is  Apollos,  but  ministers,  serv- 
ants, by  whom  ye  believed  ?" 

Again,  in  respect  of  jealousy.  Jealousy  seems  almost  in- 
separable from  human  love.  It  is  but  the  other  side  of  love, 
the  shadow  cast  by  the  light  when  the  darker  body  inter- 
venes. There  came  to  him  in  prison  that  most  cutting  of  all 
news  to  a  minister's  heart,  that  others  were  trying  to  sup- 
plant him  in  the  affections  of  his  converts.  But  his  was  that 
lofty  love  which  cares  less  for  reciprocation  than  for  the  well- 
being  of  the  objects  loved.  The  rival  teachers  were  teach- 
ing from  emulation  ;  still  they  could  not  but  bless  by  preach- 
ing Christ  to  his  disciples.  "  What  then  ?  Notwithstanding 
every  way,  whether  in  pretense  or  in  truth,  Christ  is  preach- 
ed ;  and  I  therein  do  rejoice,  yea,  and  will  rejoice."  There 
is  not  a  trace  of  jealousy  in  these  words. 

Once  more  :  Degrading  things  were  laid  to  his  charge. 
The  most  liberal-minded  of  mankind  was  charged  with  big 
otry.  The  most  generous  of  men  was  suspected  of  avarice. 
If  ever  pride  were  venial,  it  had  been  then.  Yet  read  through 
the  whole  of  the  Second  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  and  say 
if  one  spark  of  pride  be  visible.  He  might  have  shut  himself 
up  in  high  and  dignified  silence.  He  might  have  refused  to 
condescend  to  solicit  a  renewal  of  the  love  which  had  once 
grown  cold;  and  yet  we  look  in  vain  for  the  symptoms  of 
offended  pride.  Take  this  one  passage  as  a  specimen  :  "  Be- 
hold, this  third  time  I  am  willing  to  come  unto  you ;  .  .  .  . 
and  I  will  very  gladly  spend  and  be  spent  for  you,  though 
the  more  abundantly  I  love  you,  the  less  I  am  beloved." 

In  this  there  is  very  little  encouragement.  A  man  so 
thoroughly  above  human  resentment,  human  passions,  human 
weakness,  does  not  seem  to  us  an  example.  The  nearer  Hu- 
manity approaches  a  perfe'ct  standard,  the  less  does  it  com« 
mand  our  sympathy.  A  man  must  be  weak  before  we  can 
feel  encouraged  to  attempt  what  he  has  done.  It  is  not  the 
Redeemer's  sinlessness,  nor  His  unconquerable  fidelity  to 
duty,  nor  His  superhuman  nobleness,  that  win  our  desire  to 
imitate.  Rather  His  tears  at  the  grave  of  friendship,  His 
shrinking  from  the  sharpness  of  death,  and  the  feeling  of  hu- 
man doubt  which  swept  across  His  soul  like  a  desolation, 
These  make  Him  one  of  us,  and  therefore  our  example. 


60    Christian  Progress  by  Oblivion  of  the  1'asi. 

And  it  is  on  this  account  that  this  passage  seems  to  us  so 
full  of  encouragement.  It  is  the  precious  picture  of  a  frail 
and  struggling  apostle—  precious  both  to  the  man  and  to  the 
minister.  To  the  man,  because  it  tells  him  that  what  he  feels 
St.  Paul  felt,  imperfect,  feeble,  far  from  what  he  would  wish 
to  be;  yet  with  sanguine  hope,  expecting  progress  in  the 
saintly  life.  Precious  to  the  minister,  because  it  tells  him 
that  his  very  weakness  may  be  subservient  to  a  people's 
strength.  Not  in  his  transcendent  gifts — not  in  his  saintly 
endowments — not  even  in  his  apostolic  devotedness,  is  St. 
Paul  so  close  to  our  hearts,  as  when  he  makes  himself  one 
with  us,  and  says,  "  Brethren,  I  count  not  myself  to  have  ap- 
prehended." 

And  we  know  not  how  otherwise  any  minister  could  hope 
to  do  good  when  he  addresses  men  who  are  infinitely  his  su- 
periors in  almost  every  thing.  We  know  not  how  else  he 
could  urge  on  to  a  sanctity  which  he  has  not  himself  attained: 
we  know  not  how  he  could  dare  to  speak  severely  of  weak- 
nesses by  which  he  himself  is  overpowered,  and  passions  of 
which  he  feels  in  himself  all  the  terrible  tyranny,  if  it  were 
not  that  he  expects  to  have  tacitly  understood  that  in  his 
own  case  which  the  apostle  urged  in  every  form  of  expres- 
sion :  Brethren,  be  as  I  am,  forl  am  as  ye  are — struggling, 
baffled,  but  panting  for  emancipation. 

We  confine  ourselves  to  two  subjects : 

I.  The  apostle's  object  in  this  life. 
II.  The  means  which  he  used  for  attaining  it. 

I.  The  apostle's  object  or  aim  in  this  life  was  "  perfection." 
In  the  verse  before — "  Not  as  though  I  had  already  attained, 
either  were  already  perfect." — Perfection  was  his  unreached 
mark. 

And  less  than  this  no  Christian  can  aim  at.  There  are 
given  to  us  "exceeding  great  and  precious  promises,"  that  by 
means  of  these  we  might  be  partakers  of  the  Divine  Nature. 
Not  merely  to  be  equal  to  the  standard  of  our  day,  nor  even 
to  surpass  it.  Not  to  be  superior  to  the  men  amongst  whom 
,ve  live.  Not  to  forgive  those  who  have  little  to  be  forgiven. 
Not  to  love  our  friends,  but  to  be  the  children  of  our  Father 
— to  be  pure  even  as  Christ  is  pure — to  be  "  perfect  even  as 
tur  Father  which  is  in  heaven  is  perfect." 

It  is  easily  perceivable  why  this  perfection  is  unattainable 
in  this  life.  Faultlessness  is  conceivable,  being  merely  the 
negation  of  evil.  But  perfection  is  positive,  the  attainment 
of  all  conceivable  excellence.  It  is  long  as  eternity — expan- 
sive as  God.  Perfection  is  our  mark:  yet  never  will  the 


Christian  Progress  by  Oblivion  of  the  Past.     6  r 

aim  be  so  true  and  steady  as  to  strike  the  golden  centre. 
Perfection  of  character,  yet,  even  to  the  dying  hour,  it  will 
be  but  this,  "I  count  not  myself  to  have  apprehended." 
Christian  life  is  like  those  questions  in  mathematics  which 
never  can  be  exactly  answered.  All  you  can  attain  is  an  ap- 
proximation to  the  truth.  You  may  labor  on  for  years  and 
never  reach  it ;  yet  your  labor  is  not  in  vain.  Every  figure 
you  add  makes  the  fraction  nearer  than  the  last  to  the  million- 
millionth  ;  and  so  it  is  with  holiness.  Christ  is  our  mark — 
the  perfect  standard  of  God  in  Christ.  But  be  as  holy  as 
you  will,  there  is  a  step  nearer,  and  another,  and  another,  and 
so  infinitely  on. 

To  this  object  the  apostle  gave  himself  with  singleness  of 
aim.  "  This  one  thing  I  do"  The  life  of  man  is  a  va- 
grant, changeful  desultoriness ;  like  that  of  children  sporting 
on  an  enamelled  meadow,  chasing  now  a  painted  butterfly, 
which  loses  its  charm  by  being  caught — now  a  wreath  of 
mist,  which  falls  damp  upon  the  hand  with  disappointment— 
now  a  feather  of  thistle-down,  which  is  crushed  in  the  grasp. 
In  the  midst  of  all  this  fickleness,  St.  Paul  had  found  a  pur- 
pose to  which  he  gave  the  undivided  energy  of  his  soul. 
"  This  one  thing  I  do — I  press  towards  the  mark." 

This  is  intelligible  enough  in  the  case  of  a  minister;  for 
whether  he  be  in  the  pulpit  or  beside  a  sick  man's  bed — or 
furnishing  his  mind  in  the  study,  evidently  and  unmistakably 
it  is  his  profession  to  be  doing  only  one  thing.  But  in  the 
manifold  life  of  the  man  of  the  world  and  business,  it  is  not 
so  easy  to  understand  how  this  can  be  carried  out.  To  an- 
swer this,  we  observe  there  is  a  difference  between  doing  and 
being.  Perfection  is  being,  not  doing ;  it  is  not  to  effect  an 
'act,  but  to  achieve  a  character.  If  the  aim  of  life  were  to  do 
something,  then,  as  in  an  earthly  business,  except  in  doing 
this  one  thing  the  business  would  be  at  a  stand-still.  The 
student  is  not  doing  the  one  thing  of  student  life  when  he 
has  ceased  to  think  or  read.  The  laborer  leaves  his  work 
undone  when  the  spade  is  not  in  his  hand,  and  he  sits  beneath 
the  hedge  to  rest.  But  in  Christian  life,  every  moment  and 
every  act  is  an  opportunity  for  doing  the  one  thing,  of  be- 
coming Christ-like.  Every  day  is  full  of  a  most  impressive 
experience.  Every  temptation  to  evil  temper  which  can  ac- 
sail  us  to-day  will  be  an  opportunity  to  decide  the  question 
whether  we  shall  gain  the  calmness  and  the  rest  of  Christ,  or 
whether  we  shall  be  tossed  by  the  restlessness  and  agitation 
of  the  world.  Nay,  the  very  vicissitudes  of  the  seasons,  day 
and  night, heat  and  cold,  affecting  us  variably,  and  producing 
exhilaration  or  depression,  are  so  contrived  as  to  conduce  to 


62     Christian  Progress  by  Oblivion  of  the  Past. 

wards  the  being  which  we  become,  and  decide  whether  we 
shall  be  masters  of  ourselves,  or  whether  we  shall  be  swept  at 
the  mercy  of  accident  and  circumstance,  miserably  suscepti* 
ble  of  merely  outward  influences.  Infinite  as  are  the  vari- 
eties of  life,  so  manifold  are  the  paths  to  saintly  character ; 
and  he  who  has  not  found  out  how  directly  or  indirectly  to 
make  every  thing  converge  towards  his  soul's  sanctification, 
has  as  yet  missed  the  meaning  of  this  life. 

In  pressing  towards  this  u  mark,"  the  apostle  attained  a 
prize ;  and  here  I  offer  an  observation,  which  is  not  one  of 
mere  subtlety  of  refinement,  but  deeply  practical.  The  mark 
was  perfection  of  character,  the  prize  was  blessedness.  But 
the  apostle  did  not  aim  at  the  prize  of  blessedness,  he  aimed 
at  the  mark  of  perfectness.  In  becoming  perfect  he  attained 
happiness,  but  his  primary  aim  was  not  happiness. 

We  may  understand  this  by  an  illustration.  In  student  - 
life  there  are  those  who  seek  knowledge  for  its  own  sake,  and 
there  are  those  who  seek  it  for  the  sake  of  the  prize,  and  the 
honor,  and  the  subsequent  success  in  life  that  knowledge 
brings.  To  those  who  seek  knowledge  for  its  own  sake  the 
labor  is  itself  reward.  Attainment  is  the  highest  reward. 
Doubtless  the  prize  stimulates  exertion ;  encourages  and 
forms  a  part  of  the  motive,  but  only  a  subordinate  one :  and 
knowledge  would  still  have  "  a  price  above  rubies,"  if  there 
were  no  prize  at  all.  They  who  seek  knowledge  for  the  sake 
of  a  prize  are  not  genuine  lovers  of  knowledge — they  only 
love  the  rewards'  of  knowledge :  had  it  no  honor  or  substan- 
tial advantage  connected  with  it,  they  would  be  indolent. 

Applying  this  to  our  subject,  I  say  this  is  a  spurious  good- 
ness which  is  good  for  the  sake  of  reward.  The  child  that 
speaks  truth  for  the  sake  of  the  praise  of  truth,  is  not  truth 
lul.  The  man  who  is  honest  because  honesty  is  the  best  pol 
icy,  has  not  integrity  in  his  heart.  He  who  endeavors  to  be 
hum  ble,  and  holy,  and  perfect,  in  order  to  win  heaven,  has 
only  a  counterfeit  religion.  God  for  His  own  sake — Good- 
ness because  it  is  good — Truth  because  it  is  lovely — this 
is  the  Christian's  aim.  The  prize  is  only  an  incentive;  insep- 
arable from  success,  but  not  the  aim  itself. 

\Vith  this  limitation,  however,  wre  remark  that  it  is  a  Chris 
tinn  duty  to  dwell  much  more  on  the  thought  of  future  bless- 
edness than  most  men  do.  If  ever  the  apostle's  step  began 
to  flag,  the  radiant  diadem  before  him  gave  new  vi'^or  to  his 
heart,  and  we  know  how  at  the  close  of  his  career  the  vision 
becanfe  more  vivid  and  more  entrancing.  "Henceforth  there 
is  laid  up  for  me  a  crown  of  glory  !"  It  is  our  privilege,  if 
we  are  on  our  way  to  God,  to  keep  steadily  before  us  the 


Christian  Progress  by  Oblivion  of  the  Past.    63 

thought  of  homo.  Make  it  a  matter  of  habit  Force  your- 
self at  night,  alone,  in  the  midst  of  the  world's  bright  sights, 
to  pause  "to  think  of  the  heaven  which  is  yours.  Let  it  calm 
you  and  ennoble  you,  and  give  you  cheerfulness  to  endure 
It  was  so  that  Moses  was  enabled  to  live  amongst  all  the  fas- 
cinations 0f  his  courtly  life,  with  a  heart  unseduced  from  his 
laborious  destiny.  By  faith  ..."  esteeming  the  reproach  of 
Christ  greater  riches  than  the  treasures  of  Egypt."  Why? 
"  For  he  had  respect  unto  the  recompense  of  the  reward."  It 
was  so  that  our  Master  strengthened  his  human  soul  for  its 
sharp  earthly  endurance.  "  For  the  joy  that  was  set  before 
him,  He  endured  the  cross,  despising  the  shame."  If  we 
would  become  heavenly-minded,  we  must  let  the  imagination 
realize  the  blessedness  to  which  we  are  moving  on.  Let  us 
think  much  of  rest — the  rest  which  is  not  of  indolence,  but  of 
powers  in  perfect  equilibrium.  The  rest  which  is  deep  as 
summer  midnight,  yet  full  of  life  and  force  as  summer  sun- 
shine, the  sabbath  of  eternity.  Let  us  think  of  the  love  of 
God,  which  we  shall  feel  in  its  full  tide  upon  our  souls.  Let 
us  think  of  that  marvellous  career  of  sublime  occupation 
which  shall  belong  to  the  spirits  of  just  men  made  perfect ; 
when  we  shall  fill  a  higher  place  in  God's  universe,  and  more 
consciously,  and  with  more  distinct  insight,  co-operate  with 
God  in  the  rule  over  His  Creation.  "I  press  towards  the 
mark — for  the  prize." 

II.  We  pass  to  our  second  topic.  The  means  which  St. 
Paul  found  available  for  the  attainment  of  Divine  and  per- 
fect character.  His  great  principle  was  to  "  forget  the  things 
which  were  behind,  and  to  reach  forward  to  the  things  which 
were  before."  The  wisdom  of  a  divine  life  lies  hid  in  this 
principle.  I  shall  endeavor  to  expand  the  sentiment  to  make 
it  intelligible. 

WThat  are  the  things  behind,  which  are  to  be  forgotten  ? 

1.  If  we  would  progress  in  Christian  life,  we  must  forget 
the  days  of  innocence  that  lie  behind  us.  Let  not  this  be 
misunderstood.  Innocent,  literally,  no  man  ever  is.  We 
come  into  the  world  with  tendencies  to  evil;  but  there  was 
a  time  in  our  lives  when  those  were  only  tendencies.  A 
proneness  to  sin  we  had  ;  but  we  had  not  yet  sinned.  The 
moment  had  not  yet  arrived  when  that  cloud  settles  down 
upon  the  heart,  which  in  all  of  after-life  is  never  entirely  re- 
moved:  the  sense  of  guilt,  the  anguish  of  lost  innocence,  the 
restless  feeling  of  a  heart  no  longer  pure.  Popularly,  we  call 
that  innocence ;  and  when  men  become  bitterly  aware  that 
early  innocence  of  heart  is  gone,  they  feel  as  if  all  were  lost* 


64    Christian  Progress  by  Oblivion  of  the  Past 

and  so  look  back  to  what  they  reckon  holier  days  with  A  p<^ 
culiar  fondness  of  regret.  I  believe  there  is  much  that  is 
merely  feeble  and  sentimental  in  this  regret.  Our  early  in- 
nocence is  nothing  more  than  ignorance  of  evil.  Christian 
life  is  not  a  retaining  of  that  ignorance  of  evil,  nor  even  a  re« 
turning  of  it  again.  We  lose  our  mere  negative  sinlessness. 
We  put  on  a  firm  manly  holiness.  Human  innocence  is  not 
io  know  evil ;  Christian  saintliness  is  to  know  evil  and  good, 
and  prefer  good.  It  is  possible  for  a  parent,  with  over-fas- 
tidious refinement,  to  prolong  the  duration  of  this  innocence 
unnaturally.  He  may  lock  up  his  library,  and  prevent  the 
entrance  to  forbidden  books ;  he  may  exercise  a  jealous  cen- 
sorship over  every  book  and  every  companion  that  comes  into 
the  house ;  he  may  remove  the  public  journal  from  the  table, 
lest  an  eye  may  chance  to  rest  upon  the  contaminating  por- 
tion of  its  pages  ;  but  he  has  only  put  off  the  evil  hour.  He 
has  sent  into  the  world  a  young  man  of  eighteen  or  twenty, 
ignorant  of  evil  as  a  child,  but  not  innocent  as  an  angel  who 
abhors  the  evil.  No ;  we  can  not  get  back  our  past  igno- 
rance, neither  is  it  desirable  we  should.  No  sane  mrnd  wish- 
es for  that  which  is  impossible.  And  it  is  no  more  to  be  re- 
gretted than  the  blossom  is  to  be  regretted  wrhen  fruit  is 
hardening  in  its  place;  no  more  to  be  regretted  than  the 
slender  gracefulness  of  the  sapling,  when  you  have  got  in- 
stead the  woody  fibre  of  the  heart  of  oak  of  which  the  ship 
is  made  ;  no  more  to  be  regretted  than  the  green  blade  when 
the  ear  has  come  instead,  bending  down  in  yellow  ripeness. 
Our  innocence  is  gone,  withered  with  the  business-like  con- 
tact with  the  great  world.  It  is  one  of  the  things  behind. 
Forget  it.  It  was  worth  very  little.  And  now  for  some- 
thing of  a  texture  more  firm,  more  enduring.  We  will  not 
mourn  over  the  loss  of  simplicity,  if  we  have  got  instead 
souls  indurated  by  experience,  disciplined,  even  by  fall,  to 
refuse  the  evil  and  to  choose  the  good. 

2.  In  the  next  place,  it  is  wise  to  forget  our  days  of  youth, 
Up  to  a  certain  period  of  life  it  is  the  tendency  of  man  to 
look  forward.  There  is  a  marvellous  prodigality  with  which 
we  throw  away  our  present  happiness  when  we  are  young, 
svhich  belongs  to  those  wrho  feel  that  they  are  rich  in  happi- 
ness, and  never  expect  to  be  bankrupts.  It  almost  seems 
one  of  the  signatures  of  our  immortality  that  we  squande? 
time  as  if  there  were  a  dim  consciousness  that  we  are  in  pos- 
session of  an  eternity  of  it ;  but  as  we  arrive  at  middle  age, 
it  is  the  tendency  of  man  to  look  back. 

To  a  man  of  middle  life,  existence  is  no  longer  a  dream, 
but  a  reality.  He  has  not  much  more  new  to  look  forward 


Christian  Progress  by  Oblivion  of  the  Past.     65 

to,  for  the  character  of  his  life  is  generally  fixed  by  that 
time.  His  profession,  his  home,  his  occupations,  will  be  for 
the  most  part  what  they  are  now.  He  will  make  few  new 
acquaintances — no  new  friends.  It  is  the  solemn  thought 
connected  with  middle  age  that  life's  last  business  is  begun 
in  earnest;  and  it  is  then,  midway  Jbetween  the  cradle  and 
the  grave,  that  a  man  begins  to  look  back  and  marvel  with  a 
kind  of  remorseful  feeling  that  he  let  the  days  of  youth  go  by 
so  half  enjoyed.  It  is  the  pensive  autumn  feeling — it  is  the 
sensation  of  half  sadness  that  we  experience  when  the  long- 
est day  of  the  year  is  past,  and  every  day  that  follows  is 
shorter,  and  the  lights  fainter,  and  the  feebler  shadows  tell 
that  nature  is  hastening  with  gigantic  footsteps  to  her  win- 
ter grave.  So  does  man  look  back  upon  his  youth.  When 
the  first  gray  hairs  become  visible — when  the  unwelcome 
truth  fastens  itself  upon  the  mind  that  a  man  is  no  longer 
going  up  the  hill,  but  down,  and  that  the  sun  is  already  west- 
ering, he  looks  back  on  things  behind.  Now  this  is  a  nat- 
ural feeling,  but  is  it  the  high  Christian  tone  of  feeling  ?  In 
the  spirit  of  this  verse,  we  may  assuredly  answer,  No.  We 
who  have  an  inheritance  incorruptible  and  undefiled,  and 
that  fadeth  not  away,  what  have  we  to  do  with  things  past? 
When  we  were  children,  we  thought  as  children.  But  now 
there  lies  before  us  manhood,  with  its  earnest  work ;  and 
then  old  age,  and  then  the  grave,  and  then  home. 

And  so  manhood  in  the  Christian  life  is  a  better  thing 
than  boyhood,  because  it  is  a  riper  thing  ;  and  old  age  ought 
to  be  a  brighter,  and  a  calmer,  and  a  more  serene  thing  than 
manhood.  There  is  a  second  youth  for  man,  better  and  holi- 
er than  his  first,  if  he  will  look  on  and  not  back.  There  is  a 
peculiar  simplicity  of  heart  and  a  touching  singleness  of  pur- 
pose in  Christian  old  age,  which  has  ripened  gradually  and 
not  fitfully.  It  is  then  that  to  the  wisdom  of  the  serpent  is 
added  the  harmlessness  of  the  dove ;  it  is  then  that  to  the 
firmness  of  manhood  is  joined  almost  the  gentleness  of  wom- 
anhood ;  it  is  then  that  the  somewhat  austere  and  sour  char- 
acter of  growing  strength,  moral  and  intellectual,  mellows 
into  the  rich  ripeness  of  an  old  age  made  sweet  and  tolerant 
by  experience ;  it  is  then  that  man  returns  to  first  principles. 
There  comes  a  love  more  pure  and  deep  than  the  boy  could 
ever  feel ;  there  comes  a  conviction,  with  a  strength  beyond 
that  which  the  boy  could  never  know,  that  the  earliest  lesson 
of  life  is  infinite,  Christ  is  all. 

3.  Again,  it  is  wise  to  forget  past  errors.  There  is  a  kind 
of  temperament  which,  when^indulged,  greatly  hinders  growth 
in  real  godliness.  It  is  that  rueful,  repentant,  self-accusing 


66   Christian  Progress  by  Oblivion  of  the  Past. 

temper  which  is  always  looking  back,  and  microscopically  ob- 
serving how  that  which  is  done  might  have  been  better  done. 
Something  of  this  we  ought  to  have.  A  Christian  ought  to 
feel  always  that  he  has  partially  failed,  but  that  ought  not 
to  be  the  only  feeling.  Faith  ought  ever  to  be  a  sanguine, 
cheerful  thing ;  and  perhaps  in  practical  life  we  could  not 
give  a  better  account  of  faith  than  by  saying  that  it  is, 
amidst  much  failure,  having  the  heart  to  try  again.  Our 
best  deeds  are  marked  by  imperfection ;  but  if  they  really 
were  our  best,  "  forget  the  things  that  are  behind  " — we  shall 
do  better  next  time. 

Under  this  head  we  include  all  those  mistakes  which  be- 
long to  our  circumstances.  We  can  all  look  back  to  past  life 
and  see  mistakes  that  have  been  made,  to  a  certain  extent 
perhaps,  irreparable  ones.  We  can  see  where  our  education 
was  fatally  misdirected.  The  profession  chosen  for  you  per- 
haps was  not  the  fittest,  or  you  are  out  of  place,  and  many 
things  might  have  been  better  ordered.  Now  on  this  apos- 
tolic principle  it  is  wiss  to  forget  all  that.  It  is  not  by  re- 
gretting what  is  irreparable  that  true  work  is  to  be  done, 
but  by  making  the  best  of  what  we  are.  It  is  not  by  com- 
plaining that  we  have  not  the  right  tools,  but  by  using  well 
the  tools  w e  have.  What  we  are,  and  where  we  are,  is  God's 
providential  arrangement — God's  doing,  though  it  may  be 
man's  misdoing ;  and  the  manly  and  the  wise  way  is  to  look 
your  disadvantages  in  the  face,  and  see  what  can  be  made  out 
of  them.  Life,  like  war,  is  a  series  of  mistakes,  and  he  is  not 
the  best  Christian  nor  the  best  general  who  makes  the  few- 
est false  steps.  Poor  mediocrity  may  secure  that ;  but  he 
is  the  best  wrho  wins  the  most  splendid  victories  by  the  re- 
trieval of  mistakes.  Forget  mistakes  :  organize  victory  out 
of  mistakes. 

Finally,  past  guilt  lies  behind  us,  and  is  well  forgotten. 
There  is  a  way  in  which  even  sin  may  be  banished  from  the 
memory.  If  a  man  looks  forward  to  the  evil  he  is  going  to 
commit,  and  satisfies  himself  that  it  is  inevitable,  and  so 
treats  it  lightly,  he  is  acting  as  a  fatalist.  But  if  a  man  pa 
tially  does  this,  looking  backward,  feeling  that  sin  when  it 
is  past  has  become  part  of  the  history  of  God's  universe,  and 
is  not  to  be  wept  over  forever,  he  only  does  that  which  the 
Giver  of  the  Gospel  permits  him  to  do.  Bad  as  the  results 
have  been  in  the  world  of  making  light  of  sin,  those  of  brood- 
ing over  it  too  much  have  been  worse.  Remorse  has  done 
more  harm  than  even  hardihood.  It  was  remorse  which 
fixed  Judas  in  an  unalterable  destiny  ;  it  was  remorse  which 
filled  the  monasteries  for  ages  with  men  and  women  whose 


Christian  Progress  by  Oblivion  of  the  Past.    67 

fives  became  useless  to  their  fellow-creatures  ;  it  is  remorse 
which  so  remembers  by-gone  faults  as  to  paralyze  the  ener- 
gies for  doing  Christ's  work ;  for  when  you  break  a  Chris- 
tian's spirit,  it  is  all  over  with  progress.  Oh,  we  want  every 
thing  that  is  hopeful  and  encouraging  for  our  work,  for  God 
knows  it  is  not  an  easy  one.  And  therefore  it  is  that  the 
Gospel  comes  to  the  guiltiest  of  us  all  at  the  very  outset  with 
the  inspiring  news  of  pardon.  You  remember  how  Christ 
treated  sin.  Sin  of  oppression  and  hypocrisy  indignantly, 
but  sin  of  frailty — "  'Hath  no  man  condemned  thee  ?'  '  No 
man,  Lord.'  '  Neither  do  I  condemn  thee ;  go,  and  sin  no 
more.' "  As  if  he  would  bid  us  think  more  of  what  we  may 
be  than  of  what  we  have  been. 

There  was  the  wisdom  of  life  in  the  proverb  with  which 
the  widow  of  Tekoah  pleaded  for  the  restoration  of  Absalom 
from  banishment  before  David.  Absalom  had  slain  his 
brother  Amnon.  Well,  Amnon  was  dead  before  his  time  ; 
but"  the  severity  of  revenge  could  never  bring  him  back 
again.  "  We  must  all  die,"  said  the  wise  woman,  "  and  are 
as  water  spilt  upon  the  ground,  which  can  not  be  gathered 
up  again."  Christian  brethren,  do  not  stop  too  long  to  weep 
over  spilt  water.  Forget  your  guilt,  and  wait  to  see  what 
eternity  has  to  say  to  it.  You  have  other  work  to  do  now. 

So  let  us  work  out  the  spirit  of  the  apostle's  plan.  Inno- 
cence, youth,  success,  error,  guilt — let  us  forget  them  all. 

Not  backward  are  our  glances  bent, 
But  onward  to  our  Father's  home. 

In  conclusion,  remember  Christian  progress  is  only  possi- 
ble in  Christ.  It  is  a  very  lofty  thing  to  be  a  Christian  ;  for 
a  Christian  is  a  man  who  is  restoring  God's  likeness  to  his 
character  ;  and  therefore  the  apostle  calls  it  here  a  high  call~ 
ing.  High  as  heaven  is  the  calling  wherewith  we  are  called. 
But  this  very  height  makes  it  seem  impracticable.  It  is  nat- 
ural to  say,  All  that  was  well  enough  for  one  so  transcend- 
ently  gifted  as  Paul  to  hope  for :  but  I  am  no  gifted  man  ; 
I  have  no  iron  strength  of  mind  ;  I  have  no  sanguine  hope- 
fulness of  character;  I  am  disposed  to  look  on  the  dark  side 
of  things  ;  I  am  undetermined,  weak,  vacillating  ;  and  then 
I  have  a  whole  army  of  passions  and  follies  to  contend  with. 
We  have  to  remind  such  men  of  one  thing  they  have  forgot- 
ten. It  is  the  high  calling  of  God,  if  you  will ;  but  it  is  the 
high  calling  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus.  What  the  world  calls 
virtue  is  a  name  and  a  dream  without  Christ.  The  founda- 
tion of  all  human  excellence  must  be  laid  deep  in  the  blood 
of  the  Redeemer's  cross,  and  in  the  power  of  His  Resurrec- 


68  Triumph  over  Hindrances. 

tion.  First  let  a  man  know  that  all  his  past  is  wrong  and 
sinful ;  then  let  him  fix  his  eye  on  the  love  of  God  in  Christ 
loving  him — even  him,  the  guilty  one.  Is  there  no  strength 
in  that — no  power  in  the  knowledge  that  all  that  is  gone  by 
is  gone,  and  that  a  fresh,  clear  future  is  open  ?  It  is  not  the 
progress  of  virtue  that  God  asks  for,  but  progress  in  saintli- 
ness,  empowered  by  hope  and  love. 

Lastly,  let  each  man  put  this  question  to  himself,  "  Dare 
I  look  on  ?"  With  an  earnest  Christian,  it  is  "  reaching 
forth  to  those  things  which  are  before."  Progress  ever. 
And  then  just  as  we  go  to  rest  in  this  world  tired,  and  wake 
up  fresh  and  vigorous  in  the  morning,  so  does  the  Christian 
go  to  sleep  in  the  world's  night,  weary  with  the  work  of 
life,  and  then  on  the  resurrection-day  he  wakes  in  his  second 
and  his  brighter  morning.  It  is  well  for  a  believer  to  look 
on.  Dare  you  ?  Remember,  out  of  Christ,  it  is  not  wisdom, 
but  madness  to  look  on.  You  must  look  back,  for  the  long- 
est and  the  best  day  is  either  past  or  passing.  It  will  be 
winter  soon — desolate,  uncheered,  hopeless,  winter — old  age, 
with  its  dreariness  and  its  disappointments,  and  its  queru- 
lous broken-heartedness ;  and  there  is  no  second  spring  for 
you — no  resurrection-morning  of  blessedness  to  dawn  on  the 
darkness  of  your  grave.  God  has  only  one  method  of  salva- 
tion, the  Cross  of  Christ.  God  can  have  only  one ;  for  the 
Cross  of  Christ  means  death  to  evil,  life  to  good.  There  is 
no  other  way  to  salvation  but  that ;  for  that  in  itself  is,  and 
alone  is,  salvation.  Out  of  Christ,  therefore,  it  is  woe  to  the 
man  who  reaches  forth  to  the  things  which  are  before.  To 
such  I  say ;  My  unhappy  brethren,  Omnipotence  itself  can 
not  change  the  darkness  of  your  destiny. 


V. 
TRIUMPH   OVER   HINDRANCES— ZACCHEUS. 

"  And  Zaccheus  stood,  and  said  unto  the  Lord ;  Behold.  Lord,  the  half  of 
my  goods  I  give  to  the  poor :  and  if  I  have  taken  any  thing  from  any  man 
by  false  accusation,  I  restore  him  fourfold." — Luke  xix.  8. 

THERE  are  persons  to  whom  a  religious  life  seems  smooth 
and  easy.  Gifted  by  God  constitutionally  with  a  freedom 
from  those  inclinations  which  in  other  men  are  tyrannous 
and  irresistible,  endued  with  those  aspirations  which  other 
men  seem  to  lack,  it  appears  as  if  they  were  born  saints. 


Triumph  over  Hindrances.  69 

There  are  others  to  whom  it  is  all  a  trial — a  whole  world 
of  passions  keep  up  strife  within.  The  name  of  the  spirit 
which  possesses  them  is  Legion.  It  is  a  hard  tight  from 
the  cradle  to  the  grave — up-hill  work — toil  all  the  way; 
and  at  the  last  it  seems  as  if  they  had  only  just  kept  their 
ground. 

There  are  circumstances  which  seem  as  if  intended  as  a 
very  hot-bed  for  the  culture  of  religious  principle,  in  which 
the'difficulty  appears  to  be  to  escape  being  religious. 

There  are  others  in  which  religious  life  seems  impossible. 
For  the  soul,  tested  by  temptation,  is  like  iron  tried  by 
weights.  No  iron  bar  is  absolutely  infrangible.  Its 
strength  is  tested  by  the  weight  which  it  will  bear  without 
breaking.  No  soul  is  absolutely  impeccable.  It  seems  as  if 
all  we  can  dare  to  ask  even  of  the  holiest  is  how  much  temp-' 
tation  he  can  bear  without  giving  way.  There  are  societies 
amidst  which  some  are  forced  to  dwell  daily,  in  which  the 
very  idea  of  Christian  rest  is  negatived.  There  are  occupa- 
tions in  which  purity  of  heart  can  scarcely  be  conceived. 
There  are  temptations  to  which  some  are  subjected  in  a  long 
series,  in  which  to  have  stood  upright  would  have  demand- 
ed not  a  man's  but  an  angel's  strength. 

Here  are  two  cases :  one  in  which  temperament  and  cir- 
cumstances are  favorable  to  religion  ;  another  in  which  both 
are  adverse.  If  life  were  always  the  brighter  side  of  these 
pictures,  the  need  of  Christian  instruction  and  Christian 
casuistry — i.  &,  the  direction  for  conduct  under  various  sup- 
posabie  cases,  would  be  superseded.  The  end  of  the  institu- 
tion of  a  Church  would  be  gone ;  for  the  Church  exists  for 
the  purposes  of  mutual  sympathy  and  mutual  support.  But 
the  fact  is,  life  is  for  the  most  part  a  path  of  varied  trial. 
How  to  lead  the  life  divine,  surrounded  by  temptations 
from  within  and  from  without — how  to  breathe  freely  the 
atmosphere  of  heaven,  while  the  feet  yet  touch  earth — 
how  to  lead  the  life  of  Christ,  who  shrunk  from  no  scene 
of  trying  duty,  and  took  the  temptations  of  man's  life  as 
they  came — or  how  even  to  lead  the  ordinary  saintly  life, 
winning  experience  from  fall,  and  permanent  strength  out 
of  momentary  weakness,  and  victory  out  of  defeat,  this  is 
the  problem. 

The  possibility  of  such  a  life  is  guaranteed  by  the  history 
of  Zaccheus.  Zaccheus  was  tempted  much,  and  yet  Zacche- 
us  contrived  to  be  a  servant  of  Christ.  If  we  wanted  a  mot- 
to to  prefix  to  this  story,  we  should  append  this :  The  suc- 
cessful pursuit  of  religion  under  difficulties. 

These,  +hen,  are  the  two  branches  of  our  thoughts  to-day: 


70  Triumph  over  Hindrances, 

I.  The  hindrances  to  a  religious  life. 
IL  The  Christian  triumph  over  difficulties. 

I.  The  hindrances  of  Zaccheus  were  twofold :  partly  cir- 
cumstantial— partly  personal.  Partly  circumstantial,  arising 
from  his  riches  and  his  profession  of  a  publican. 

Now  the  publican's  profession  exposed  him  to  temptations 
in  these  three  ways.  First  of  all,  in  the  way  of  opportunity. 
A  publican  was  a  gatherer  of  the  Roman  public  imposts. 
Not,  however,  as  now,  when  all  is  fixed,  and  the  Government 
pays  the  gatherer  of  the  taxes.  The  Roman  publican  paid 
so  much  to  the  Government  for  the  privilege  of  collecting 
them,  and  then  indemnified  himself,  and  appropriated  what 
overplus  he  could,  from  the  taxes  which  he  gathered.  There 
was,  therefore,  evidently  a  temptation  to  overcharge,  and  a 
temptation  to  oppress.  To  overcharge,  because  the  only  re- 
dress the  payer  of  the  taxes  had  was  an  appeal  to  law,  in 
which  his  chance  was  small  before  a  tribunal  where  the 
judge  was  a  Roman,  and  the  accuser  an  official  of  the  Ro- 
man Government.  A  temptation  to  oppress,  because  the 
threat  of  law  was  nearly  certain  to  extort  a  bribe.  Be- 
sides this,  most  of  us  must  have  remarked  that  a  certain 
harshness  of  manner  is  contracted  by  those  who  have  the 
rule  over  the  poor.  They  come  in  contact  with  human  souls 
only  in  the  way  of  business.  They  have  to  do  with  their  ig- 
norance, their  stupicfity,  their  attempts  to  deceive  ;  and  hence 
the  tenderest-hearted  men  become  impatient  and  apparently 
unfeeling.  Hard  men,  knowing  that  redress  is  difficult,  be- 
come harder  still,  and  exercise  their  authority  with  the  inso- 
lence of  office ;  so  that,  wThen  to  the  insolence  of  office  and 
the  likelihood  of  impunity  there  was  superadded  the  pecu- 
niary advantage  annexed  to  a  tyrannical  extortion,  any  one 
may  understand  how  great  the  publican's  temptation  was. 

Another  temptation  was  presented  :  to  live  satisfied  with 
a  low  morality.  The  standard  of  right  and  wrong  is  eternal 
in  the  heavens — unchangeably  one  and  the  same.  But  here 
on  earth  it  is  perpetually  variable — it  is  one  in  one  age  or 
nation,  another  in  another.  Every  profession  has  its  conven- 
tional morality,  current  nowhere  else.  That  which  is  per- 
mitted by  the  peculiar  standard  of  truth  acknowledged  at 
the  bar  is  falsehood  among  plain  men  ;  that  which  would  be 
reckoned  in  the  army  purity  and  tenderness  would  be  else- 
where licentiousness  and  cruelty.  There  is  a  parliamentary 
honor  quite  distinct  from  honor  between  man  and  man. 
Trade  has  its  honesty,  which  rightly  named  is  fraud.  And 
in  all  these  cases  the  temptation  is  to  live  content  with  the 


Triumph  over  Hindrances.  7 1 

Btandard  of  a  man's  own  profession  or  society  ;  and  this  is 
the  real  difference  between  the  worldly  man  and  the  relig- 
ious man.  He  is  the  worldling  who  lives  below  that  stand' 
ard,  or  no  higher  ;  he  is  the  servant  of  God  who  lives  above 
his  age.  But  you  will  perceive  that  amongst  publicans  a 
very  little  would  count  much — that  which  would  be  laxity 
to  a  Jew  and  shame  to  a  Pharisee,  might  be  reckoned  very 
strict  morality  among  the  Publicans. 

Again,  Zaccheus  was  tempted  to  that  hardness  in  evil 
which  comes  from  having  no  character  to  support.  But  the 
extent  to  which  sin  hardens  depends  partly  on  the  estimate 
taken  of  it  by  society.  The  falsehood  of  Abraham,  the  guilt 
and  violence  of  David,  were  very  different  in  their  effect  on 
character  in  an  age  when  truth  and  purity  and  gentleness 
were  scarcely  recognized,  from  what  they  would  be  now. 
Then  Abraham  and  David  had  not  so  sinned  against  their 
consciences  as  a  man  would  sin  now  in  doing  the  same  acts, 
because  their  consciences  were  less  enlightened.  A  man  might 
be  a  slave-trader  in  the  Western  hemisphere,  and  in  other  re- 
spects  a  humane,  upright,  honorable  man.  In  the  last  cen- 
tury, the  holy  Newton  of  Olney  trafficked  in  slaves  after  be- 
coming religious.  A  man  who  had  dealings  in  this  way  in 
this  country  could  not  remain  upright  and  honorable,  even  if 
it  were  conceivable  that  he  began  as  such  ;  because  he  would 
either  conceal  from  the  world  his  share  in  the  traffic,  and  so, 
doing  it  secretly,  would  become  a  hypocrite,  or  else  he  must 
cover  his  wickedness  by  effrontery,  doing  it  in  defiance  of 
public  shame,  and  so  getting  seared  in  conscience.  Because 
in  the  one  case,  the  sin  remaining  sin,  yet  countenanced  bj 
society,  does  not  degrade  the  man  nor  injure  his  conscience 
even  to  the  same  extent  to  which  it  would  ruin  the  other, 
whose  conscience  must  become  seared  by  defiance  of  public 
shame.  It  is  scarcely  possible  to  unite  together  the  idea  of 
an  executioner  of  public  justice  and  a  humble,  holy  man. 
And  yet  assuredly,  not  from  any  thing  that  there  is  unlaw- 
ful in  the  office ;  ah  executioner's  trade  is  as  lawful  as  a  sol- 
dier's. A  soldier  is  placed  there  by  his  country  to  slay  his 
country's  enemies,  and  a  doomster  is  placed  there  to  slay 
the  transgressors  of  his  country's  laws.  Wherein  lies  the  dif 
ierence  which  leaves  the  one  a  man  of  honor,  and  almost  ne- 
cessitates the  other  to  be  taken  from  the  rank  of  reprobates, 
or  else  gradually  to  become  such  ?  Simply  the  difference  of 
public  opinion — public  scorn.  Once  there  was  no  shame  in 
the  office  of  the  execittioner,  and  the  judge  of  Israel,  with  his 
own  hands,  hewed  Agag  to  pieces  before  the  Lord  in  Gilgal. 
Phineas  executed  summary  and  sanguinary  vengeance,  and 


72  Triumph  over  Hindrances. 

his  name  has  been  preserved  in  a  hymn  by  his  country's 
gratitude.  The  whole  congregation  became  executioners  in 
the  case  of  blasphemy,  and  no  abandonment  was  the  result. 
But  the  voice  of  public  opinion  pronouncing  an  office  or  a 
man  scandalous,  either  finds  jr  else  makes  them  what  it  has 
pronounced  them.  The  executioner  i ••  or  becomes  an  out- 
cast, because  reckoned  such. 

More  vile  and  more  degraded  than  even  the  executioner's 
office  with  us  was  the  office  of  publican  among  the  Jews.  A 
penitent  publican  could  not  go  to  the  house  of  God  without 
the  risk  of  hearing  muttered  near  him  the  sanctimonious 
thanksgiving  of  Pharisaism :  "  God,  I  thank  Thee  that  I  am 
not  as  this  publican."  A  publican,  even  though  high  in  of- 
fice, and  rich  besides,  could  not  receive  into  his  house  a  teach- 
er of  religion  without  being  saluted  by  the  murmurs  of  the 
crowd,  as  in  this  case:  "He  is  gone  to  eat  with  a  man  that 
is  a  sinner."  A  sinner  !  The  proof  of  that  ?  The  only  proof 
was  that  he  was  a  publican.  There  are  men  and  women  in 
this  congregation  who  have  committed  sins  that  never  have 
been  published  to  the  world ;  and  therefore,  though  they  be 
still  untouched  by  the  love  of  God,  they  have  never  sunk 
down  to  degradation ;  whereas  the  very  same  sins,  branded 
with  public  shame,  have  sunk  others  not  worse  than  them 
down  to  the  lowest  infamy.  There  is  no  principle  in  educa- 
tion and  in  life  more  sure  than  this — to  stigmatize  is  to  ruin  ; 
to  take  away  character  is  to  take  away  all.  There  is  no 
power  committed  to  man,  capable  of  use  and  abuse,  more  cer- 
tain and  more  awful  than  this :  "  Whose  soever  sins  ye  remit, 
they  are  remitted  unto  them." 

This,  then,  was  a  temptation  arising  out  of  Zaccheus's  cir- 
cumstances— to  become  quite  hardened  by  having  no  char- 
acter to  support. 

The  personal  hindrance  to  a  religious  life  lay  in  the  rec- 
ollection of  past  guilt.  Zaccheus  had  done  wrong,  and 
no  four-fold  restitution  will  undo  that  where  only  remorse 
exists. 

There  is  a  difference  between  remorse  and  penitence.  Re- 
morse is  the  consciousness  of  wron^-doing  with  no  sense  of 
love.  Penitence  is  that  same  consciousness,  writh  the  feeling 
of  tenderness  and  gratefulness  added. 

And  pernicious  as  have  been  the  consequences  of  self-right- 
eousness, more  destructive  still  have  been  the  consequences 
of  remorse.  If  self-righteousness  has  slain  its  thousands,  re- 
morse has  slain  its  tens  of  thousands ;  #>r,  indisputably,  self- 
righteousness  secures  a  man  from  degradation.  Have  yon 
never  wondered  at  the  sure  walk  of  those  persons  who,  to  trust 


Triumph  over  Hindrances.  73 

to  their  own  estimate  of  themselves,  are  always  right  ?  They 
never  sin,  their  children  are  better  brought  up  than  any  other 
children,  their  conduct  is  irreproachable.  Pride  saves  them 
from  a  fall.  That  element  of  self-respect,  healthful  always,  is 
their  safeguard.  Yes,  the  Pharisee  was  right.  He  is  not  an 
extortioner,  nor  unjust,  and  he  is  regular  in  his  payments  and 
his  duties.  That  was  self-righteousness:  it  kept  him  from 
samtliness,  but  it  saved  him  from  degradation  too.  Remorse, 
on  the  contrary,  crushes.  If  a  man  lose  the  world's  respect, 
he  can  retreat  back  upon  the  consciousness  of  the  God  with- 
in. But  if  a  man  lose  his  own  respect,  he  sinks  down  and 
down,  and  deeper  yet,  until  he  can  get  it  back  again  by  feel- 
ing that  he  is  sublimely  loved,  and  he  dares  at  last  to  respect 
that  which  God  vouchsafes  to  care  for.  Remorse  is  like  the 
clog  of  an  insoluble  debt.  The  debtor  is  proverbially  ex- 
travagant— one  more,  and  one  more  expense.  What  can  it 
matter  when  the  great  bankruptcy  is  near  ?  And  so,  in  the 
same  way  one  sin,  and  one  more.  Why  not?  why  should 
he  pause  when  all  is  hopeless?  what  is  one  added  to  that 
which  is  already  infinite  ? 

Past  guilt  becomes  a  hindrance  too  in  another  way  —  it 
makes  fresh  sin  easier.  Let  any  one,  out  of  a  series  of  trans- 
gressions, compare  the  character  of  the  first  and  the  last. 
The  first  time  there  was  the  shudder  and  the  horror,  and  the 
violent  struggle,  and  the  feeling  of  impossibility.  I  can  not 
— can  not  do  that.  The  second  time  there  was  faint  reluc- 
tance, made  more  faint  by  the  recollection  of  the  facility  and 
the  pleasantness  of  the  first  transgression,  and  the  last  time 
there  is  neither  shudder  nor  reluctance,  but  the  eager  plunge 
down  the  precipice  on  the  brink  of  which  he  trembled  once. 
All  this  was  against  Zaccheus.  A  publican  had  lost  self-re- 
spect, and  sin  was  therefore  easy. 

II.  Pass  we  on  to  the  triumph  over  difficulties.  In  this 
there  is  man's  part,  and  God's  part. 

Man's  part  in  Zaccheus's  case  was  exhibited  in  the  discov- 
ery of  expedients.  The  Redeemer  came  to  Jericho,  and  Zac- 
cheus desired  to  see  that  blessed  countenance,  whose  very 
looks,  he  was  told,  shed  peace  upon  restless  spirits  and  fever- 
ed hearts.  But  Zaccheus  was  small  of  stature,  and  a  crowd 
surrounded  him.  Therefore  he  ran  before,  and  climbed  up 
into  a  sycamore-tree.  You  must  not  look  on  this  as  a  mere 
act  of  curiosity.  They  who  thronged  the  steps  of  Jesus  were 
a  crowd  formed  of  different  materials  from  the  crowd  which 
would  have  been  found  in  the  amphitheatre.  He  was  there 
as  a  religious  teacher  or  prophet ;  and  they  who  took  pains  to 


74  Triumph  over  Hindrances. 

see  Him,  at  least  were  the  men  who  looked  for  sa/vation  ?t, 
Israel.  This,  therefore,  was  a  religious  act. 

We  have  heard  of  the  "  pursuit  of  knowledge  under  diffi- 
culties," The  shepherd,  with  no  apparatus  besides  his  thread 
and  beads,  has  Iain  on  his  back,  on  the  starry  night,  mapped 
the  heavens,  and  unconsciously  become  a  distinguished  as- 
tronomer. The  peasant-boy,  wTith  no  tools-  but  his  rude  knife, 
and  a  visit  now  and  then  to  the  neighboring  town,  has  begun 
his  scientific  education  by  producing  a  watch  that  would 
mark  the  time.  The  blind  man,  trampling  upon  impossibili- 
ties, has  explored  the  economy  of  the  bee-hive,  and,  more 
wondrous  still,  lectured  on  the  laws  of  light.  The  timid 
stammerer,  with  pebbles  in  his  mouth,  and  the  roar  of  the  sea- 
surge  in  his  ear,  has  attained  correctest  elocution,  and  sway- 
ed as  one  man  the  changeful  tides  of  the  mighty  masses  of 
the  Athenian  democracy.  All  these  were  expedients.  It  is 
thus  in  the  life  religious.  No  man  ever  trod  exactly  the 
path  that  others  trod  before  him.  There  is  no  exact  chart 
laid  down  for  the  voyage.  The  rocks  and  quicksands  are 
shifting.  He  who  enters  upon  the  ocean  of  existence  arches 
his  sails  to  an  untried  breeze.  He  is  "the  first  that  evei 
burst  into  that  lonely  sea."  Every  life  is  a  neio  life.  Ev- 
ery day  is  a  new  day — like  nothing  that  ever  went  before, 
or  can  ever  follow  after.  No  books — no  systems — no  fore- 
cast— set  of  rules,  can  provide  for  all  cases ;  every  case  is  a 
new  case.  And  just  as  in  any  earthly  enterprize,  the  conduct 
of  a  campaign,  or  the  building  of  a  bridge,  unforeseen  diffi- 
culties and  unexpected  disasters  must  be  met  by  that  inex- 
haustible fertility  of  invention  which  belongs  to  those  who  do 
not  live  to  God  second-hand.  We  must  live  to  God  first- 
hand. If  we  are  in  earnest,  as  Zaccheus  was,  we  must  invent 
peculiar  means  of  getting  over  peculiar  difficulties. 

There  are  times  when  the  truest  courage  is  shown  in  re- 
treating from  a  temptation.  There  are  times  when,  not  be- 
ing on  a  level  with  other  men  in  qualifications  of  temper, 
mind,  character,  we  must  compensate  by  inventions  and 
Christian  expedients.  You  must  climb  over  the  crowd  of 
difficulties  which  stand  between  your  soul  and  Christ — you 
must  "  run  before  "  and  forecast  trials,  and  get  into  the  syca- 
more solitude.  Without  a  living  life  like  this,  you  will  never 
get  a  glimpse  of  the  King  in  his  beauty ;  you  will  never  see 
Him.  You  will  be  just  on  the  point  of  seeing  Him,  and  yet 
be  shut  out  by  some  unexpected  hindrance. 

Observe  again,  an  illustration  of  this :  Zacchens's  habit  of 
restoration.  "  Behold,  Lord,  the  half  of  my  goods  I  give  to 
the  poor ;  and  if  I  have  taken  any  thing  from  any  man  bif 


Triumph  over  Hindrances.  75 

false  accusation,  I  restore  him  fourfold."  There  are  two  ways 
of  interpreting  this ;  it  may  have  reference  to  the  future.  It 
commonly  is  so  interpreted.  It  is  supposed  that,  touched  by 
the  love  of  Christ,  Zaccheus  proclaimed  this  as  his  resolve — I 
hereby  promise  to  give  the  hall  of  my  goods  to  the  poor. 
But  it  is  likely  that  this  interpretation  has  been  put  upon  it 
in  order  to  make  it  square  with  the  evangelical  order  of  emo- 
tions— grace  first,  liberality  after.  The  interpretation  seems 
rather  put  on  the  passage  than  found  there.  The  word  is 
not  future,  but  singular :  Behold,  Lord,  I  give.  And  it  seema 
more  natural  to  take  it  as  a  statement  of  the  habit  of  Zac- 
cheus's  previous  life.  If  so,  then  all  is  plain.  This  man,  so 
maligned,  had  been  leading  a  righteous  life  after  all,  accord- 
ing to  the  Mosaic  standard.  On  the  day  of  defense  he  stands 
forward  and  vindicates  himself  from  the  aspersion.  "  These 
are  my  habits."  And  the  Son  of  Man  vindicates  him  before 
all.  Yes,  publican  as  he  is,  he  too  is  a  "  son  of  Abraham." 

Here,  then,  were  expedients  by  which  he  overcame  the  hin- 
drances of  his  position.  The  tendency  to  the  hardness  and 
selfishness  of  riches  he  checked  by  a  rule  of  giving  half  away. 
The  tendency  to  extortion  he  met  by  fastening  on  himself 
the  recollection,  that  when  the  hot  moment  of  temptation 
had  passed  away,  he  would  be  severely  dealt  with  before  the 
tribunal  of  his  own  conscience,  and  unrelentingly  sentenced 
to  restore  fourfold. 

God's  part  in  this  triumph  over  difficulties  is  exhibited  in 
the  address  of  ,Jesus :  "  Zaccheus,  make  haste  and  come 
down ;  for  to-day  I  must  abide  at  thy  house." 

Two  things  we  note  here  :  Invitation  and  Sympathy.  In- 
vitation— "  come  down."  Say  what  we  will  of  Zaccheus 
seeking  Jesus,  the  truth  is,  Jesus  was  seeking  Zaccheus. 
For  what  other  reason  but  the  will  of  God  had  Jesus  come 
to  Jericho  but  to  seek  Zaccheus  and  such  as  he?  Long 
years  Zaccheus  had  been  living  in  only  a  dim  consciousness 
of  being  a  servant  of  God  and  goodness.  At  last  the  Saviour 
is  born  into  the  world — appears  in  Judea — comes  to  Jericho, 
Zaccheus's  town — passes  down  Zaccheus's  street,  and  by 
Zaccheus's  house,  and  up  to  Zaccheus's  .person.  What  is  all 
this  but  seeking — what  the  Bible  calls  election  ?  Now  there 
is  a  specimen  in  this  of  the  ways  of  God  with  men  in  this 
world.  We  do  not  seek  God — God  seeks  us.  There  is  a 
Spirit  pervading  time  and  space  who  seeks  the  souls  of  men. 
At  last  the  seeking  becomes  reciprocal — the  Divine  Presence 
is  felt  afar,  and  the  soul  begins  to  turn  towards  it.  Then 
when  we  begin  to  seek  God,  we  become  conscious  that  God 
is  seeking  us.  It  is  at  that  period  that  we  distinguish  the 


76  Triumph  over  Hindrances. 

voice  of  personal  invitation — "Zaccheus!"  It  is  then  that 
the  Eternal  Presence  makes  its  abode  with  us,  and  the  hour 
of  unutterable  joy  begins,  when  the  banquet  of  Divine  Love 
is  spread  within  the  soul,  and  the  Son  of  God  abides  there  as 
at  a  feast.  "  Behold,  I  stand  at  the  door  and  knock :  If  any 
man  hear  my  voice,  I  will  come  in  and  sup  with  him,  and  he 
with  me." 

This  is  Divine  Grace.  We  are  saved  by  grace,  not  will. 
"  It  is  not  of  him  that  willeth,  nor  of  him  that  runneth,  but 
of  God  that  showeth  mercy."  In  the  matter  of  man's  salva- 
tion God  is  first.  He  comes  to  us  self-invited — He  names  us 
by  name — He  isolates  us  from  the  crowd,  and  sheds  upon  us 
the  sense  of  personal  recognition — He  pronounces  the  bene- 
diction, till  we  feel  that  there  is  a  mysterious  blessing  on  our 
house,  and  on  our  meal,  and  on  our  heart.  "  This  day  is  sal- 
vation come  to  this  house,  forasmuch  as  he  also  is  a  son  of 
Abraham." 

Lastly,  the  Divine  part  was  done  in  Sympathy.  By  sym- 
pathy we  commonly  mean  little  more  than  condolence.  If 
the  tear  start  readily  at  the  voice  of  grief,  and  the  purse- 
strings  open  at  the  accents  of  distress,  we  talk  of  a  man's 
having  great  sympathy.  To  weep  with  those  who  weep : — 
common  sympathy  does  not  mean  much  more. 

The  sympathy  of  Christ  was  something  different  from  this. 
Sympathy  to  this  extent,  no  doubt,  Zaccheus  could  already 
command.  If  Zaccheus  were  sick,  even  a  Pharisee  would 
have  given  him  medicine.  If  Zaccheus  had  been  in  need,  a 
Jew  would  not  have  scrupled  to  bestow  an  alms.  If  Zac- 
cheus had  been  bereaved,  many  even  of  that  crowd  that  mur- 
mured when  they  saw  him  treated  by  Christ  like  a  son  of 
Abraham  would  have  given  to^  his  sorrow  the  tribute  of  a 
sigh. 

The  sympathy  of  Jesus  was  fellow-feeling  for  all  that  is  hu- 
man. He  did  not  condole  with  Zaccheus  upon  his  trials — 
He  did  not  talk  to  him  "about  his  soul" — He  did  not  preach 
to  him  about  his  sins — He  did  not  force  his  way  into  his  house 
to  lecture  him — He  simply  said,  "  I  will  abide  at  thy  house:" 
thereby  identifying  himself  with  a  publican:  thereby  ac- 
knowledging a  publican  for  a  brother.  Zaccheus  a  publican? 
Zaccheus  a  sinner?  Yes;  but  Zaccheus  is  a  man.  His  heart 
throbs  at  cutting  words.  He  has  a  sense  of  human  honor. 
He  feels  the  burning  shame  of  the  world's  disgrace.  Lost? 
Yes: — but  the  Son  of  Man,  with  the  blood  of  the  human  race 
in  His  veins,  is  a  Brother  to  the  lost. 

It  is  in  this  entire  and  perfect  sympathy  with  all  Humani- 
ty that  the  heart  of  Jesus  differs  from  every  other  heart  that 


Triumph  over  Hindrances.  77 

is  found  among  the  sons  of  men.  And  it  is  this — oh,  it  ia 
this,  which  is  the  chief  blessedness  of  having  such  a  Saviour. 
If  you  are  poor  you  can  only  get  a  miserable, sympathy  from 
the  rich ;  with  the  best  intentions  they  can  not  understand 
you.  Their  sympathy  is  awkward.  If  you  are  in  pain,  it  i& 
only  a  factitious  and  constrained  sympathy  you  get  from 
those  in  health— feelings  forced,  adopted  kindly,  but  imper 
feet  still.  They  sit  beside  you,  when  the  regular  condolence 
is  done,  conversing  on  topics  with  each  other  that  jar  upon 
the  ear.  They  sympathize  ?  Miserable  comforters  are  they 
all.  If  you  are  miserable,  and  tell  out  your  grief,  you  have 
the  shame  of  feeling  that  you  were  not  understood ;  and  that 
you  have  bared  your  inner  self  to  a  rude  gaze.  If  you  are  ir. 
doubt,  you  can  not  tell  your  doubts  to  religious  people ;  no, 
not  even  to  the  ministers  of  Christ — for  they  have  no  place 
for  doubts  in  their  largest  system.  They  ask,  What  right 
have  you  to  doubt?  They  suspect  your  character.  They 
shake  the  head  ;  and  whisper  it  about  gravely,  that  you  read 
strange  books — that  you  are  verging  on  infidelity.  If  you 
are  depressed  with  guilt,  to  whom  shall  you  tell  out  your 
tale  of  shame  ?  The  confessional,  with  its  "innumerable  evils, 
and  yet  indisputably  soothing  power,  is  passed,  away ;  and 
there  is  nothing  to  supply  its  place.  You  can  not  speak  to 
your  brother  man,  for  you  injure  him  by  doing  so,  or  else 
weaken  yourself.  You  can  not  tell  it  to  society,  for  society 
judges  in  the  gross,  by  general  rules,  and  can  not  take  into 
account  the  delicate  differences  of  transgression.  It  banishes 
the  frail  penitent,  and  does  homage  to  the  daring  hard  trans- 
gressor. 

Then  it  is  that,  repulsed  on  all  sides  ^nd  lonely,  we  turn 
to  Him  whose  mighty  Heart  understands  and  feels  all. 
"  Lord,  to  whom  shall  we  go  ?  Thou  hast  the  words  of 
eternal  life."  And  then  it  is  that,  exactly  like  Zaccheus, 
misunderstood,  suspected  by  the  world,  suspected  by  our 
own  hearts — the  very  voice  of  God  apparently  against  us — • 
isolated  and  apart,  we  speak  to  Him  from  the  loneliness  of 
the  sycamore-tree,  heart  to  heart,  and  pulse  to  pulse. 
"  Lord,  Thou  knovvest  all  things :"  Thou  knowest  my  se- 
cret charities,  and  my  untold  self-denials.  "  Tliou  knowest 
that  I  love  thee." 

Remark,  in  conclusion,  the  power  of  this  sympathy  on 
Zaccheus's  character.  Salvation  that  day  came  to  Zaccheus's 
house.  What  brought  it  ?  What  touched  him  ?  Of  course, 
"  the  gospel."  Yes ;  but  what  is  the  gospel  ?  What  was 
his  gospel?  Speculations  or  revelations  concerning  the  Di 
vine  Nature  ? — the  scheme  of  the  atonement  ? — or  of  the  in- 


78     The  Shadow  and  Substance  of  the  Sabbath. 

carnation  ? — or  baptismal  regeneration  ?  Nay,  but  the  Di 
vine  sympathy  of  the  Divinest  Man.  The  personal  love  of 
God,  manifested  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ.  The  floodgates 
of  his  soul  were  opened,  and  the  whole  force  that  was  in  the 
man  flowed  forth.  Whichever  way  you  take  that  expres- 
sion, "  Behold,  Lord,  the  half  of  my  goods  I  give  to  the 
poor  :"  If  it  referred  to  the  future,  then,  touched  by  unex- 
pected sympathy,  finding  himself  no  longer  an  outcast,  he 
made  thai  resolve  in  gratefulness.  If  to  the  past,  then,  still 
touched  by  sympathy,  he  who  had  never  tried  to  vindicate 
himself  before  the  world,  was  softened  to  tell  out  the  tale  of 
his  secret  munificence.  This  is  what  I  have  been  doing  all 
the  time  they  slandered  me,  and  none  but  God  knew  it. 

It  required  something  to  make  a  man  like  that  talk  of 
things  which  he  had  not  suffered  his  own  left  hand  to  know, 
before  a  scorning  world.  But,  anyhow,  it  was  the  manifest- 
ed Fellowship  of  the  Son  of  Man  which  brought  salvation  to 
that  house. 

Learn  this :  When  we  live  the  gospel  so,  and  preach  the 
gospel  so,  sinners  will  be  brought  to  God.  We  know  not 
yet  the  gospel  power ;  for  who  trusts,  as  Jesus  did,  all  to 
that  ?  Who  ventures,  as  He  did,  upon  the  power  of  Love, 
in  sanguine  hopefulness  of  the  most  irreclaimable?  who 
makes  that,  the  divine  humility  of  Christ,  "  the  gospel  ?" 
More  than  by  eloquence,  more  than  by  accurate  doctrine, 
more  than  by  ecclesiastical  order,  more  than  by  any  doc- 
trine trusted  to  by  the  most  earnest  and  holy  men,  shall  we 
and  others,  sinful  rebels,  outcasts,  be  won  to  Christ  by  that 
central  truth  of  all  the  Gospel — the  entireness  of  the  Redeem- 
er's sympathy.  In  other  words,  the  Love  of  Jesus, 


VI. 

THE  SHADOW  AND  SUBSTANCE  OF  THE 
SABBATH. 

"  Let  no  man,  therefore,  judge  you  in  meat,  or  in  drink,  or  in  respect  of  a 
»olyday,  or  of  the  new  moon,  or  of  the  sabbath-days :  which  are  a  shadow  of 
things  to  come;  but  the  body  is  of  Christ." — Col.  ii.  16,  17. 

No  sophistry  of  criticism  can  explain  away  the  obvious 
meaning  of  these  words.  The  apostle  speaks  of  certain  in- 
stitutions as  Jewish  :  shadowy :  typical :  and  among  these 
we  are  surprised  to  find  the  sabbath-days.  It  has  been  con- 
tended that  there  is  here  no  allusion  to  the  seventh  day  of 


The  Shadow  and  Substance  of  the  Sabbath.     79 

rest,  but  only  to  certain  Jewish  holydays,  not  of  Divine  in- 
stitution. But,  in  the  first  place,  the  "  holydays  "  have  been 
already  named  in  the  same  verse;  in  the  next  we  are  con- 
vinced that  no  plain  man,  reading  this  verse  for  the  first 
time,  without  a  doctrine  to  support,  would  have  put  such  an 
interpretation  upon  the  word :  and  we  may  be  sure  that  St. 
Paul  would  never  have  risked  so  certain  a  misconstruction 
of  his  words  by  the  use  of  an  ambiguous  phrase.  This, 
then,  is  the  first  thing  we  lay  down — a  very  simple  postu- 
late, one  would  think — when  the  apostle  says  the  sabbath- 
days,  he  means  the  sabbath-days. 

Peculiar  difficulties  attend  the  discussien  of  the  subject  of 
the  sabbath.  If  we  take  the  strict  and  ultra  ground  of  sab- 
bath observance,  basing  it  on  the  rigorous  requirements  of 
the  fourth  commandment,  we  take  ground  which  is  not  true ; 
and  all  untruth,  whether  it  be  an  over-statement  or  a  half- 
truth,  recoils  upon  itself.  If  we  impose  on  men  a  burden 
which  can  not  be  borne,  and  demand  a  strictness  which,  pos- 
sible in  theory,  is  impossible  in  practice,  men  recoil ;  we  have 
asked  too  much,  and  they  give  us  nothing — the  result  is  an 
open,  wanton,  and  sarcastic  desecration  of  the  Day  of  Rest. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  state  the  truth,  that  the  sabbath 
is  obsolete — a  shadow  which  has  passed — without  modifica- 
tion or  explanations,  evidently  there  is  a  danger  no  less  per- 
ilous. It  is  true  to  spiritual,  false  to  unspiritual  men ;  and  a 
wide  door  is  opened  for  abuse.  And  to  recklessly  loosen  the 
hold  of  a  nation  on  the  sanctity  of  the  Lord's  day  would  be 
most  mischievous — to  do  so  willfully  would  be  an  act  almost 
diabolical.  For  if  we  must  choose  between  Puritan  over- 
precision  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other  that  laxity 
which,  in  many  parts  of  the  Continent,  has  marked  the  day 
from  other  days  only  by  more  riotous  worldliness,  and  a  more 
entire  abandonment  of  the  whole  community  to  amusement, 
no  Christian  would  hesitate  :  no  English  Christian,  at  least ; 
to  whom  that  day  is  hallowed  by  all  that  is  endearing  in 
early  associations,  and  who  feels  how  much  it  is  the  very 
bulwark  of  his  country's  moral  purity. 

Here,  however,  as  in  other  cases,  it  is  the  half-truth  which 
is  dangerous — the  other  half  is  the  corrective ;  the  whole 
truth  alone  is  safe.  If  we  say  the  sabbath  is  shadow,  this  is 
only  half  the  truth.  The  apostle  adds,  "  the  body  is  ot 
Christ." 

There  is,  then,  in  the  sabbath  that  which  is  shadowy  and 
that  which  is  substantial ;  that  which  is  transient  and  that 
which  is  permanent ;  that  which  is  temporal  and  typical, 
and  that  which  is  eternal.  The  shadow  and  the  body. 


8o    The  Shadow  and  Substance  of  the  Sabbath. 

Hence,  a  very  natural  and    simple  division   of  our   subject 
suggests  itself. 

I.  The  transient  shadow  of  the  sabbath  which  has  passed 
away. 

II.  The  permanent  substance  which  can  not  pass. 

L  The  transient  shadow  which  has  passed  away. 

The  history  of  the  sabbath-day  is  this.  It  was  given  by 
iMoses  to  the  Israelites,  partly  as  a  sign  between  God  and 
them,  marking  them  oif  from  all  other  nations  by  its  observ- 
ance ;  partly  as  commemorative  of  their  deliverance  from 
Egypt.  And  the  reason  why  the  seventh  day  was  fixed  on, 
rather  than  the  sixth  or  eighth  was,  that  on  that  day  God 
rested  from  His  labor.  The  soul  of  man  was  to  form  itself 
on  the  model  of  the  Spirit  of  God.  It  is  not  said,  that  God 
at  the  creation  gave  the  sabbath  to  man,  but  that  God  rest- 
ed at  the  close  of  the  six  days  of  creation :  whereupon  he 
had  blessed  and  sanctified  the  seventh  day  to  the  Israelites. 
This  is  stated  in  the  fourth  commandment,  and  also  in  Gen.  i., 
which  was  written  for  the  Israelites  ;  and  the  history  of  crea- 
tion naturally  and  appropriately  introduces  the  reason  and 
the  sanction  of  their  day  of  rest. 

Nor  is  there  in  the  Old  Testament  a  single  trace  of  the 
observance  of  the  sabbath  before  the  time  of  Moses.  After 
the  Deluge,  it  is  not  mentioned  in  the  covenant  made  with 
Noah.  The  first  account  of  it  occurs  after  the  Israelites  had 
left  Egypt;  and  the  fourth  commandment  consolidates  it 
into  a  law,  and  explains  the  principle  and  sanctions  of  the 
institution.  The  observance  of  one  day  in  seven,  therefore, 
is  purely  Jewish.  The  Jewish  obligation  to  observe  it  rest- 
ed on  the  enactment  given  by  Moses. 

The  spirit  of  its  observance,  too,  is  Jewish,  and  not  Chris- 
tian. There  is  a  difference  between  the  spirit  of  Judaism 
and  that  of  Christianity.  The  spirit  of  Judaism  is  separa- 
tion— that  of  Christianity  is  permeation.  To  separate  the 
evil  from  the  good  was  the  aim  and  work  of  Judaism : — to 
sever  one  nation  from  all  other  nations;  certain  meats  from 
other  meat ;  certain  days  from  other  days.  Sanctify  means 
to  set  apart.  The  very  essence  of  the  idea  of  Hebrew  holi- 
ness lay  in  sanctification  in  the  sense  of  separation.  On  the 
contrary,  Christianity  is  permeation — it  permeates  all  evil 
with  good — it  aims  at  overcoming  evil  by  good — it  desires 
to  transfuse  the  spirit  of  the  day  of  rest  into  all  other  days, 
and  to  spread  the  holiness  of  one  nation  over  all  the  tvofkt 
To  saturate  life  with  God,  and  the  world  with  Heavens  that 
is  the  genius  of  Christianity. 


The  Shadow  and  Substance  of  the  Sabbath.   8 1 

Accordingly,  the  observance  of  the  sabbath  was  entirely 
in  the  Jewish  spirit.  No  fire  was  permitted  to  be  made  on 
pain  of  death  :  Exod.  xxxv.  3.  No  food  was  to  be  prepared  : 
xvi.  5,  23.  No  buying  nor  selling  :  Neheni.  x.  31.  So  rigor- 
ously was  all  this  carried  out,  that  a  man  gathering  sticks 
was  arraigned  before  the  congregation,  and  sentenced  to 
death  by  Moses. 

This  is  Jewish,  typical,  shadowy ; — it  is  all  to  pass  away. 
Much  already  has  passed :  even  those  who  believe  our 
Lord's  day  to  be  the  descendant  of  the  sabbath  admit  this. 
The  day  is  changed.  The  first  day  of  the  week  has  taken 
the  place  of  the  seventh.  The  computation  of  hours  is  al- 
tered. The  Jews  reckoned  from  sunset  to  sunset — modern 
Christians  reckon  from  midnight  to  midnight.  The  spirit 
of  its  observance,  too,  is  altered.  No  one  contends  now  for 
Jewish  strictness  in  its  details. 

Now  observe,  all  this  implies  the  abrogation  of  a  great 
deal  more — nay,  of  the  whole  Jewish  sabbath  itself.  We 
have  altered  the  day — the  computation  of  the  hours — the 
mode  of  observance  :  What  remains  to  keep  ?  Absolutely 
nothing  of  the  literal  portion  except  one  day  in  seven :  and 
that  is  abrogated,  if  the  rest  be  abrogated.  For  by  what 
right  do  we  say  that  the  order  of  the  day,  whether  it  be  the 
first  or  the  seventh,  is  a  matter  of  indifference,  because  only 
formal,  but  that  the  proportion  of  days,  one  in  seven,  instead 
oi  one  in  eight  or  nine,  is  moral  and  unalterable  ?  On  what 
intelligible  principle  do  we  produce  the  fourth  command' 
ment  as  binding  upon  Christians,  and  abrogate  so  important 
a  clause  of  it  as,  "In  it  thou  shalt  do  no  manner  of  work  ?" 
On  what  self-evident  ground  is  it  shown  that  the  Jew  might 
not  light  a  fire,  but  the  Christian  may ;  yet  that  if  the  postal 
arrangements  of  a  country  permit  the  delivery  of  a  letter,  it 
is  an  infraction  of  the  sabbath  ? 

Unquestionably  on  no  scriptural  authority.  Let  those 
who  demand  a  strict  observance  of  the  letter  of  scripture  re- 
member that  the  Jewish  sabbath  is  distinctly  enforced  in 
the  Bible,  and  nowhere  in  the  Bible  repealed.  You  have 
changed  the  seventh  day  to  the  first  on  no  clear  scriptural 
permission.  Two  or  three  passages  tell  .us  that,  after  the 
nesurrection,  the  apostles  were  found  together  on  the  first 
day  of  the  week  (which,  by-the-way,  may  have  been  Satur- 
day evening  after  sunset)  But  it  is  concluded  that  there- 
fore probably  the  change  was  apostolic.  You  have  only  a 
probability  to  go  on — and  that  probability,  except  with  the 
aid  of  tradition,  infinitesimally  small — for  the  abrogation  of 
a  single  iota  of  the  Jewish  fourth  commandment. 

4* 


H2     The  Shadow  and  Substance  of  the  Sabbath. 

It  will  be  said,  however,  that  works  of  necessity  and  works 
of  mercy  are  excepted  by  Christ's  example. 

Tell  us,  then,  ye  who  are  servants  of  the  letter,  and  yet  do 
not  scruple  to  use  a  carriage  to  convey  you  to  some  church 
where  a  favorite  minister  is  heard,  is  that  a  spiritual  necessi- 
ty or  a  spiritual  luxury  ?  Part  of  the  Sunday  meal  of  all  of 
you  is  the  result  of  a  servant's  work.  Tell  us,  then,  ye  ac- 
curate logicians,  who  say  that  nothing  escapes  the  rigor  of 
the  prohibition  which  is  not  necessary  or  merciful,  is  a  hot 
repast  a  work  of  necessity  or  a  work  of  mercy  ?  Oh  !  it 
rouses  in  every  true  soul  a  deep  and  earnest  indignation  to 
hear  men  who  drive  their  cattle  to  church  on  Sundays,  be- 
cause they  are  too  emasculated  to  trudge  through  cold  and 
rain  on  foot,  invoke  the  severity  of  an  insulted  Law  of  the 
Decalogue  on  those  who  provide  facilities  of  movement  for 
such  as  can  not  afford  the  luxury  of  a  carriage.  What 
think  you,  would  He  who  blighted  the  Pharisees  with  such 
burning  words,  have  said,  had  He  been  present  by,  while 
men,  whose  servants  clean  their  houses,  and  prepare  their 
meals,  and  harness  their  horses,  stand  up  to  denounce  the 
service  on  some  railway  by  which  the  poor  are  helped  to 
health  and  enjoyment  ?  Hired  service  for  the  rich  is  a  ne- 
cessity— hired  service  for  the  poor  is  a  desecration  of  the 
sabbath  !  It  is  right  that  a  thousand  should  toil  for  the  few 
in  private  !  It  is  past  bearing  in  a  Christian  country  that  a 
few  should  toil  for  thousands  on  the  sabbath-day ! 

There  is  only  this  alternative :  if  the  fourth  command- 
ment be  binding  still,  that  clause  is  unrepealed — "  no  man- 
ner of  work  ;"  and  so,  too,  is  that  other  important  part,  the 
sanetification  of  the  seventh  day  and  not  the  first.  If  the 
fourth  commandment  be  not  binding  in  these  points,  then 
there  is  nothing  left  but  the  broad,  comprehensive  ground 
taken  by  the  apostle.  The  whole  sabbath  is  a  shadow  of 
things  to  come.  In  consistency,  either  hold  that  none  of  the 
formal  part  is  abrogated,  or  else  all.  The  whole  of  the  let- 
ter of  the  commandment  is  moral,  or  else  none. 

II  There  is,  however,  in  the  sabbath  a  substance,  a  per- 
manent something — "  a  body  " — which  can  not  pass  away. 

"The  body  is  of  Christ;"  the  spirit  of  Christ  is  the  fulfill- 
ment of  the  law.  To  have  the  spirit  of  Christ  is  to  have  ful- 
filled the  law.  Let  us  hear  the  mind  of  Christ  in  this  mat- 
ter. "  The  sabbath  was  made  for  man,  not  man  for  the  sab- 
bath." In  that  principle,  rightly  understood,  lies  the  clue 
for  the  unravelling  of  the  whole  matter.  The  religionists 
of  that  day  maintained  that  the  necessities  of  man's  nature 


The  Shadow  and  Substance  of  the  Sabbath.    83 

must  give  way  to  the  rigor  of  the  enactment: — He  taught 
that  the  enactment  must  yield  to  man's  necessities.  They 
said  that  the  sabbath  was  written  in  the  book  of  the  Law  ; 
He  said  that  it  was  written  on  man's  nature,  and  that  the 
law  was  merely  meant  to  be  in  accordance  with  that  nature. 
They  based  the  obligation  to  observe  the  sabbath  on  the  sa- 
credness  of  an  enactment ;  He  on  the  sacredness  of  the  na- 
ture of  man. 

An  illustration  will  help  us  to  perceive  the  difference  be- 
tween these  two  views.  A  wise  physician  prescribes  a  regi- 
men of  diet,  to  a  palate  which  has  become  diseased  :  lie  fixes 
what  shall  be  eaten,  the  quantity,  the  hours,  and  number  of 
times.  On  what  does  the  obligation  to  obey  rest  ?  On  the 
arbitrary  authority  of  the  physician  ?  or  on  the  nature  with 
which  that  prescription  is  in  accordance  ?  When  soundness 
and  health  are  restored,  the  prescription  falls  into  disuse : 
but  the  nature  remains  unalterable,  which  has  made  some 
things  nutritious,  others  unwholesome,  and  excess  forever 
pernicious.  Thus  the  spirit  of  the  prescription  may  be  still 
in  force  when  the  prescriptive  authority  is  repealed. 

So  Moses  prescribed  the  sabbath  to  a  nation  spiritually 
diseased.  He  gave  the  regimen  of  rest  to  men  who  did  not 
feel  the  need  of  spiritual  rest.  He  fenced  round  his  rule 
with  precise  regulations  of  details  —  one  day  in  seven,  no 
work,  no  fire,  no  traffic.  On  what  does  the  obligation  to 
obey  it  rest  ?  On  the  authority  of  the  rule  ?  or  on  the  ne- 
cessitiest  of  that  nature  for  which  the  rule  was  divinely 
adapted  ?  Was  man  made  for  the  sabbath,  to  obey  it  as  a 
slave?  or,  Was  the  sabbath  made  for  man?  And  when 
spiritual  health  has  been  restored,  the  Law  regulating  the 
details  of  rest  may  become  obsolete  ;  but  the  nature  which 
demands  rest  never  can  be  reversed. 

Observe,  now,  that  this  is  a  far  grander,  safer,  and  more 
permanent  basis  on  which  to  rest  the  sabbath  than  the  mere 
enactment.  For  if  you  allege  the  fourth  commandment  as 
your  authority,  straightway  you  are  met  by  the  objection 
"  no  manner  of  work."  Who  gave  you  leave  to  alter  that  ? 
And  if  you  reply,  works  of  necessity  and  works  of  mercy  I 
may  do,  for  Christ  excepted  these  from  the  stringency  of  the 
rule,  again  the  rejoinder  comes,  is  there  one  in  ten  of  the 
things  that  all  Christians  permit  as  lawful  really  a  matter 
of  necessity  ? 

Whereas,  if  the  sabbath  rest  on  the  needs  of  human  na- 
ture, and  we  accept  His  decision  that  the  sabbath  was  made 
for  man,  then  you  have  an  eternal  ground  to  rest  on  from 
which  you  can  not  be  shaken.  A  son  of  man  mav  be  lord 


84     The  Shadow  and  Substance  of  the  Sabbath. 

of  the  sabbath-day,  but  he  is  not  lord  of  his  own  nature, 
He  can  not  make  one  hair  white  or  black.  You  may  abn> 
gate  the  formal  rule,  but  you  can  not  abrogate  the  needs  of 
your  own  soul  Eternal  as  the  constitution  of  the  soul  of 
man  is  the  necessity  for  the  existence  of  a  day  of  rest. 
Further  still,  on  this  ground  alone  can  you  find  an  impreg- 
nable defense  of  the  proportion,  one  day  in  seven  : — on  the 
other  ground  it  is  unsafe.  Having  altered  the  seventh  to 
the  first,  I  know  not  why  one  in  seven  might  not  be  altered 
to  one  in  ten.  The  thing,  however,  has  been  tried  ;  and  by 
the  necessities  of  human  nature  the  change  has  been  found 
pernicious.  One  day  in  ten,  prescribed  by  revolutionary 
France,  was  actually  pronounced  by  physiologists  insuffi- 
cient. So  that  we  begin  to  find  that,  in  a  deeper  sense 
than  we  at  first  suspected,  "  the  sabbath  was  made  for  man." 
Even  in  the  contrivance  of  one  day  in  seven,  it  was  arranged 
by  unerring  wisdom.  Just  because  the  sabbath  was  made  for 
man,  and  not  because  man  was  ordained  to  keep  the  sabbath- 
day,  you  can  not  tamper  even  with  the  iota,  one  day  in  seven. 

That  necessity  on  which  the  observance  leans  is  the  need 
of  rest.  It  is  the  deepest  want  in  the  soul  of  man.  If  you 
take  off  covering  after  covering  of  the  nature  which  wraps 
him  round,  till  you  come  to  the  central  heart  of  hearts,  deep 
lodged  there  you  find  the  requirement  of  repose.  All  men 
do  not  hanker  after  pleasure — all  men  do  not  crave  intel- 
lectual food.  But  all  men  long  for  rest ;  the  most  restless 
that  ever  pursued  a  turbulent  career  on  earth  did  by  that 
career  only  testify  to  the  need  of  the  soul  within.  They 
craved  for  something  which  was  not  given :  there  was  a 
thirst  which  was  not  slaked :  that  very  restlessness  be- 
tokened that — restless  because  not  at  rest.  It  is  this  need 
which  sometimes  makes  the  quiet  of  the  grave  an  object  of 
such  deep  desire.  "  There  the  wicked  cease  from  troubling, 
and  there  the  weary  are  at  rest."  It  is  this  which  creates 
the  chief  desirableness  of  heaven  :  "  There  remaineth  a  rest 
for  the  people  of  God."  And  it  is  this  which,  consciously  or 
unconsciously,  is  the  real  wish  that  lies  at  the  bottom  of  all 
others.  Oh  !  for  tranquillity  of  heart — heaven's  profound 
silence  in  the  soul,  "  a  meek  and  quiet  spirit,  which  in  the 
sight  of  God  is  of  great  price  !" 

The  rest  needed  by  man  is  twofold.  Physical  repose  of 
the  body — a  need  which  he  shares  with  the  animals  through 
the  lower  nature  which  he  has  in  common  with  them. 
"  Thou  shall  do  no  work,  nor  thy  cattle," — so  far  man's 
sabbath-need  places  him  only  on  a  level  with  the  ox  and 
with  the  ass. 


The  Shadow  and  Substance  of  the  Sabbath.    85 

But,  besides  this,  the  rest  demanded  is  a  repose  of  spirit. 
Between  these  two  kinds  of  rest  there  is  a  very  important 
difference.  Bodily  repose  is  simply  inaction  :  the  rest  of  the 
soul  is  exercise,  not  torpor.  To  do  nothing  is  physical  rest 
— to  be  engaged  in  full  activity  is  the  rest  of  the  soul. 

In  that  hour,  which  of  all  the  twenty-four  is  most  emblem- 
atical of  heaven,  and  suggestive  of  repose,  the  eventide,  in 
vvhich  instinctively  Isaac  went  into  the  fields  to  meditate — 
when  the  work  of  the  day  is  done,  when  the  mind  has  ceased 
its  tension,  when  the  passions  are  lulled  to  rest  in  spite  of 
themselves,  by  the  spell  of  the  quiet  star-lit  sky — it  is  then, 
amidst  the  silence  of  the  lull  of  all  the  lower  parts  of  our 
nature,  that  the  soul  comes  forth  to  do  its  work.  Then  the 
peculiar;  strange  work  of  the  soul,  which  the  intellect  can 
not  do — meditation,  begins.  Awe,  and  worship,  and  wonder 
are  in  full  exercise  ;  and  Love  begins  then  in  its  purest  form 
of  mystic  adoration  and  pervasive  and  undefined  tenderness 
— separate  from  all  that  is  coarse  and  earthly — swelling  as 
if  it  would  embrace  the  All  in  its  desire  to  bless,  and  lose  it- 
self in  the  sea  of  the  love  of  God.  This  is  the  rest  of  the 
soul — the  exercise  and  play  of  all  the  nobler  powers. 

Two  things  are  suggested  by  this  thought. 

First,  the  mode  of  the  observance  of  the  day  of  rest.  It 
has  become  lately  a  subject  of  very  considerable  attention. 
Physiologists  have  demonstrated  the  necessity  of  cessation 
from  toil :  they  have  urged  the  impossibility  of  perpetual  oc- 
cupation without  end.  Pictures,  with  much  pathos  in  them, 
have  been  placed  before  us,  describing  the  hard  fate  of  those 
on  whom  no.  sabbath  dawns.  It  has  been  demanded  as  a 
right,  entreated  as  a  mercy,  on  behalf  of  the  laboring  man, 
that  he  should  have  one  day  in  seven  for  recreation  of  his 
bodily  energies.  All  well  and  true.  But  there  is  a  great 
deal  more  than  this.  He  who  confines  his  conception  of  the 
need  of  rest  to  that,  has  left  man  on  a  level  with  the  brutes. 
Let  a  man  take  merely  lax  and  liberal  notions  of  the  fourth 
commandment — let  him  give  his  household  and  dependents 
immunity  from  toil,  and  wish  for  himself  and  them  no  more — 
he  will  find  that  there  is  a  something  wanting  still.  Experi- 
ence tells  us,  after  a  trial,  that  those  Sundays  are  the  hap- 
piest, the  purest,  the  most  rich  in  blessing,  in  which  the 
spiritual  part  has  been  most  attended  to — those  in  which  the 
business  letter  was  put  aside  till  evening,  and  the  profane 
literature  not  opened,  and  the  ordinary  occupations  entirely 
suspended  —  those  in  which,  as  in  the  temple  of  Solomon, 
the  sound  of  the  earthly  hammer  has  not  been  heard  in  the 
temple  of  the  soul :  for  this  is,  in  fact,  the  very  distinction  be- 


86     The  Shadow  and  Substance  of  ttie  Sabbath. 

tween  the  spirit  of  the  Jewish  sabbath  and  the  spirit  of  the 
Christian  Lord's  day.  The  one  is  chiefly  for  the  body — 
"  Thou  shalt  do  no  manner  of  work."  The  other  is  princi- 
pally for  the  soul — "I  was  in  the  spirit  on  the  Lord's  day.'' 

The  other  truth  suggested  by  that  fact,  that  the  repose  of 
the  soul  is  exercise,  not  rest,  is,  that  it  conveys  an  intimation 
of  man's  immortality.  It  is  only  when  all  the  rest  of  our  hu- 
man nature  is  calmed  that  the  spirit  comes  forth  in  full  ener 
gy:  all  the  rest  tires,  the  spirit  never  tires.  Humbleness, 
awe,  adoration,  love,  these  have  in  them  no  weariness :  so 
that  when  this  frame  shall  l)e  dissolved  into  the  dust  of  the 
earth,  and  the  mind,  which  is  merely  fitted  for  this  time- 
world,  learning  by  experience,  shall  have  been  superseded, 
then,  in  the  opening  out  of  an  endless  career  of  love,  the 
spirit  will  enter  upon  that  sabbath  of  which  all  earthly  sab- 
baths are  but  the  shadow — the  sabbath  of  eternity,  the  im- 
mortal rest  of  its  Father's  home. 

Two  observations,  in  concluding. 

1.  When  is  a  son  of  man  lord  of  the  sabbath-day?  To 
whom  may  the  sabbath  safely  become  a  shadow  ?  I  reply, 
he  that  has  the  mind  of  Christ  may  exercise  discretionary 
lordship  over  the  sabbath-day.  He  who  is  in  possession  of 
the  substance  may  let  the  shadow  go.  A  man  in  health  has 
done  with  the  prescriptions  of  the  physician.  But  for  an  un- 
spiritual  man  to  regulate  his  hours  and  amount  of  rest  by  his 
desires,  is  just  as  preposterous  as  for  an  unhealthy  man  to 
rule  his  appetites  by  his  sensations.  Win  the  mind  of  Christ ; 
be  like  Him ;  and  then,  in  the  reality  of  rest  in  God,  the  sab- 
bath form  of  rest  will  be  superseded.  Remain  apart  from 
Christ,  and  then  you  are  under  the  law  again ;  the  fourth 
commandment  is  as  necessary  for  you  as  it  was  for  the  Is- 
raelite— the  prescriptive  regimen  which  may  discipline  your 
soul  to  a  sounder  state.  It  is  at  his  peril  that  the  worldly 
man  departs  from  the  rule  of  the  day  of  rest.  Nothing  can 
make  us  free  from  the  law  but  the  Spirit. 
-  2.  The  rule  pronounced  by  the  apostle  is  a  rule  of  liberty, 
and  at  the  same  time  a  rule  of  charity  :  "  Let  no  man  judge 
you  in  respect  of  the  sabbath-days."  It  is  very  difficult  to 
discuss  this  question  of  the  sabbath.  Heat,  vehemence,  acri- 
mony, are  substituted  for  argument.  When  you  calmly  ask 
to  investigate  the  subject,  men  apply  epithets,  and  call  them 
reasons :  they  stigmatize  you  as  a  breaker  of  the  sabbath, 
pronounce  you  "  dangerous,"  with  sundry  warnings  against 
you  in  private,  and  pregnant  hints  in  public. 

The  apostle  urges  charity:  "One  man  esteemeth  one  day 
above  another :  another  man  esteemeth  every  day  alike."  .  .  . 


The  Shadow  and  Substance  of  the  Sabbath.     87 

-  He  that  regardeth  the  day,  regardeth  it  to  the  Lord ;  and 
he  that  regardeth  not  the  day,  to  the  Lord  he  regardeth 
it  not."  Carry  out  that  spirit.  In  the  detail  of  this  question 
there  is  abundant  difficulty.  It  is  a  question  of  degree. 
Some  work  must  be  done  on  the  sabbath-day : — some  must 
sacrifice  their  rest  to  the  rest  of  others;  for  all  human  life  is 
sacrifice,  voluntary  or  involuntary. 

Again,  that  which  is  rest  to  one  man  is  not  rest  to  another,, 
To  require  the  illiterate  man  to  read  his  Bible  for  some  hours 
would  impose  a  toil  upon  him,  though  it  might  be  a  relaxa* 
tion  to  you.  To  the  laboring  man  a  larger  proportion  of  the 
day  must  be  given  to  the  recreation  of  his  physical  nature 
than  is  necessary  for  the  man  of  leisure,  to  whom  the  spirit- 
ual observance  of  the  day  is  easy,  and  seems  all.  Let  us 
learn  large,  charitable  considerateness.  Let  not  the  poor 
man  sneer  at  his  richer  neighbor,  if,  in  the  exercise  of  his 
Christian  liberty,  he  uses  his  horses  to  convey  him  to  church 
and  not  to  the  mere  drive  of  pleasure ;  but  then,  in  fairness, 
let  not  the  rich  man  be  shocked  and  scandalized  if  the  over- 
wearied shopkeeper  and  artisan  breathe  the  fresh  air  of  heav- 
en with  their  families  in  the  country.  "The  sabbath  was 
made  for  man."  Be  generous,  consistent,  large-minded.  A 
man  may  hold  stiif,  precise  Jewish  notions  on  this  subject, 
but  do  not  stigmatize  that  man  as  a  formalist.  Another  may 
hold  large,  Paul-like  views  of  the  abrogation  of  the  fourth 
commandment,  and  yet  he  may  be  sincerely  and  zealously 
anxious  for  the  hallowing  of  the  day  in  his  household  and 
through  his  country.  Do  not  call  that  man  a  sabbath-break- 
er. Remember,  the  Pharisees  called  the  Son  of  God  a  sab- 
bath-breaker. They  kept  the  law  of  the  sabbath,  they  broke 
the  law  of  love.  Which  was  the  worst  to  break  ?  which  was 
the  higher  law  to  keep?  Take  care  lest,  in  the  zeal  which 
seems  to  you  to  be  for  Christ,  ye  be  found  indulging  their 
spirit,  Ana  11  ot  His. 


88  The  Sympathy  of  Christ. 


VTL 
THE  SYMPATHY  OF  CHRIST. 

"  For  we  hare  not  a  high-priest  which  can  not  be  touched  with  the  feeling 
of  our  infirmities :  bat  was  in  all  points  tempted  like  as  we  are,  yet  without 
sin.  "Let  us  therefore  come  boldly  unto  the  throne  of  grace,  that  we  may  ob- 
tain mercy,  and  find  grace  to  help  in  time  of  need." — Heb.  iv.  15, 16. 

ACCORDING  to  these  verses,  the  priesthood  of  Jesus  Christ 
is  based  upon  the  perfection  of  His  humanity.  Because 
tempted  in  all  points  like  as  we  are,  therefore  He  can  show 
mercy,  and  grant  help.  Whatever  destroys  the  conception 
of  His  humanity  does  in  that  same  degree  overthrow  the  no- 
tion of  His  priesthood. 

Our  subject  is  the  Priestly  Sympathies  of  Christ.  But  we 
make  three  preliminary  observations. 

The  perfection  of  Christ's  humanity  implies  that  He  was 
possessed  of  a  human  soul  as  well  as  a  human  body.  There 
was  a  view  held  in  early  times,  and  condemned  by  the 
Church  as  a  heresy,  according  to  which  the  body  of  Christ 
was  an  external  framework  animated  by  Deity,  as  our  bodies 
are  animated  by  our  souls.  What  the  soul  is  to  us,  Deity 
was  to  Christ.  His  body  was  flesh,  blood,  bones — moved, 
guided,  ruled  by  indwelling  Divinity. 

But  you  perceive  at  once  that  this  destroys  the  notion  of 
complete  humanity.  It  is  not  this  tabernacle  of  material  ele- 
ments which  constitutes  our  humanity:  you  can  not  take 
that  pale  corpse  from  which  life  has  fled,  and  call  that  man. 
And  if  Deity  were  to  take  up  that  form  and  make  it  its 
abode,  that  would  not  be  a  union  of  the  Divine  and  Human. 
It  would  only  be  the  union  of  Deity  with  certain  materials 
that  might  have  passed  into  man,  or  into  an  animal  or  an 
herb.  Humanity  implies  a  body  and  a  soul. 

Accordingly,  in  the  life  of  Christ  we  find  two  distinct 
Classes  of  feeling.  When  He  hungered  in  the  wilderness — 
wherf  He  thirsted  on  the  cross — when  He  was  weary  by  the 
well  at  Sychar — He  experienced  sensations  which  belong  to 
the  bodily  department  of  human  nature.  But  when  out  of 
twelve  He  selected  one  to  be  His  bosom  friend — when  He 
looked  round  upon  the  crowd  in  anger — when  the  tears 
streamed  down  His  cheeks  at  Bethany — and  when  He  recoil 
ed  from  the  thought  of  approaching  dissolution : — these — 


The  Sympathy  if  Christ.  89 

grief,  friendship,  fear — were  not  the  sensations  of  the  body, 
much  less  were  they  the  attributes  of  Godhead.  They  were 
the  affections  of  an  acutely  sensitive  human  soul,  alive  to  all 
the  tenderness,  and  hopes,  and  anguish  with  which  human 
life  is  filled,  qualifying  Him  to  be  tempted  in  all  points  like  as 
we  are. 

The  second  thought  which  presents  itself  is,  that  the  Re- 
deemer not  only  was,  but  is  man.  He  was  tempted  in  all 
points  like  us.  He  is  a  high-priest  which  can  be  touched. 
Our  conceptions  on  this  subject,  from  being  vague,  are  often 
very  erroneous.  It  is  fancied  that  in  the  history  of  Jesus's 
existence,  once,  for  a  limited  period  and  for  definite  purposes, 
He  took  part  in  frail  humanity;  but  that  when  that  purpose 
was  accomplished,  the  Man  forever  perished,  and  the  Spirit 
reascended,  to  unite  again  with  pure  unmixed  Deity.  But 
Scripture  has  taken  peculiar  pains  to  give  assurance  of  the 
continuance  of  His  humanity.  It  has  carefully  recorded  His 
resurrection.  After  that  He  passed  through  space  from  spot 
to  spot :  when  He  was  in  one  place  He  was  not  in  another. 
His  body  was  sustained  by  the  ordinary  aliments— broiled 
fish  and  honeycomb.  The  prints  of  suffering  were  on  Him. 
His  recognitions  were  human  still.  Thomas  and  Peter  were 
especially  reminded  of  incidents  before  His  death,  and  con- 
nected with  His  living  interests.  To  Thomas  He  says — 
"  Reach  hither  thy  hand."  To  Peter—"  Lovest  thou  me  ?" 

And  this  typifies  to  us  a  very  grand  and  important  truth. > 
It  is  this,  if  I  may  venture  so  to  express  myself— the  truth  of 
the  human  heart  of  God.  We  think  of  God  as  a  Spirit,  in- 
finitely removed  from  and  unlike  the  creatures  He  has  made. 
But  the  truth  is,  man  resembles  God  :  all  spirits,  all  minds, 
are  of  the  same  family.  The  Father  bears  a  likeness  to  the 
Son  whom  He  has  created.  The  mind  of  God  is  similar  to 
the  mind  of  man.  Love  does  not  mean  one  thing  in  man,  and 
another  thing  in  God.  Holiness,  justice,  pity,  tenderness — 
these  are  in  the  Eternal  the  same  in  kind  which  they  are  in 
the  finite  being.  The  present  manhood  of  Christ  conveys 
tliis  deeply  important  truth,  that  the  Divine  heart  is  human 
in  its  sympathies. 

The  third  observation  upon  these  verses  is,  that  there  is  a 
connection  between  what  Jesus  was  and  what  Jesus  is.  He 
run  be  touched  now,  because  He  was  tempted  then.  The  in- 
cidents and  the  feelings  of  that  part  of  the  existence  which 
is  gone  have  not  passed  away  without  results  which  are  drep 
ly  entwined  with  His  present  being.  His  past  experience  haa 
left  certain  effects  durable  in  His  nature  as  it  is  now.  It  has 
endued  Him  with  certain  qualifications  and  certain  suscepti- 


9<D  The  Sympathy  of  Christ. 

bilities,  which  He  would  not  have  had  but  for  that  experi* 
ence.  Just  as  the  results  remained  upon  His  body,  the  prints 
of  the  nails  in  His  palms,  and  the  spear-gash  in  His  side,  so 
do  the  results  remain  upon  His  soul,  enduing  Him  with  a  cer- 
tain susceptibility,  for  "  He  can  be  touched  with  the  feeling  of 
our  infirmities ;"  with  certain  qualifications,  for  "  He  is  able 
to  show  mercy,  and  to  impart  grace  to  help  in  time  of  need." 
To  turn  now  to  the  subject  itself.  It  has  two  branches. 

I.  The  Redeemer's  preparation  for  His  priesthood. 
II.  The  Redeemer's  priestly  qualifications. 

I.  His  preparation.  The  preparation  consisted  in  being 
tempted.  But  here  a  difficulty  arises.  Temptation,  as  ap- 
plied to  a  Being  perfectly  free  from  tendencies  to  evil,  is  not 
easy  to  understand.  See  what  the  difficulty  is.  Temptation 
has  two  senses:  It  means  test  or  probation;  it  means  also 
trial,  involving  the  idea  of  pain  or  danger.  A  common  acid 
applied  to  gold  tests  it,  but  there  is  no  risk  or  danger  to  the 
most  delicate  golden  ornament.  There  is  one  acid,  and  only 
one,  which  tries  it,  as  well  as  tests  it.  The  same  acid  applied 
to  a  shell  endangers  the  delicacy  of  its  surface.  A  weight 
hung  from  a  bar  of  iron  only  tests  its  strength ;  the  same, 
depending  from  a  human  arm,  is  a  trial,  involving,  it  may  be, 
the  risk  of  pain  or  fracture.  Now  trial  placed  before  a  sin- 
less being  is  intelligible  enough  in  the  sense  of  probation — it 
is  a  test  of  excellence  :  but  it  is  not  easy  to  see  how  it  can  be 
temptation  in  the  sense  of  pain,  if  there  be  no  inclination  to 
do  wrong. 

However,  Scripture  plainly  asserts  this  as  the  character  of 
Christ's  temptation.  Not  merely  test,  but  trial. 

First,  you  have  passages  declaring  the  immaculate  nature 
of  His  mind — as  here, "  without  sin."  Again,  He  was  "  holy, 
harmless,  undefiled,  separate  from  sinners."  And  again, "  The 
prince  of  this  world  cometh,  and  hath  nothing  in  fie."  Thp 
spirit  of  evil  found  nothing  which  it  could  claim  as  its  own  in 
Christ.  It  was  the  meeting  of  two  elements  which  will  no* 
amalgamate.  Oil  and  water  could  as  easily  blend,  as  tl 
mind  of  Christ  with  evil.  Temptation  glanced  from  His 
heart  as  the  steel  point  does  from  the  surface  of  the  diamond. 
It  was  not  that  evil  propensities  were  kept  under  by  the  pow' 
er  of  the  Spirit  in  Him : — He  had  no  evil  propensities  at  all. 
Obedience  was  natural  to  Him. 

But  then  we  find  another  class  of  passages  such  as  this : 
"  He  suffered,  being  tempted."  There  was  not  merely  test  in 
the  temptation,  but  there  was  also  painfulness  in  the  victory, 
How  could  this  be  without  any  tendency  to  evil  ? 


The  Sympathy  of  Christ.  91 

To  answer  this,  let  us  analyze  sin.  In  every  act  of  sin 
there  are  two  distinct  steps:  There  is  .the  rising  of  a  desire 
which  is  natural,  and,  being  natural,  is  not  wrong :  there  is 
the  indulgence  of  that  desire  in  forbidden  circumstances ;  and 
that  is  sin.  Let  injury,  for  example,  be  inflicted,  and  resent- 
ment will  arise.  It  must  arise  spontaneously.  It  is  as  im 
possible  for  injustice  to  be  done,  and  resentment  not  to  fo! 
low,  as  it  is  for  the  flesh  not  to  quiver  on  the  application  01 
intense  torture.  Resentment  is  but  the  sense  of  injustice, 
made  more  vivid  by  its  being  brought  home  to  ourselves; 
resentment  is  beyond  our  control,  so  far.  There  is  no  sin  in 
this:  but  let  resentment  rest  there;  let  it  pass  into,  not  jus- 
tice, but  revenge  ;  let  it  smoulder  in  vindictive  feeling  till  it 
becomes  retaliation,  and  then  a  natural  feeling  has  grown 
into  a  transgression.  You  have  the  distinction  between  these 
two  things  clearly  marked  in  Scripture.  "Be  ye  angry" — 
here  is  the  allowance  for  the  human,  "  and  sin  not " — here  is 
the  point  where  resentment  passes  into  retaliation. 

Again,  take  the  natural  sensation  of  hunger.  Let  a  man 
have  been  without  food :  let  the  gratification  present  itself, 
and  the  natural  desire  will  arise  involuntarily.  It  will  arise 
just  as  certainly  in  a  forbidden  as  in  a  permitted  circum- 
stance. It  will  arise  whether  what  he  looks  on  be  the  bread 
of  another  or  his  own.  And  it  is  not  here,  in  the  sensation 
of  hunger,  that  the  guilt  lies.  But  it  lies  in  the  willful  grat- 
ification of  it  after  it  is  known  to  be  forbidden. 

This  was  literally  one  of  the  cases  in  which  Christ  was 
tried.  The  wish  for  food  was  in  His  nature  in  the  wilderness. 
The  very  mode  of  gratifying  it  was  presented  to  His  imagina- 
tion, by  using  Divine  power  in  an  unlawful  way.  And  had  He 
so  been  constituted  that  the  lower  wish  was  superior  to  the 
higher  will,  there  would  have  been  an  act  of  sin  ;  had  the 
two  been  nearly  balanced,  so  that  the  conflict  hung  in  doubt, 
there  would  have  been  a  tendency  to  sin:  what  we  call  a  sin- 
ful nature.  But  it  was  in  the  entire  and  perfect  subjugation 
of  desire  to  the  will  of  right  that  a  sinless  nature  was  ex- 
hibited. 

Here  then  is  the  nature  of  sin.  Sin  is  not  the  possession  of 
desires,  but  the  having  them  in  uncontrolled  ascendency  over 
the  higher  nature.  Sinfulness  does  not  consist  in  having 
strong  desires  or  passions :  in  the  strongest  and  highest  na- 
tures, all,  including  the  desires,  is  strong.  Sin  is  not  a  real, 
thing.  It  is  rather  the  absence  of  a  something,  the  will  to  do 
right.  It  is  not  a  disease  or  taint,  an  actual  substance  pro- 
jected into  the  constitution.  It  is  the  absence  of  the  spirit 
which  orders  and  harmonizes  the  whole  \  so  that  what  we 


92  The  Sympathy  of  Christ. 

mean  when  we  say  the  natural  man  must  sin  inevitably,  h 
this,  that  he  has  strong  natural  appetites,  and  that  he  has  no 
bias  from  above  to  counteract  those  appetites  :  exactly  as  if 
a  ship  were  deserted  by  the  crew,  and  left  on  the  bosom  of 
the  Atlantic  with  every  sail  set  and  the  wind  blowing.  No 
one  forces  her  to  destruction,  yet  on  the  rocks  she  will  surely 
go,  just  because  there  is  no  pilot  at  the  helm.  Such  is  the 
state  of  ordinary  men.  Temptation  leads  to  fall.  The  gusts 
of  instincts,  which  rightly  guided  would  have  carried  safely 
into  port,  dash  them  on  the  rocks.  No  one  forces  them  to 
sin ;  but  the  spirit-pilot  has  left  the  helm. — [Fallen  Nature.] 

Sin,  therefore,  is  not  in  the  appetites,  but  in  the  absence  of 
a  controlling  will. 

Now  contrast  this  state  with  the  state  of  Christ.  There 
were  in  Him  all  the  natural  appetites  of  mind  and  body. 
Relaxation  and  friendship  were  dear  to  Him — so  were  sun- 
light and  life.  Hunger,  pain,  death — He  could  feel  all,  and 
shrunk  from  them.  Conceive,  then,  a  case  in  which  the  grat- 
ification of  any  one  of  these  inclinations  was  inconsistent 
with  His  Father's  will.  At  one  moment  it  was  unlawful  to 
eat,  though  hungry :  and  without  one  tendency  to  disobey, 
did  fasting  cease  to  be  severe  ?  It  was  demanded  that  he 
should  endure  anguish  ;  and  willingly  as  He  subdued  Him- 
self, did  pain  cease  to  be  pain?  Could  the  spirit  of  obedi- 
ence reverse  every  feeling  in  human  nature  ?  When  the 
brave  man  gives  his  shattered  arm  to  the  surgeon's  knife, 
will  may  prevent  even  the  quiver  of  an  eyelid,  but  no  will 
and  no  courage  can  reverse  his  sensations,  or  prevent  the  op- 
eration from  inflicting  pain.  When  the  heart  is  raw,  and 
smarting  from  recent  bereavement,  let  there  be  the  deepest 
and  most  reverential  submission  to  the  highest  Will,  is  it 
possible  not  to  wince?  Can  any  cant  demand  for  submission 
extort  the  profession  that  pain  is  pleasure  ? 

It  seems  to  have  been  in  this  way  that  the  temptation  of 
Christ  caused  suffering.  He  suffered  from  the  force  of  de- 
sire. Though  there  was  no  hesitation  whether  to  obey  or 
not,  no  strife  in  the  will,  in  the  act  of  mastery  there ,  was 
pain.  There  was  self-denial — there  was  obedience  at  the 
expense  of  tortured  natural  feeling.  'He  shrunk  from  St. 
Peter's  suggestion  of  escape  from  ignominy  as  from  a  thing 
which  did  not  shake  His  determination,  but  made  Him  feel, 
in  the  idea  of  bright  life,  vividly  the  cost  of  His  resolve. 
"  Get  thee  behind  me,  tempter,  foV  thou  art  an  offense."  In 
the  garden,  unswervingly,  "  Not  as  I  will,  but  as  Thou  wilt." 
There  was  no  reluctance  in  the  will.  But  was  there  no 
struggling — no  shudder  in  the  inward  sensations — no  ^e 


The  Sympathy  of  Christ.  93 

membrance  that  the  Cross  was  sharp — no  recollection  of  the 
family  at  Bethany,  and  the  pleasant  walk,  and  the  dear  com- 
panionship which  He  was  about  to  leave  ?  "  My  soul  is  ex- 
ceeding sorrowful  to  die."  .... 

So  that  in  every  one  of  these  cases — not  by  the  reluctancy 
of  a  sinful  sensation,  but  by  the  quivering  and  the  anguish 
of  natural  feeling  when  it  is  trampled  upon  by  lofty  will — • 
Jesus  suffered,  being  tempted.  He  was  "  tempted  like  as  we 
aie."  Remember  this.  For  the  way  in  which  some  speak 
of  the  sinlessness  of  Jesus  reduces  all  His  suffering  to  phys- 
ical pain,  destroys  the  reality  of  temptation,  reduces  that 
glorious  heart  to  a  pretense,  and  converts  the  whole  of  His 
history  into  a  mere  fictitious  drama,  in  which  scenes  of  trial 
were  only  represented,  not  really  felt.  Remember  that,  "  in 
all  points,"  the  Redeemer's  soul  was  tempted. 

II.  The  second  point  we  take  is  the  Redeemer's  priesthood. 

Priesthood  is  that  office  by  which  He  is  the  medium  of 
union  between  man  and  God.  The  capacity  for  this  has 
been  indelibly  engraven  on  His  nature  by  His  experience 
here.  All  this  capacity  is  based  on  His  sympathy :  He  can 
be  "  touched  with  the  feeling  of  our  infirmities." 

Till  we  have  reflected  on  it,  we  are  scarcely  aware  how 
much  the  sum  of  human  happiness  in  the  world  is  indebted 
to  this  one  feeling — sympathy.  We  get  cheerfulness  and 
vigor,  we  scarcely  know  how  or  when,  from  mere  associa- 
tion with  our  fellow-men ;  and  from  the  looks  reflected  on 
us  of  gladness  and  employment,  we  catch  inspiration  and 
power  to  go  on,  from  human  presence  and  from  cheerful 
looks.  'The  workman  works  with  added  energy  from  having 
others  by.  The  full  family  circle  has  a  strength  and  a  life 
peculiarly  its  own.  The  substantial  good  and  the  effectual 
relief  which  men  extend  to  one  another  is  trifling.  It  is  not 
by  these,  but  by  something  far  less  costly,  that  the  work  is 
done.  God  has  insured  it  by  a  much  more  simple  machinery. 
He  has  given  to  the  weakest  and  the  poorest,  power  to  con 
tribute  largely  to  the  common  stock  of  gladness.  The 
child's  smile  and  laugh  are  mighty  powers  in  this  world. 
VVTien  bereavement  has  left  you  desolate,  what  substantial 
benefit  is  there  which  makes  condolence  acceptable?  It 
can  not  replace  the  loved  ones  you  have  lost.  It  can  bestow 
upon  you  nothing  permanent.  But  a  warm  hand  has 
touched  yours,  and  its  thrill  told  you  that  there  was  a  liv- 
ing response  there  to  your  emotion.  One  look,  one  human 
sigh  has  done  more  for  vou  than  the  costliest  present  could 
convey. 


94  The  Sympathy  of  Christ. 

And  it  is  for  want  of  remarking  this  that  the  effect  of 
public  chanty  falls  often  so  far  short  of  the  expectations  of 
those  who  give.  The  springs  of  men's  generosity  are  dried 
up  by  hearing  of  the  repining,  and  the  envy,  and  the  discon- 
tent which  have  been  sown  by  the  general  collection  and  the 
provision  establishment,  among  cottages  where  all  was  har« 
mony  before.  The  famine  and  the  pestilence  are  met  by 
abundant  liberality;  and  the  apparent  return  for  this  is  riot 
and  sedition.  But  the  secret  lies  all  in  this.  It  is  not  in 
channels  such  as  these  that  the  heart's  gratitude  can  flow. 
Love  is  not  bought  by  money,  but  by  love.  There  has  been 
all  the  machinery  of  a  public  distribution  :  but  there  has 
been  no  exhibition  of  individual,  personal  interest.  The 
rich  man  who  goes  to  his  poor  brother's  cottage,  and  without 
affectation  of  humility,  naturally,  and  with  the  respect  which 
man  owes  to  man,  enters  into  his  circumstances,  inquiring 
about  his  distresses,  and  hears  his  homely  tale,  has  done 
more  to  establish  an  interchange  of  kindly  feeling  than  he 
could  have  secured  by  the  costliest  present  by  itself.  Pub- 
lic donations  hav<?  their  value  and  their  uses.  Poor-laws 
keep  human  beings  from  starvation :  but  in  the  point  of 
eliciting  gratitude,  all  these  fail.  Man  has  not  been  brought 
into  contact  close  enough  with  man  for  this.  They  do  not 
work  by  sympathy. 

Again,  when  the  electric  touch  of  sympathetic  feeling  has 
gone  among  a  mass  of  men,  it  communicates  itself,  and  is 
reflected  back  from  every  individual  in  the  crowd,  with  a 
force  exactly  proportioned  to  their  numbers.  The  speech  or 
sermon  read  before  the  limited  circle  of  a  family,  and  the 
same  discourse  uttered  befoi'e  closely  crowded  hundreds,  are 
two  different  things.  There  is  strange  power  even  in  the 
mere  presence  of  a  common  crowd,  exciting  almost  uncon- 
trollable emotion. 

It  is  on  record  that  the  hard  heart  of  an  Oriental  conquer- 
or was  unmanned  by  the  sight  of  a  dense  mass  of  living  mil- 
lions engaged  in  one  enterprise.  He  accounted  for  it  by  say- 
ing that  it  suggested  to  him  that  within  a  si»gle  century 
not  one  of  those  millions  would  be  alive.  But  the  hard- 
jhearted  bosom  of  the  tyrant  mistook  its  own  emotions ;  his 
tears  came  from  no  such  far-fetched  inference  of  reflection : 
they  rose  spontaneously,  as  they  will  rise  in  a  dense  crowd, 
you  can  not  tell  why.  It  is  the  thrilling  thought  of  numbers 
engaged  in  the  same  object.  It  is  the  idea  of  our  own  feel- 
ings reciprocated  back  to  us,  and  reflected  from  many  hearts, 
It  is  the  mighty  presence-  of  life. 

And  again,  it  seems  partly  to  avail  itself  of  this  tendency 


Tke  Sympathy  of  Christ.  95 

within  us  that  such  stress  is  laid  on  the  injunction  of  united 
prayer.  Private  devotion  is  essential  to  the  spiritual  life — 
without  it  there  is  no  life.  But  it  can  not  replace  united 
prayer,  for  the  two  things  have  different  aims.  Solitary 
prayer  is  feeble  in  comparison  with  that  which  rises  before 
the  throne  echoed  by  the  hearts  of  hundreds,  and  strength- 
ened by  the  feeling  that  other  aspirations  are  mingling  with 
our  own.  And  whether  it  be  the  chanted  litany,  or  the 
more  simply  read  service,  or  the  anthem  producing  one  emo- 
tion at  the  same  moment  in  many  bosoms,  the  value  and  the 
power  of  public  prayer  seem  chiefly  to  depend  on  this  mys- 
terious affection  of  our  nature — sympathy. 

And  now,  having  endeavored  to  illustrate  this  power  of 
sympathy,  it  is  for  us  to  remember  that  of  this  in  its  fullness 
He  is  susceptible.  There  is  a  vague  way  of  speaking  of  the 
Atonement  which  does  not  realize  the  tender,  affectionate, 
personal  love  by  which  that  daily,  hourly  reconciliation  is 
effected.  The  sympathy  of  Christ  was  not  merely  love  of 
men  in  masses:* He  loved  the  masses,  but  he  loved  them 
because  made  up  of  individuals.  He  "had  compassion  on 
the  multitude ;"  but  He  had  also  discriminating,  special  ten- 
derness for  erring  Peter  and  erring  Thomas.  He  felt  for  the  v" 
despised  lonely  Zaccheus  in  his  sycamore-tree.  He  compas- 
sionated the  discomfort  of  His  'disciples.  He  mixed  His 
tears  with  the  stifled  sobs  by  the  grave  of  Lazarus.  He 
called  the  abashed  children  to  His  side.  Amongst  the  num- 
bers, as  He  walked,  He  detected  the  individual  touch  of 
faith.  "Master, the  multitude  throng  thee,  and  sayest  thou, 
~Who  touched  me  ?" — u  Somebody  hath  touched  me." 

Observe  how  he  is  touched  by  our  infirmities — with  a  sep- 
arate, special,  discriminating  love.  There  is  not  a  single 
throb,  in  a  single  human  bosom,  that  does  not  thrill  at  once 
with  more  than  electric  speed  up  to  the  mighty  heart  of  God. 
You  have  not  shed  a  tear  or  sighed  a  sigh  that  did  not 
come  back  to  you  exalted  and  purified  by  having  passed 
through  the  Eternal  bosom. 

The  priestly  powers  conveyed  by  this  faculty  of  sympa- 
thizing, according  to  the  text  are  two  :  the  power  of  mercy, 
and  the  power  of  having  grace  to  help.  "Therefore" — be- 
cause He  can  be  touched — u  let  us  come  boldly,"  expecting 
mercy — and  grace. 

1.  We  may  boldly  expect  mercy  from  Him  who  has  learned 
to  -sympathize.  He  learned  sympathy  by  being  tempted : 
but  it  is  by  being  tempted,  yet  without  sin,  that  He  is  spe« 
cially  able  to  show  mercy. 

There  are  two  who  aie  a&fit  for  showing  mercy:  He  who 


g6  The  Sympathy  of  Christ, 

has  never  been  tried;  and  he  who,  having  been  tempted,  ha* 
i'allen  under  temptation.  The  young,  untempted,  and  up 
right,  are  often  severe  judges.  They  are  for  sanguinary  pun 
ishment :  they  are  for  expelling  offenders  from  the  bosom 
of  society.  The  old,  on  the  contrary,  who  have  fallen  much, 
are  lenient ;  but  it  is  a  leniency  which  often  talks  thus :  Men 
must  be  men — a  young  man  must  sow  his  wild  oats  and  re- 
form. 

So  young  ardent  Saul,  untried  by  doubt,  persecuted  the 
Christians  with  severity;  and  Saul  the  king,  on  the  contrary, 
having  fallen  himself,  weakly  permitted  Agag  to  escape  pun- 
ishment. David,  again,  when  his  own  sin  was  narrated  to 
him  under  another  name,  was  unrelenting  in  his  indignation : 
"The  man  that  hath  done  this  thing  shall  surely  die." 

None  of  these  were  qualified  for  showing  mercy  aright. 
Kow  this  qualification  "  without  sin "  is  very  remarkable : 
for  it  is  the  one  we  often  least  should  think  of.  Unthinking- 
ly we  should  say  that  to  have  erred  would  make  a  man  leni- 
ent :  it  is  not  so. 

That  truth  is  taught  with  deep  significance  in  one  of  the 
incidents  of  the  Redeemer's  life.  There  stood  in  His  pres- 
^ence  a  tempted  woman,  covered  with  the  confusion  of  recent 
conviction.  And  there  stood  beside  her  the  sanctimonious 
religionists  of  that  day,  waiting  like  hell-hounds  to  be  let 
loose  upon  their  prey.  Calm  words  came  from  the  lips  of 
Him  "who  spake  as  man  never  spake,"  and  whose  heart 
felt  as  man  never  felt.  "  He  that  is  without  sin  among  you 
let  him  first  cast  a  stone."  A  memorable  lesson  of  eternal 
truth.  Sinners  are  not  fit  to  judge  of  sin  :  their  justice  is  re- 
venge— their  mercy  is  feebleness.  He  alone  can  judge  of 
sin — he  alone  can  attemper  the  sense  of  what  is  due  to  the 
offended  law  with  the  remembrance  of  that  which  is  due  to 
human  frailty — he  alone  is  fit  for  showing  manly  mercy,  who 
has,  like  his  Master,  felt  the  power  of  temptation  in  its 
might,  and  come  scathless  through  the  trial.  "  In  all  points 
tempted — yet  without  sin  /"  therefore,  to  Him  you  may 
"boldly  go  to  find  mercy." 

2.  The  other  priestly  power  is  the  grace  of  showing  "  help 
in  time  of  need." 

We  must  not  make  too  much  of  sympathy,  as  mere  feeling. 
We  do  in  things  spiritual  as  we  do  with  hot-house  plants 
The  feeble  exotic,  beautiful  to  look  at,  but  useless,  has  costly 
sums  spent  on  it.  The  hardy  oak,  a  nation's  strength,  is  per- 
mitted to  grow,  scarcely  observed,  in  the  fence  and  copses. 
We  prize  feeling  and  praise  its  possessor.  But  feeling  is 
only  a  sickly  exotic  in  itself — a  passive  quality,  having  in  it 


The  Sympathy  of  Christ.  97 

nothing  moral,  no  temptation  and  no  victory.  A  man  is  no 
more  a  good  man  for  having  feeling,  than  he  is  for  having  a 
delicate  ear  for  music,  or  a  far-seeing  optic  nerve.  The  Son 
of  man  had  feeling — He  could  be  "  touched."  The  tear 
would  start  from  His  eyes  at  the  sight  of  human  sorrow. 
But  that  sympathy  was  no  exot:.c  in  His  soul,  beautiful  to 
look  at,  too  delicate  for  use.  Feeling  with  Him  led  to  this, 
"  He  went  about  doing  good."  Sympathy  with  Him  was  this, 
''  Grace  to  help  in  time  of  need." 

And  this  is  the  blessing  of  the  thought  of  Divine  sympa- 
thy. By  the  sympathy  of  man,  after  all,  the  wound  is  not 
healed ;  it  is  only  stanched  for  a  time.  It  can  make  the  tear 
flow  less  bitterly  :  it  can  not  dry  it  up.  So  far  as  permanent 
good  goes,  who  has  not  felt  the  deep  truth  which  Job  taught 
his  friends — "  Miserable  comforters  are  ye  all  ?" 

The  sympathy  of  the  Divine  Human !  He  knows  what 
strength  is  needed.  He  gives  grace  to  help ;  and  when  the 
world,  with  its  thousand  forms  of  temptation,  seems  to  whis- 
per to  us  as  to  Esau,  Sell  me  thy  birthright,  the  other  voice 
speaks,  Shall  I  barter  blessedness  for  happiness — the  inward 
peace  for  the  outward  thrill — the  benediction  of  my  Father 
for  a  mess  of  pottage  ?  There  are  moments  when  we  seem, 
to  tread  above  this  earth,  superior  to  its  allurements,  able  to 
do  without  its  kindness,  firmly  bracing  ourselves  to  do  our 
work  as  He  did  His.  Those  moments  are  not  the  sunshine 
*if  life.  They  did  not  come  when  the  world  would  have  said 
diat  all  round  you  was  glad:  but  it  was  when  outward 
trials  had  shaken  the  soul  to  its  very  centre,  then  there  came 
Tom  Him  "  grace  to  help  in  time  of  need." 

1.  He  who  would  sympathize  must  be  content  to  be  tried 
and  tempted.  There  is  a  hard  and  boisterous  rudeness  in 
DUF  hearts  by  nature  which  requires  to  be  softened  down. 
We  pass  by  suffering  gayly,  carelessly,  not  in  cruelty,  but 
unfeelingly,  just  because  we  do  not  know  what  suffering  is. 
We  wound  men  by  our  looks  and  our  abrupt  expressions 
without  intending  it,  because  we  have  not  been  taught  the 
delicacy,  and  the  tact,  and  the  gentleness  which  can  only  be 
learnt  by  the  wounding  of  our  own  sensibilities.  There  is  a 
haughty  feeling  in  uprightness  which  has  never  been  on  the 
yerge  of  fall  that  requires  humbling.  There  is  an  inability 
to  enter  into  difficulties  of  thought  which  marks  the  mind  to 
which  all  things  have  been  presented  superficially,  and 
which  has  never  experienced  the  horror  of  feeling  the  ice  of 
doubt  crashing  beneath  the  feet. 

Therefore,  if  you  aspire  to  be  a  son  of  consolation — if  you 
would  partake  of  the  priestly  gift  of  sympathy — if  you 


98  The  Sympathy  of  Christ. 

would  pour  something  beyond  commonplace  consolatioi 
into  a  tempted  heart — if  you  would  pass  through  the  inter- 
course of  daily  life  with  the  delicate  tact  which  never  in^ 
flicts  pain — if  to  that  most  acute  of  human  ailments,  mental 
doubt,  you  are  ever  to  give  effectual  succor,  you  must  be 
content  to  pay  the  price  of  the  costly  education.  Like  Him, 
you  must  suffer — being  tempted. 

But  remember,  it  is  being  tempted  in  all  points,  yet  with- 
out sin,  that  makes  sympathy  real,  manly,  perfect,  instead  of 
a  mere  sentimental  tenderness.  Sin  will  teach  you  to  feel 
for  trials.  It  will  not  enable  you  to  judge  them,  to  be  mer- 
ciful to  them,  nor  to  help  them  in  time  of  need  with  any  cer- 
tainty. 

Lastly,  it  is  this  same  human  sympathy  which  qualifies 
Christ  for  judgment.  It  is  written  that  the  Father  hath 
committed  all  judgment  to  Him,  because  He  is  the  Son  of 
Man.  The  sympathy  of  Christ  extends  to  the  frailties  of 
human  nature,  not  to  its  hardened  guilt :  He  is  "  touched 
with  the  feeling  of  our  infirmities"  There  is  nothing  in  His 
bosom  which  can  harmonize  with  malice ;  He  can  not  feel 
for  envy;  He  has  no  fellow-feeling  for  cruelty — oppression 
—hypocrisy  ;  bitter  censorious  judgments.  Remember,  He 
could  look  round  about  Him  with  anger.  The  sympathy  of 
Christ  is  a  comforting  subject.  It  is,  besides,  a  tremendous 
subject ;  for  on  sympathy  the  awards  of  heaven  and  hell  are 
built.  "  Except  a  man  be  born  again  " — not  he  shall  not, 
but — "  he  can  not  enter  into  heaven."  There  is  nothing  in 
him  which  has  affinity  to  any  thing  in  the  Judge's  bosom. 
A  sympathy  for  that  which  is  pure  implies  a  repulsion  of 
that  which  is  impure.  Hatred  of  evil  is  in  proportion  to  the 
strength  of  love  for  good.  To  love  good  intensely  is  to  hate 
evil  intensely.  It  was  in  strict  accordance  with  the  laws  of 
sympathy  that  He  blighted  Pharisaism  in  such  ungentle 
words  as  these  :  "  Ye  serpents,  ye  generation  of  vipers  !  how 
can  ye  escape  the  damnation  of  hell?"  Win  the  mind  of 
Christ  now — or  else  His  sympathy  for  human  nature  will 
not  save  you  from,  but  only  insure,  the  recoil  of  abhorrence 
»t  the  last — "  Depart  from  me  !  I  never  knew  you." 


Pharisees  and Sadducees  at  Johns  Baptism.    99 


VIII. 

THE  PHARISEES  AND  SADDUCEES  AT  JOHN'S 
BAPTISM. 

"  But  when  he  saw  many  of  the  Pharisees  and  Sadducees  come  to  his  bap- 
tism, he  said  unto  them,  O  generation  of  vipers,  who  hath  warned  you  to  flee 
from  the  wrath  to  come  ?" — Matt.  iii.  7. 

IT  seems  that  the  Baptist's  ministry  had  been  attended 
with  almost  incredible  success,  as  if  the  population  of  the 
country  had  been  roused  in  mass  by  the  tidings  of  his  doc- 
trine. "  Then  went  out  to  him  Jerusalem,  and  all  Judea, 
and  all  the  region  round  about  Jordan,  and  were  baptized 
by  him  in  Jordan,  confessing  their  sins." 

The  success  of  his  ministry  was  tested  by  the  numbers 
that  he  baptized.  Not  so  a  modern  ministry.  Ministerial 
success  is  not  shown  now  by  the  numbers  who  listen.  Not 
mere  impression,  but  altered  character,  marks  success.  Not 
by  startling  nor  by  electrifying  congregations,  but  by  turn- 
ing men  from  darkness  unto  light,  from  the  power  of  Satan 
unto  God,  is  the  work  done.  With  John,  however,  it  was 
different.  He  was  on  earth  to  do  a  special  work — the  work 
of  the  axe,  not  the  trowel ;  to  throw  down,  not  to  build ;  to 
startle,  not  to  instruct ;  and  therefore  his  baptism  was  sim- 
ply symbolized  by  water,  the  washing  away  of  the  past : 
whereas  that  of  Christ  was  symbolized  by  fire,  the  touching 
of  the  life  and  heart  with  the  living  flame  of  a  heavenlier 
life.  Whoever,  therefore,  came  to  John  for  baptism,  possess- 
ed conviction  of  the  truth  of  that  which  John  taught,  and. 
thereby  so  far  tested  the  fidelity  and  success  of  his  ministry. 

Bearing,  then,  in  mind  that  coming  to  John's  baptism  was 
the  seal  of  his  success,  and  that  his  baptism  contained,  in 
symbolical  form,  the  whole  substance  of  his  teaching,  these 
are  the  two  topics  of  the  text : 

I.  The  meaning  wrapped  up  in  John's  message. 
II.  The  Baptist's  astonishment  at  his  own  success. 

I.  The  meaning  of  John's  message.  His  baptism  implied 
to  those  who  came  to  put  themselves  under  its  protection 
that  they  were  in  danger,  for  it  was  connected  with  th« 
warning,  "  Flee  from  the  wrath  to  come  !" 


ioo  Pharisees  and Sadducees  at  Jo/ins  Baptism. 

Future  retribution  has  become  to  us  a  kind  of  figment. 
Hell  is  in  the  world  of  shadows.  The  tone  in  which  educa- 
ted men  speak  of  it  still,  is  often  only  that  good-humored 
condescension  which  makes  allowance  for  childish  supersti« 
tion. 

Part  of  this  incredulity  arises  from  the  confessedly  sym- 
bolical intimations  of  Scripture  on  the  subject.  We  read 
of  the  fire  and  the  worm — of  spirits  being  salted  with  fire — 
of  a  lake  of  fire  and  brimstone.  All  this  tells  solely  of  phys- 
ical suffering.  And  accordingly,  for  centuries  this  was  the 
predominant  conception  of  Christendom  on  the  subject. 
Scarcely  any  other  element  was  admitted.  Whoever  has 
seen  those  paintings  on  which  the  master-spirits  in  Art  have 
thrown  down  the  conceptions  of  their  age,  will  remember 
that  hideous  demons,  distorted  countenances,  and  waves  of 
flame  represent  the  whole  idea.  And  in  that  immortal  work 
in  which  he  who  sang  of  Hell,  Purgatory,  and  Heaven  has 
embodied  the  belief  of  his  day,  still  the  same  fact  prevails. 
You  read  of  the  victims  of  unchaste  life  hurried  on  the  dark 
whirlwind  forever ;  of  the  heretics  in  their  coffins  of  intense 
fire,  and  of  the  guilty  spirits  who  are  plunged  deep  down  in 
"  thick-ribbed  ice.n  But  in  those  harrowing  pictures  which 
his  genius  has  painted  with  such  vividness,  there  is  not  one 
idea  of  mental  suffering  embodied.  It  is  all  bodily — awful,  in- 
tolerable torture.  Now  all  this  we  believe  no  longer.  The 
circles  of  hell  and  the  mountain  of  purgatory  are  as  fabulous 
to  us  as  the  Tartarus  of  the  heathens.  Singular  that  in  an 
age  in  which  the  chief  aim  of  science  appears  to  be  to  get  rid 
of  physical  pain  and  discomfort,  as  if  these  were  the  worst 
evils  conceivable,  the  idea  of  a  bodily  hell  should  be  just  the 
one  at  which  we  have  learnt  to  smile.  But  with  the  form, 
we  have  also  dispossessed  ourselves  of  belief  in  the  reality 
of  retribution  at  all. 

Now  Scripture  language  is  symbolical.  There  is  no  salt, 
no  worm,  no  fire  to  torture.  I  say  not  that  a  diseased  soul 
may  not  form  for  itself  a  tenement  hereafter,  as  here,  pecu- 
liarly fitted  to  be  the  avenue  of  suffering ;  but  unquestiona- 
bly we  can  not  build  upon  these  expressions  a  material  helL 

Hell  is  the  infinite  terror  of  the  soul,  whatever  that  may 
be.  To  one  man  it  is  pain.  Rid  him  of  that,  he  can  bear  all 
degradation.  To  another  it  is  public  shame.  Save  him  from 
that,  and  he  will  creep  and  crawl  before  you  to  submit  to  any 
reptile  meanness.  "  Honor  me  now,  I  pray  thee,  before  the 
people,"  cries  Saul,  till  Samuel  turns  from  the  abject  thinir  in 
scorn.  To  others,  the  infinite  terror  is  that  compared  with 
which  all  these  would  be  a  bed  of  roses.  It  is  the  hell  of 


Pharisees  and  Sadducees  at  Johns  Baptism.   1 01 

having  done  wrong — the  hell  of  having  had  a  spirit  from 
God,  pure,  with  high  aspirations,  and  to  be  conscious  of  hav- 
ing dulled  its  delicacy  and  degraded  its  desires — the  hell  of 
having  quenched  a  light  brighter  than  the  sun's — of  having 
done  to  another  an  injury  that  through  time  and  through 
eternity  never  can  be  undone — infinite,  maddening  remorse 
— the  hell  of  knowing  that  every  chance  of  excellence,  and 
every  opportunity  of  good,  has  been  lost  forever.  This  is  the 
infinite  terror ;  this  is  wrath  to  come. 

You  doubt  that?  Have  you  ever  marked  that  striking 
fact,  the  connection  of  the  successive  stages  of  the  soul? 
How  sin  can  change  the  countenance,  undermine  the  health, 
produce  restlessness  ?  Think  you  the  grave  will  end  all  that 
— that  by  some  magic  change  the  moral  being  shall  be  bui 
led  there,  and  the  soul  rise  again  so  changed  in  every  feeling 
that  the  very  identity  of  being  would  be  lost,  and  it  would 
amount  to  the  creation  of  a  new  soul  ?  Say  you  that  God  is 
love?  Oh,  but  look  round  this  world.  The  aspect  of  things 
is  stern — very  stern.  If  they  be  ruled  by  love,  it  is  a  love 
which  does  not  shrink  from  human  agony.  There  is  a  law 
of  infinite  mercy  here,  but  there  is  a  law  of  boundless  rigor 
too.  Sin,  and  you  will  suffer — that  law  is  not  reversed.  The 
young,  and  the  gentle,  and  the  tender,  are  inexorably  sub- 
jected to  it.  We  would  shield  them  if  we  could,  but  there  is 
that  which  says  they  shall  not  be  shielded.  They  shall  weep, 
and  fade,  and  taste  of  mortal  anguish,  even  as  others.  Carry 
that  out  into  the  next  world,  and  you  have  "  wrath  to  come." 

John's  baptism,  besides,  implied  the  importance  of  confes- 
sion. "They  were  baptized,  ....  confessing  their  sins." 
On  the  eve  of  a  promised  new  life,  they  were  required  to  ac- 
knowledge the  iniquity  of  their  past  life.  In  the  cure  of  our 
spiritual  maladies  there  is  a  wondrous  efficacy,  to  use  a  home- 
ly phrase,  in  making  a  "  clean  breast."  There  is  something 
strengthening,  something  soothing,  and  at  the  same  time 
something  humbling,  in  acknowledging  that  we  have  done 
wrong.  There  is  a  pride  in  us  which  can  not  bear  pity. 
There  is  a  diseased  sensitiveness  which  shrinks  from  the 
smart  of  acknowledgment ;  and  yet  that  smart  must  be  borne 
before  we  can  be  truly  soothed.  When  was  it  that  the 
younger  son  in  the  parable  received  the  ring,  and  the  robe, 
and  the  banquet,  which  represent  the  rapture  of  the  sense 
of  being  forgiven  ?  When  he  had  fortitude  enough  to  go 
back,  mile  by  mile,  step  by  step,  every  inch  of  the  way  he 
had  gone  wrong,  had  borne  unflinchingly  the  sneer  of  his  fa- 
ther's domestics,  and,  worse  than  all,  the  sarcasms  of  his  im- 
maculate brother,  and  manfully  said  out,  "Father,  I  have 


IO2  Pharisees  and  Sadducees  at  Johds  Baptism. 

sinned  against  heaven  and  before  thee."  When  was  it  that 
the  publican  went  down  justified  to  his  house — when  he  said, 
even  before  a  supercilious  Pharisee,  "  God  be  merciful  to  me 
a  sinner?"  When  did  the  royal  delinquent  hear  the  words, 
"The  Lord  hath  also  put  away  thy  sin?"  When  he  gave 
the  sacrifice  of  his  lips — "  I  have  sinned  before  the  Lord." 
And  when  did  the  Church  of  Ephesus  rise  into  the  bright- 
est model  of  a  perfect  church  that  has  yet  been  exhibited  on 
earth  ?  After  her  converts  had  publicly  come  forward,  burnt 
those  manuscripts  which  were  called  "  Ephesian  letters  "  to 
the  value  of  50,000  pieces  of  silver,  "  confessed  and  showed 
their  deeds." 

There  is  a  profound  truth  in  the  popular  anxiety  that  a 
murderer  should  confess  before  he  dies.  It  is  an  instinctive 
feeling  that  a  true  death  is  better  than  a  false  life — that  to 
die  with  unacknowledged  guilt  is  a  kind  of  lie.  To  acknowl- 
edge bis  sin  is  to  put  it  from  him — to  abjure  it — to  refuse  to 
acknowledge  it  as  part  of  himself— to  separate  it  from  him — 
to  say,  I  will  keep  it  as  mine  no  more  :  then  it  is  gone.  Who 
here  has  a  secret  of  guilt  lying  like  lead  upon  his  heart  ?  As 
he  values  serenity  of  soul,  let  that  secret  be  made  "known. 
And  if  there  be  one  to-day  who  is  impressed  or  touched  by 
all  this,  let  him  beware  how  he  procrastinates  that  which 
was  done  when  John  baptized.  The  iron  that  once  was  cool- 
ed may  never  be  warmed  again — the  heart  that  once  had  its 
flood-gates  open,  and  has  delayed  to  pour  out  the  stagnation 
of  its  wretchedness,  may  be  closed  forever. 

Once  more,  John's  baptism  implied  the  necessity  of  a  re- 
newal of  heart.  We  lose  part  of  the  significance  of  that  cer- 
emony from  its  transplantation  away  from  a  climate  in  which 
it  was  natural  and  appropriate. 

Ablution  in  the  East  is  almost  a  religious  duty :  the  dust 
and  heat  weigh  upon  the  spirits  and  heart  like  a  load ;  the 
removal  is  refreshment  and  happiness.  And  it  was  impossi- 
ble to  see  that  significant  act — in  which  the  convert  went 
down  into  the  water,  travel-worn  and  soiled  with  dust,  disap- 
peared for  one  moment,  and  then  emerged  pure  and  fresh — 
without  feeling  that  the  symbol  answered  to,  and  interpreted 
a  strong  craving  of  the  human  heart.  It  is  the  desire  to  wash 
away  that  which  is  past  and  evil.  We  would  fain  go  to  an- 
other country  and  begin  life  afresh.  We  look  upon  the  grave 
almost  with  complacency,  from  the  fancy  that  there  we  shall 
lie  down  to  sleep  and  wake  fresh  and  new.  It  was  this  same 
longing  that  expressed  itself  in  heathenism  by  the  fabled 
river  of  forgetfulness,  of  which  the  dead  must  drink  before 
they  can  enter  into  rest. 


Pharisees  and Sadducees  at  Johns  Baptism.  1 03 

Now  to  that  craving  John  gave  reality  and  meaning  when 
he  said,  "  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God  !"  For  else  that  craving 
is  but  a  sick  fond  wish.  Had  John  merely  said,  "  Flee  from 
the  wrath  to  come !"  he  would  have  filled  man's  life  with  the 
terrors  of  anticipated  hell.  Had  he  only  said,  "  My  baptism 
implies  that  ye  must  be  pure,"  he  would  have  crushed  men's 
hearts  with  the  feeling  of  impossibility ;  for  excellence  without 
Christ  is  but  a  dream.  He  gave  meaning  and  promise  to  all 
when  he  said,  "  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God,  which  taketh  away 
the  sins  of  the  world." 

Sin-laden  and  guilty  men — the  end  of  all  the  Christian  min- 
istry is  *to  say  that  out  with  power,  "  Behold  the  Lamb  of 
God !"  Divine  life  and  death  !  to  have  had  one  glimpse  of 
which,  with  its  ennobling  impulses,  it  were  worth  while  to 
have  endured  a  life  of  suffering.  When  we  believe  that  the 
sacrifice  of  that  Lamb  meant  love  to  us,  our  hearts  are  light' 
ened  of  their  load :  the  past  becomes  as  nothing,  and  life  be- 
gins  afresh.  Christ  is  the  river  of  forgetfulness  in  which  by- 
gone guilt  is  overwhelmed. 

II.  The  Baptist's  astonishment  at  his  own  success.  It  was 
a  singular  scene  which  was  exhibited  in  those  days  on  the 
banks  of  Jordan.  There  was  a  crowd  of  human  beings,  each 
having  a  history  of  his  own — men  who  have  long  mouldered 
in  earth's  dust,  but  who  were  living  then  in  fresh  and  vigor- 
ous existence.  Think  of  it.  Busy  life  was  moving  there — 
beings  who  had  their  hopes  and  fears  about  time  and  eter- 
nity, to  whom  life  was  dear  as  it  is  to  us  at  this  day.  They 
had  come  to  be  cured  of  that  worst  of  human  maladies,  the 
aching  of  a  hollow  heart ;  and  a  single  mortified  man  was 
bending  over  them,  whose  countenance  bore  all  that  peculiar 
aspect  of  saintliness  which  comes  from  spare  diet  and  austere 
habits,  and  all  that  unruffled  composure  which  comes  from 
lonely  communings  with  God : — a  solitary  man,  who  had  led 
a  hermit's  life,  but  was  possessed  of  rare  sagacity  in  worldly 
matters ; — for,  hermit  as  he  was,  John  took  no  half-views  of 
men  and  things :  there  was  nothing  morbid  in  his  view  of 
life;  there  was  sound  common  sense  in  the  advice  he  gave 
the  different  classes  which  came  to  him.  "Repent,"  with 
him,  did  not  mean,  Come  with  me  into  the  wilderness  to  live 
away  from  the  world,  but  it  meant  this :  Go  back  to  the 
world,  and  live  above  it,  each  doing  his  work  in  an  unworld- 
ly spirit.  It  was  a  strange  spectacle,  men  of  the  world  com- 
ing with  implicit  reverence  to  learn  the  duties  of  active  life 
from  a  man  whose  world  was  the  desert,  and  who  knew  noth 
ing  of  active  life  except  by  hearsay. 


104  Pharisees  and  Sadducees  at  Johns  Baptism. 

Now  what  was  the  secret  of  this  power  by  which  he  chained 
the  hearts  of  men  as  by  a  spell  ? 

One  point  in  the  secret  of  this  success  was  a  thing  which 
we  see  every  day.  Men  of  thought  and  quiet  contemplation 
exercise  a  wonderful  influence  over  men  of  action.  We  ad- 
mire that  which  we  are  not  ourselves.  The  man  of  business 
owns  the  control  of  the  man  of  religious  thoughtfulness. 
Like  coalesces  in  this  world  wuth  unlike.  The  strong  and 
the  weak,  the  contemplative  and  the  active,  bind  themselves 
together.  They  are  necessary  for  each  other.  The  active 
soldiers  and  the  scheming  publicans  came  to  the  lonely,  as- 
cetic John  to  hear  something  of  that  still,  inner  life,  of  which 
their  own  career  could  tell  them  nothing. 

A  second  cause  of  this  success  appears  to  have  been  that 
it  was  a  ministry  of  terror.  Fear  has  a  peculiar  fascination. 
As  children  love  the  tale  of  the  supernatural  which  yet  makes 
them  shudder,  so  do  men,  as  it  would  seem,  find  a  delight  in 
the  pictures  of  eternal  woe  which  terrify  them — partly  from 
the  pleasure  which  there  is  in  vivid  emotions,  and  partly,  per- 
haps, from  a  kind  of  feeling  of  expiation  in  the  horror  which 
is  experienced.  You  could  not  go  among  the  dullest  set  of 
rustics  and  preach  graphically  and  terribly  of  hell-fire  with- 
out insuring  a  large  audience.  The  preaching  of  John  in 
this  respect  differed  from  the  tone  of  Christ's.  Christ  taught 
much  that  God  is  love.  He  spoke  a  great  deal  of  the  Fa- 
ther which  is  in  heaven.  He  instructed  in  those  parables 
which  required  thoughtful  attention,  exercise  of  mind,  and  a 
gently  sensitive  conscience.  He  spoke  didactic,  calm  dis- 
courses, very  engaging,  but  with  little  excitement  in  them : 
such  discourses  as  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  respecting 
goodness,  purity,  duties ;  which  assuredly,  if  any  one  were 
to  venture  so  to  speak  before  a  modern  congregation,  would 
be  stigmatized  as  a  moral  essay.  Accordingly  His  success 
was  much  less  marked  than  that  of  John's.  No  crowds  were 
baptized  as  His  followers :  one  hundred  and  twenty,  in  an 
upper  chamber,  appear  to  have  been  the  fruits  of  his  life- 
work.  To  teach  so,  is  assuredly  not  the  way  to  make  strong 
impressions ;  but  it  is  the  way  to  work  deeply,  gloriously — 
for  eternity.  How  many  of  John's  terrified  Pharisees  and 
Sadducees,  suppose  we,  retained  the  impression  six  months  ? 

What  is  your  religion  ?  Excitability,  romance,  impression, 
fear  ?  Remember,  excitement  has  its  uses,  impression  has  its 
value.  John,  in  all  circumstances  of  his  appearance  and  style 
of  teaching,  impressed  by  excitement.  Excitement,  warmed 
feelings,  make  the  first  actings  of  religious  life  and  the  break* 
ing  of  inveterate  habits  easier.  But  excitement  and  impres* 


Pharisees  and Sadducees  at  Johns  Baptism.   105 

sion  are  not  religion.  Neither  can  you  trust  to  the  alarm 
produced  by  the  thought  of  eternal  retribution.  Ye  that 
hav  e  been  impressed,  beware  how  you  let  those  impressions 
d'e  away.  Die  they  will,  and  must :  we  can  not  live  in  ex- 
citement forever;  but  beware  of  their  leaving  behind  them 
nothing  except  a  languid,  jaded  heart.  If  God  ever  gave  you 
the  excitements  of  religion,  breaking  in  upon  your  monotony, 
as  John's  teaching  broke  in  upon  that  of  Jerusalem,  take  care. 
There  is  no  restoring  of  elasticity  to  the  spring  that  has  been 
overbent.  Let  impression  pass  on  at  once  to  acting. 

We  have  another  cause  to  assign  for  John's  success.  Men 
felt  that  he  was  real.  Reality  is  the  secret  of  all  success. 
Religion  in  Jerusalem  had  long  become  a  thing  of  forms. 
Men  had  settled  into  a  routine  of  externals,  as  if  all  religion 
centred  in  these.  Decencies  and  proprieties  formed  the  sub- 
stance of  human  life.  And  here  was  a  man  in  God's  world 
once  more  who  felt  that  religion  is  an  everlasting  reality. 
Here  was  a  man  once  more  to  tell  the  world  that  life  is 
sliding  into  the  abyss — that  all  we  see  is  but  a  shadow — that 
the  invisible  Life  within  is  the  only  real  life.  Here  was  a 
man  who  could  feel  the  splendors  of  God  shining  into  his 
soul  in  the  desert  without  the  aid  of  forms.  His  locust-food, 
his  hair-garment,  his  indifference  to  earthly  comforts,  spoke 
out  once  more  that  one  at  least  could  make  it  a  conviction 
to  live  and  die  upon,  that  man  does  not  live  on  bread  alone, 
but  on  the  Living  Word  which  proceedeth  out  of  the  mouth 
of  God.  And  when  that  crowd  dispersed  at  sunset,  and  John 
was  left  alone  in  the  twilight,  with  the  infinite  of  darkness 
deepening  round  him,  and  the  roll  of  Jordan  by  his  side,  re- 
flecting the  chaste,  clear  stars,  there  was  something  there 
higher  than  Pharisaic  forms  to  speak  to  him  :  there  was 
heaven  and  eternity  to  force  him  to  be  real.  This  life  waa 
swiftly  passing.  What  is  it  to  a  man  living  like  John  but  a 
-show  and  a  dream?  He  was  homeless  upon  earth.  Well, 
but  beyond — beyond — in  the  blue  eternities  above,  there  was 
the  prophet's  home.  He  had  cut  himself  off  from  the  solaces 
of  life.  He  was  to  make  an  enemy  of  the  man  of  honor,  Her- 
od. He  had  made  an  enemy  of  the  man  of  religion,  the  Phar- 
isee. But  he  was  passing  into  that  country  where  it  matters 
little  whether  a  man  has  been  clothed  in  finest  linen  or  in 
coarsest  camel's  hair :  that  still  country,  where  the  struggle- 
storm  of  life  is  over,  and  such  as  John  find  their  rest  at  last 
in  the  home  of  God,  which  is  reserved  for  the  true  and  brave. 
If  perpetual  familiarity  with  such  thoughts  as  these  can  not 
make  a  man  real,  there  is  nothing  in  this  world  that  can. 

And  now  look  at  this  man,  so  disciplined.  Life  to  John 

5* 


106  Pharisees  and Sadducees  at  Johns  Baptism. 

was  a  reality.  The  citizens  of  Jerusalem  could  not  go  to 
him,  as  they  might  have  gone  .to  the  schools  of  their  rabbis, 
for  learned  subtleties,  or  to  the  groves  of  Athenian  literature 
for  melting  imagery.  Speech  falls  from  him  sharp — rugged 
— cutting : — a  word,  and  no  more.  "  Repent !" — "  wrath  to 
come."  "The  axe  is  laid  at  the  root  of  the  trees."  "Fruit- 
less trees  will  be  cast  into  the  fire."  He  spoke  as  men  speak 
.  vhen  they  are  in  earnest,  simply  and  abruptly,  as  if  the 
^graces  of  oratory  were  out  of  place.  And  then,  that  life  of 
his  !  The  world  could  understand  it.  There  was  written  on 
it,  in  letters  that  needed  no  magnifying-glass  to  read,  "  Not 
of  this  world." 

It  is,  after  all,  this  which  tells — the  reality  of  unworldli- 
ness.  The  world  is  looking  on  to  see  what  religious  people 
mean.  It  has  a  most  profound  contempt  for  unreality.  Such  a 
man  as  John  comes  before  them.  Well,  we  understand  that : 
— we  do  not  like  him:  get  him  out -of  the  way,  and  kill  him 
if  he  interferes  with  us — but  it  is  genuine.  They  then  turn 
and  see  other  men  drawing  ingenious  distinctions  between 
one  kind  of  amusement  and  another — indulging  themselves 
on  the  sabbath-day  and  condemning  others  who  do  similar 
things,  and  calling  that  imworldliness.  They  see  that  a 
religious  man  has  a  shrewd  .eye  to  his  interests — is  quick  at 
making  a  bargain — captivated  by  show  and  ostentation — 
affects  titled  society.  The  world  is  very  keen-sighted:  it 
looks  through  the  excitement  of  your  religious  meetings, 
quietly  watches  the  rest  of  your  scandal,  scans  your  con- 
sciousness, and  the  question  which  the  world  keeps  putting 
pertinaciously  is,  Are  these  men  in  earnest  ?  Is  it  any  mar- 
vel if  Christian  unreality  is  the  subject  of  scoffs  and  bitter 
irony  ? 

Let  men  see  that  you  are  real — inconsistent,  it  may  be, 
sinful :  oh,  full  of  sin,  impetuous,  hasty,  perhaps  stern — John 
was.  But  compel  them  to  feel  that  you  are  in  earnest. 
This  is  the  secret  of  influence. 

So  much,  then,  for  the  causes  of  success.  Now  let  us  an- 
alyze that  success  a  little  more  closely,  by  considering  the 
classes  of  men  on  whom  that  influence  told. 

First  of  all,  we  read  of  soldiers,  publicans,  and  the  poor 
people,  coming  to  John  for  advice,  and  with  the  acknowl- 
edgment of  guilt,  and  we  do  not  read  that  their  arrival 
excited  the  smallest  emotion  of  astonishment  in  John's 
bos<rvm.  The  wonder  was  not  there.  No  wonder  that  the 
poor,  whose  lot  in  this  world  is  hard,  should  look  wistfully 
for  another.  No  wonder  that  soldiers,  with  their  prompt 
habits  of  obedience  and  their  perpetual  opportunities  of  self 


Pharisees  and  Sadducees  at  Johns  Baptism.   107 

devotion,  should  recognize  with  reverence  the  type  of  heroic 
life  which  John  presented.  No  wonder  that  the  guilty  pub- 
licans should  come  for  purification  of  heart.  For  is  it  not 
true  that  the  world's  outcasts  may  be  led  by  their  very  sin 
to  Christ  ?  It  is  no  wonder  to  see  a  saddened  sinner  seeking 
in  the  disappointment  and  weariness  of  solitary  age  that 
which  he  rejected  in  the  heat  of  youth.  Why,  even  the 
world  is  not  astonished  when  it  sees  the  sinner  become  the 
saint.  Of  course,  the  world  has  its  own  sarcastic  account  to 
give.  Dissipation  leads  to  weariness,  and  weariness  to  sati- 
ety, and  satiety  to  devotion,  and  so  your  great  sinner  be- 
comes a  great  saint,  and  serves  God  when  all  his  emotions 
are  exhausted.  Be  it  so.  He  who  knew  our  nature  well, 
knew  that  marvellous  revolutions  go  on  in  the  soul  of  a  man 
whom  the  world  counts  lost.  In  our  wildest  wanderings 
there  is  sometimes  a  love,  strong  as  a  father's,  tender  as  a 
mother's,  watching  over  us,  and  bringing  back  the  erring 
child  again.  Know  you  not  the  law  of  Nature  ?  Have  you 
never  seen  how  out  of  chaos  and  ferment  Nature  brings 
order  again  —  life  out  of  death,  beauty  out  of  corruption  ? 
Such,  gainsay  it  who  will,  often  is  the  history  of  the  rise  of 
saintliness  and  purity  out  of  a  disappointed,  bruised,  and 
penitent  spirit.  When  the  life-hopes  have  become  a  wreck 
—when  the  cravings  of  the  heart  for  keen  excitement  have 
been  ministered  to  so  abundantly  as  to  leave  nothing  but 
loathing  and  self-reproach  behind — when  innocence  of  heart 
is  gone — yes,  even  then — scoff  who  will — the  voice  of  Him 
is  heard,  who  so  dearly  purchased  the  right  to  say  it :  "  Come 
unto  me,  all  ye  that  labor  and  are  heavy  laden,  and  I  will 
give  you  rest." 

John  was  not  surprised  that  such  came  to  him,  owning 
the  power  of  life-giving  truth. 

But  among  those  who  came,  there  were  two  classes  who 
did  move  him  to  marvel.  The  first  was  the  moral,  self-satis- 
fied formalist.  The  second  was  the  calm,  metaphysical, 
reasoning  infidel.  When  he  saw  the  Pharisees  and  Saddu- 
cees coming,  he  said  :  "  Who  hath  warned  you  ?"  Now  who 
were  these  men  ? 

The  Pharisees  were  men  who  rested  satisfied  with  the 
outward.  The  form  of  religion,  which  varies  in  all  ages,  that 
they  wanted  to  stereotype.  The  inner  heart  of  religion — 
the  unchangeable — justice,  mercy,  truth — that  they  could  not 
feel.  They  had  got  their  two  schools  of  orthodoxy  —  the 
school  of  Shammai  and  the  school  of  Hillel ;  and,  under  the 
orthodoxy  of  these  popular  idols  of  the  day,  they  were  con- 
tent to  lose  their  OAvn  power  of  independent  thought ;  souls 


io8  Pharisees  and Sadducees  at  Johns  Baptism. 

that  had  shrunk  away  from  all  goodness  and  nobleness,  and 
withered  into  the  mummy  of  a  soul.  They  could  jangle 
about  the  breadth  of  a  phylactery ;  they  could  discuss,  as  if 
it  were  a  matter  of  life  and  death,  ecclesiastical  questions 
about  tithe ;  they  could  decide  to  a  furlong  the  length  of 
journey  allowable  on  the  sabbath-day ;  but  they  could  not 
look  with  mercy  upon  a  broken  heart  pouring  itself  out  to 
God  in  His  temple,  nor  suifer  a  hungry  man  to  rub  an  ear 
of  corn  on  the  Sabbath,  nor  cover  the  shame  of  a  tempted 
sister  or  an  erring  brother.  Men  without  souls,  from  whose 
narrow  hearts  the  grandeur  of  everlasting  truth  was  shut  out. 

There  was  another  class  in  Israel  as  different  from  the 
Pharisees  as  man  can  be  from  man.  The  Sadducees  could 
not  be  satisfied  with  the  creed  of  Pharisaism,  and  had  begun 
to  cross-examine  its  pretensions.  They  felt  that  the  thing 
which  stood  before  them  there,  challenging  the  exclusive 
name  of  religion,  wkh  its  washing  of  cups,  its  fastings,  its 
parchment  texts,  this  had  nothing  in  it  of  the  Eternal  and 
the  Infinite.  This  comes  not  from  the  Almighty  God,  and  so 
from  doubt  they  passed  on  to  denial.  The  usual  order  had 
taken  place.  The  reaction  from  superstition  is  infidelity. 
The  reaction  from  ultra-strictness  is  laxity.  The  reaction 
from  Pharisaism  was  the  Sadducee.  And  the  Sadducee,  with 
a  dreadful  daring,  had  had  the  firmness  to  say :  "  Well  then, 
there  is  no  life  to  come.  That  is  settled.  I  have  looked 
into  the  abyss  without  trembling.  There  is  no  phantom 
there.  There  is  neither  angel,  spirit,  nor  life  to  come.  And 
this  glorious  thing,  man,  with  his  deep  thoughts,  and  his 
great,  unsatisfied  heart,  his  sorrows  and  his  loves,  godlike 
and  immortal  as  he  seems,  is  but  dust  animated  for  a  time, 
passing  into  the  nothingness  out  of  which  he  came."  That 
cold  and  hopeless  creed  was  the  creed  of  Sadduceeism.  Hu- 
man souls  were  trying  to  live  on  that,  and  find  it  enough. 

And  the  strange  thing  was  that  these  men,  so  positive  in 
their  creed,  so  distinct  in  their  denial,  so  intolerant  of  the 
very  name  of  future  existence,  crowded  to  John  to  make 
those  confessions,  and  promise  that  new  life,  which  were 
meet  for  men  who  desired  to  flee  from  the  wrath  to  corne. 
Wrath  to  come !  What  had  the  infidel  to  do  with  that  r 
Repentance  unto  life  !  Why  should  the  denier  of  life  listen 
to  that  ?  -  Fruits  meet  for  repentance  !  What  had  the  form- 
alist to  do  with  that  rebuke,  whose  life  was  already  all  that 
could  be  needed  ?  "  O  generation  of  vipers,"  said  the  proph- 
et, in  astonishment,  "who  hath  warned  you  to  flee  from  the 
wrath  to  come  ?" 

I   deduce,  from  those   facts  which    astonished  John,  two 


Pharisees  and  Sadducees  at  yohris  Baptism.   1 09 

truths.  Formalism,  even  morality,  will  not  satisfy  the  con- 
science of  man.  Infidelity  will  not  give  rest  to  his  troubled 
spirit.  It  is  a  pregnant  lesson,  if  we  will  only  read  it  thought- 
fully, to  consider  those  two  classes  going  up  for  baptism. 
That  heart  of  man  which  the  moralist  tells  us  is  so  pure  and 
excellent,  the  light  of  day  has  shone  into  it,  and  behold,  in 
the  moralist's  self,  it  is  not  pure,  but  polluted  and  miserable : 
else,  what  has  that  Pharisee  to  do  with  the  symbol  of  new 
life  which  he  has  gone  to  John  to  use  ?  That  clear,  unbiased 
intellect  with  which  the  skeptic  reached  his  conclusions,  be- 
hold it  is  not  clear  nor  unbiased  !  It  has  been  warped  by 
an  evil  life.  His  heart  is  restless,  and  dark,  and  desolate ; 
else,  why  is  that  Sadducee  trembling  on  Jordan's  brink? 
There  is  a  something  which  they  want,  both  Pharisee  and 
Sadducee,  and  they  come  to  see  if  baptism  will  give  it  them. 
Strangely  moved  indeed  must  those  men  have  been — ay, 
shaken  to  the  inmost  soul — before  they  could  so  contradict 
their  own  profession  as  to  acknowledge  that  there  was  a 
hollowness  in  their  hearts.  We  almost  fancy  we  can  stand 
at  the  water's  edge  and  hear  the  confession  which  was  wrung 
from  their  lips,  hot-burning  and  choked  with  sobs,  during  the 
single  hour  in  which  reality  had  forced  itself  upon  their 
soiils: — "It  is  a  lie  ! — we  are  not  happy — we  are  miserable 
— Prophet  of  the  Invisible  !  what  hast  thou  got  to  tell  us  of 
that  awful  other  world  ?" 

For  when  man  comes  to  front  the  everlasting  God,  and 
look  the  splendor  of  His  judgments  in  the  face,  personal  in- 
tegrity, the  dream  of  spotlessness  and  innocence,  vanish  into 
thin  air:  your  decencies,  and  your  church-goings,  and  your 
regularities,  and  your  attachment  to  a  correct  school  and 
party,  your  gospel  formulas  of  sound  doctrine — what  is  all 
that,  in  front  of  the  blaze  of  the  wrath  to  come  ? 

And  skepticism  too,  how  philosophical  and  manly  soever 
it  may  appear,  will  it  rock  the  conscience  with  an  everlast- 
ing lullaby  ?  Will  it  make,  with  all  its  reasonings,  the  tooth 
of  the  worm  less  sharp,  and  the  fire  less  fierce  that  smoulders 
inwardly?  Let  but  the  plain,  true  man  speak.  We  ask 
from  him  no  rhetoric.  We  require  no  eloquence.  Let  him 
but  say,  in  his  earnestness,  Repent — or — Wrath  to  come,  and 
then  what  has  infidelity  to  fall  back  upon  ? 

There  is  rest  in  this  world  nowhere  except  in  Christ  the 
manifested  love  of  God.  Trust  in  excellence,  and  the  better 
you  become,  the  keener  is  the  feeling  of  deficiency.  Wrap 
up  all  in  doubt,  and  there  is  a  stern  voice  that  will  thunde'1 
at  last  out  of  the  wilderness  upon  your  dream. 

A  heart  renewed- -a  loving  heart — a  penitent  and  humble 


T  10     Laiaphass  View  of  Vicarious  Sacrifice. 

heart — a  heart  broken  and  contrite,  purified  by  love — that 
and  only  that  is  the  rest  of  man.  Spotlessness  may  do  for 
angels,  repentance  unto  life  is  the  highest  that  belongs  to 
man. 


IX. 
CAIAPHAS'S  VIEW  OF  VICARIOUS  SACRIFICE. 

"And  one  of  them,  named  Caiaphas,  being  the  high-priest  that  same 
fear,  said  unto  them,  Ye  know  nothing  at  all,  nor  consider  that  it  is  expe- 
dient for  us,  ^hat  one  man  should  die  for  the  people,  and  that  the  whole  na- 
tion perish  not.  And  this  spake  he  not  of  himself:  but  being  high-priest 
that  year,  he  prophesied  that  Jesus  should  die  for  that  nation ;  and  not  for 
that  nation  only,  but  that  also  he  should  gather  together  in  one  the  children 
of  God  that  were  scattered  abroad.  Then  from  that  day  forth  they  took 
counsel  together  to  put  him  to  death." — John  xi.  49-53. 

Ox  this  occasion,  the  first  resolution  passed  the  Jewish 
Sanhedrim  to  compass  the  death  of  Jesus.  The  immediate 
occasion  of  their  meeting  was  the  fame  of  the  resurrection  of 
Lazarus.  There  were  many  causes  which  made  the  Saviour 
obnoxious  to  the  priests  and  Pharisees.  If  that  teaching 
wer-e  once  received,  their  reign  was  over :  a  teaching  which 
abolished  the  pretensions  of  a  priesthood,  by  making  every 
man  his  own  priest,  to  offer  spiritual  sacrifices  to  God — 
which  identified  religion  with  Goodness — making  spiritual 
excellence,  not  ritual  regularity,  the  righteousness  which 
God  accepts — which  brought  God  within  the  reach  of  the 
sinner  and  the  fallen — which  simplified  the  whole  matter  by 
making  religion  a  thing  of  the  heart,  and  not  of  rabbinical 
learning  or  theology  : — such  teaching  swept  away  all  the  ex- 
clusive pretensions  of  Pharisaism,  made  the  life  which  they 
had  been  building  up  with  so  much  toil  for  years  time 
wasted,  and  reduced  their  whole  existence  to  a  lie. 

This  was  the  ground  of  their  hatred  to  the  Son  of  Man. 
But  this  was  not  the  ground  which  they  put  forward.  He 
was  tried  chiefly  on  the  charge  of  treason  against  the  Em- 
peror; and  the  argument  by  which  the  mind  of  the  judge 
was  principally  swayed  was,  "  If  thou  let  this  man  go,  thou 
art  not  Cesar's  friend."  The  present  passage  contains  the 
Hrst  trace  of  the  adoption  of  that  ground.  "If  we  let  him 
alone,  the  Romans  will  come  and  take  away  both  our  place 
and  nation." 

Be  it  observed,  then,  the  real  ground  of  opposition  was 
natred  of  the  light.  The  ostensible  ground  was  patriotism, 


Caiaphas  s  View  of  Vicarious  Sacrifice.     1 1 1 

public  zeal,  loyalty,  far-sighted  policy ;  and  such  is  life.  The 
motive  on  which  a  deed  of  sin  is  done  is  not  the  motive 
which  a  man  allows  to  others,  or  whispers  to  himself.  Listen 
to  the  criminal  receiving  sentence,  and  the  cause  of  condem- 
nation is  not  the  enormity  of  the  crime,  but  the  injustice  of 
the  country's  law.  Hear  the  man  of  disorderly  life,  whom 
society  has  expelled  from  her  bosom,  and  the  cause  of  the 
expulsion  is  not  his  profligacy,  but  the  false  slander  which 
has  misrepresented  him.  Take  his  own  account  of  the 
matter,  and  he  is  innocent — injured — pure.  For  there  are 
names  so  tender,  and  so  full  of  fond  endearment,  with  which 
this  world  sugars  over  its  dark  guilt  towards  God,  with  a 
crust  of  superficial  whiteness,  that  the  sin  on  which  eighteen 
centuries  have  looked  back  appalled  was,  to  the  doers  of 
that  sin,  nothing  atrocious,  but  respectable,  defensible,  nay 
even,  under  the  circumstances,  necessary. 

The  judgment  of  one  of  these  righteous  murderers  was 
given  in  remarkable  terms.  Apparently  there  were  some  in 
the  council,  such  mc^n  as  Nicodernus,  who  could  not  acquiesce 
in  the  view  given  of  the  matter.  Doubtless  they  alleged  the 
unfairness  of  the  proceeding,  and  the  innocence  of  the  ac- 
cused ;  upon  which  Caiaphas  replied,  "  Ye  know  nothing  at 
all,  nor  consider  that  it  is  expedient  that  one  man  die  for  the 
people,  and  that  the  whole  nation  perish  not."  The  remark- 
able point  in  this  judgment  is,  that  it  contained  the  very  cen- 
tral doctrine  of  Christianity  :  unconsciously,  Caiaphas  had 
uttered  the  profoundest  of  all  truths,  the  necessity,  of  the 
innocent  suffering  for  the  guilty.  He  had  stated  it  in  the 
very  words  which  St.  John  could  have  himself  adopted.  But 
they  meant  one  thing  in  the  lips  of  holy  Love,  and  quite  an- 
otTier  thing  in  the  lips  of  tyrannical  Policy.  Yet  St.  John, 
contemplating  that  sentence  years  after,  could  not  but  feel 
that  there  was  something  in  the  words  deeper  than  met  the 
ear — a  truth  almost  inspired,  which  he  did  not  hesitate  to 
call  prophetic.  "  Being  high-priest  that  year,  he  prophesied." 

We  must  not,  therefore,  call  this  merely  a  singular  coinci- 
dence. It  was  the  same  truth  viewed  from  different  sides: 
the  side  of  Caiaphas,  and  the  side  of  John  ;  the  side  of  the 
world,  and  the  side  of  God.  That  truth  was  the  vicarious 
sacrifice  of  "Christ. 

And  there  are  two  ways  in  which  you  may  contemplate 
that  sacrifice.  Seen  from  the  world's  point  of  view,  it  is 
unjust,  gross,  cruel.  Seen  as  John  saw  it,  and  as  God  looks 
at  it,  it  was  the  sublimest  of  all  truths ;  one  which  so  entwines 
itself  with  our  religious  consciousness,  that  you  might  as  soon 
tear  from  us  our  very  being,  as  our  convictions  of  the  reality 


112      Caiaphas  s  View  of  Vicarious  Sacrifice. 

of  Christ's  atonement.  Our  subject,  then,  is  the  vicarious 
sacrifice  of  Christ.  The  words  of  Caiaphas  contain  a  formal 
falsehood  and  a  material  truth :  the  outward  statement,  and 
an  inspired  or  prophetic  inward  verity — so  that  the  subject 
branches  into  two  topics  : 

I.  The  human  form,  in  which  the  words  are  false. 
II.  The  divine  principle  or  spirit,  in  which  they  are  true. 

I.  The  human  form,  in  which  the  words  are  false. 

Vicarious  means  in  the  stead  of.  When  the  Pope  calls 
himself  the  vicar  of  Christ,  he  means  that  he  is  empowered 
in  the  stead  of  Christ  to  absolve,  decree,  etc.  When  we 
speak  of  vicarious  suffering,  we  mean  that  suffering  which  is 
endured  in  another's  stead,  and  not  as  the  sufferer's  own 
desert. 

1.  The  first  falsity  in  the  human  statement  of  that  truth  of 
vicarious  sacrifice  is  its  injustice.  Some  one  said  the  accused 
is  innocent.  The  reply  was,  Better  that  one  should  die  than 
many.  "  It  is  expedient  for  us,  that  one  man  should  die  for 
the  people,  and  that  the  whole  nation  perish  not"  It  was 
simply  with  Caiaphas  a  question  of  numbers :  the  unjust  ex- 
pediency of  wresting  the  law  a  little  to  do  much  apparent 
good.  The  reply  to  that  was  plain.  Expediency  can  not 
obliterate  right  and  wrong.  Expediency  may  choose  the 
best  possible  when  the  conceivable  best  is  not  attainable ; 
but  in  right  and  wrong  there  is  no  better  and  best.  Thou 
shall  not  do  wrong.  Thou  must  not :  you  may  not  tell  a  lie 
to  save  life.  Better  that  the  whole  Jewish  nation  should  per- 
ish, than  that  a  Jewish  legislature  should  steep  its  hand  in 
the  blood  of  one  innocent.  It  is  not  expedient  to  do  injustice. 

There  are  cases  in  which  it  is  expedient  to  choose  the  sac- 
rifice of  one  instead  of  that  of  many.  When  a  whole  army 
or  regiment  has  mutinied,  the  commander,  instead  of  general 
butchery,  may  select  a  few  to  perish  as  examples  to  the  rest. 
There  is  nothing  here  unjust.  The  many  escape,  but  the  few 
who  die  deserve  to  die.  But  no  principle  could  justify  a 
commander  in  selecting  an  innocent  man,  condemning  him 
by  unjust  sentence,  and  affecting  to  believe  that  he  was 
guilty,  while  the  transgressors  escaped,  and  learned  the 
enormity  of  their  transgressions  by  seeing  execution  done 
upon  the  guiltless.  No  principle  can  justify — nothing  can 
do  more  than  palliate  the  conduct  of  the  ship's  crew  upon 
the  raft  who  slay  one  of  their  number  to  support  their  exist- 
ence on  his  flesh.  No  man  would  justify  the  parent,  pursued 
in  his  chariot  by  wolves  over  Siberian  snows,  who  throws  out 
one  of  his  children  to  the  pack,  that  the  rest  may  escape 


Caiaphass  View  of  Vicarious  Sacrifice.      1 1 3 

while  their  fangs  are  buried  in  their  victim.  You  feel  at 
once  expediency  has  no  place  here.  Life  is  a  trifle  compared 
with  law.  Better  that  all  should  perish  by  a  visitation  ol 
God,  than  that  they  should  be  saved  by  one  murder. 

I  do  not  deny  that  this  aspect  has  been  given  to  the  sacri- 
fice of  Christ.  It  has  been  represented  as  if  the  majesty  of 
law  demanded  a  victim :  and,  so  as  it  glutted  its  insatiate 
thirst,  one  victim  would  do  as  well  as  another — the  purer 
and  the  more  innocent  the  better.  It  has  been  exhibited  as 
if  Eternal  Love  resolved  in  fury  to  strike,  and  so  as  He  had 
His  blow,  it  mattered  not  whether  it  fell  on  the  whole  world, 
or  on  the  precious  head  of  His  own  chosen  Son. 

Unitarianism  has  represented  the  Scriptural  view  in  this 
way,  or,  rather  perhaps,  we  should  say,  it  has  been  so  repre- 
sented to  Unitarians — and,  from  a  view  so  horrible,  no  won- 
der if  Unitarianism  has  recoiled.  But  it  is  not  our  fault  if 
some  blind  defenders  of  the  truth  have  converted  the  self-de- 
votion of  love  into  a  Brahminical  sacrifice.  If  the  work  of 
redemption  be  defended  by  parallels  drawn  from  the  most 
atrocious  records  and  principles  of  heathenism,  let  not  the 
fault  be  laid  upon  the  Bible.  We  disclaim  that  as  well  as 
they.  It  makes  God  a  Caiaphas.  It  makes  Him  adopt  the 
words  of  Caiaphas  in  the  sense  of  Caiaphas.'  It  represents 
Him  in  terms  which  better  describe  the  ungoverned  rage  of 
Saul,  missing  his  stroke  at  David,  who  has  offended,  and  in 
disappointed  fury  dashing  his  javelin  at  his  own  son  Jon- 
athan. 

You  must  not  represent  the  Atonement  as  dependent  on 
the  justice  of  unrighteous  expediency. 

2.  This  side  of  viewing  the  truth  was  the  side  of  selfish- 
ness. It  was  not  even  the  calm  resolve  of  men  balancing 
whether  it  be  better  for  one  to  die  or  many,  but  whether  it 
is  better  that  He  or  we  should  perish.  It  is  conceivable  in 
the  ca$e  supposed  above,  that  a  parent  in  the  horrible  di- 
lemma should  be  enough  bewildered  to  resolve  to  sacrifice 
one  rather  than  lose  all ;  but  it  is  not  conceivable  that  the 
doubt  in  his  mind  should  be  this — Shall  I  and  the  rest  per- 
ish or  this  one  ? — yet  this  was  the  spirit  in  which  the  party 
of  Caiaphas  spoke.  "The  Romans  will  come  and  take  away 
our  place  and  our  nation." 

And  this  spirit,  too,  is  in  human  nature.  The  records  of 
antiquity  are  full  of  it.  If  a  fleet  could  not  sail,  it  was  as- 
sumed that  the  deities  were  offended.  The  purest  and  ten- 
derest  maiden  of  the  royal  household  was  selected  to  bleed 
upon  the  altar :  and  when  the  sharp  knife  passed  to  her  in- 
nocent heart,  this  was  the  feeling  in  the  bosoms  of  those 


H4     Caiaphas  s  View  of  Vicarious  Sacrifice. 

stern  and  unrelenting  warriors — of  the    blood   and  of  the 
stock  of  Caiaphas — Better  she  should  suffer  than  we. 

This  may  be  the  way  in  which  the  sacrifice  of  Christ  is  re- 
garded by  us.  There  is  a  kind  of  acquiescence  in  the  Atone- 
ment which  is  purely  selfish.  The  more  bloody  the  repre- 
sentation of  the  character  of  God,  the  greater,  of  tonrse,  the 
satisfaction  in  feeling  sheltered  from  it.  The  more  wrath  in- 
stead of  love  is  believed  to  be  the  Divine  name,  the  more 
may  a  man  find  joy  in  believing  that  he  is  safe.  It  is  the 
feeling  of  the  Siberian  story :  the  innocent  has  glutted  the 
wolves,  and  we  may  pursue  our  journey  in  safety.  Christ 
has  suffered,  and  I  am  safe.  He  bore  the  agony — I  take  the 
reward  :  I  may  now  live  with  impunity  :  and,  of  course,  it  is 
very  easy  to  call  acquiescence  in  that  arrangement  humility, 
and  to  take  credit  for  the  abnegation  of  self-righteousness : 
but  whoever  can  acquiesce  in  that  thought  chiefly  in  refer- 
ence to  personal  safety,  and,  without  desiring  to  share  the 
Redeemer's  cross,  aspire  to  enjoy  the  comforts  and  the  bene- 
fits of  the  Redeemer's  sacrifice,  has  but  something  of  the 
spirit  of  Caiaphas  after  all,  the  spirit  which  contentedly  sac- 
rifices another  for  self — selfishness  assuming  the  form  of  wis- 
dom. 

II.  We  pass  to  the  prophetic  or  hidden  spirit  in  which 
these  words  are  true. 

I  observe,  first,  that  vicarious  sacrifice  is  the  Law  of  Be- 
ing. It  is  a  mysterious  and  fearful  thing  to  observe  how  all 
God's  universe  is  built  upon  this  law,  how  it  penetrates  and 
pervades  all  Nature,  so  that  if  it  were  to  cease,  Nature  would 
cease  to  exist.  Hearken  to  the  Saviour  himself  expounding 
this  principle  :  "Except  a  corn  of  wheat  fall  into  the  ground 
and  die,  it  abideth  alone :  but  if  it  die,  it  bringeth  forth  much 
fruit."  We  are  justified,  therefore,  in  assuming  the  Law  of 
Nature  to  be  the  Law  of  His  own  Sacrifice,  for  He^  himself 
represents  it  as  the  parallel. 

Now  observe  this  world  of  God's.  The  mountain-rock 
must  have  its  surface  rusted  into  putrescence  and  become 
dead  soil  before  the  herb  can  growr.  The  destruction  of  the 
mineral  is  the  life  of  the  vegetable.  Again  the  same  process 
begins.  The  "  corn  of  wheat  dies,"  and  out  of  death  more 
abundant  life  is  born.  Out  of  the  soil  in  which  deciduous 
leaves  are  buried,  the  young  tree  shoots  vigorously,  and 
strikes  its  roots  deep  down  into  the  realm  of  decay  and 
death,  Upon  the  life  of  the  vegetable  world,  the  myriad 
forms  of  higher  life  sustain  themselves — still  the  same  law : 
the  sacrifice  of  life  to  give  life.  Farther  still:  have  we 


Caiaphas  s  View  of  Vicarious  Sacrifice.     1 1 5 

never  pondered  over  that  mystery  of  nature — the  dove 
struck  down  by  the  hawk — the  deer  trembling  beneath  the 
stroke  of  the  lion — the  winged  fish  falling  into  the  jaws  of 
the  dolphin  ?  It  is  the  solemn  law  of  vicarious  sacrifice 
again.  And  as  often  as  man  sees  his  table  covered  with  the 
flesh  of  animals  slain,  does  he  behold,  whether  he  think  of  it 
or  not,  the  deep  mystery  and  law  of  being.  They  have  sur- 
rendered their  innocent  lives  that  he  may  live. 

Nay,  farther  still :  it  is  as  impossible  for  man  to  live  as  it 
is  for  man  to  be  redeemed,  except  through  vicarious  suffer- 
in  o\  The  anguish  of  the  mother  is  the  condition  of  the 
child's  life.  His  very  being  has  its  roots  in  the  law  of  sacri- 
fice ;  and  from  his  birth  onward,  instinctively  this  becomes 
the  law  which  rules  his  existence.  There  is  no  blessing 
which  was  ever  enjoyed  by  man  which  did  not  corne 
through  this.  There  was  never  a  country  cleared  for  civili- 
zation, and  purified  of  its  swamps  and  forests,  but  the  first 
settlers  paid  the^  penalty  of  that  which  their  successors  en- 
joy. There  never  was  a  victory  won,  but  the  conquerors 
who  took  possession  of  the  conquest  passed  over  the  bodies 
of  the  noblest  slain,  who  died  that  they  might  win. 

Now  observe,  all  this  is  the  law  obeyed,  either  uncon- 
sciously or  else  instinctively.  But  in  the  redemption  of  our 
humanity,  a  moment  comes,  when  that  law  is  recognized  as 
the  will  of  God  adopted  consciously,  and  voluntarily  obeyed 
as  the  law  of  man's  existence.  Then  it  is  that  man's  true 
nobleness,  his  only  possible  blessedness,  and  his  redemption 
from  blind  instincts  and  mere  selfishness,  begin.  You  may 
evade  that  law — you  may  succeed  in  living  as  Caiaphas  did, 
sacrificing  others  instead  of  yourself — and  men  will  call  you 
wise,  and  prudent,  and  respectable.  But  you  are  only  a 
Caiaphas :  redeemed  you  are  not.  Your  proper  humanity 
has  not  begun. 

The  highest  Man  recognized  that  law,  and  joyfully  em- 
braced it  as  the  law  of  His  existence.  It  was  the  conscious- 
ness of  His  surrender  to  that  as  God's  will,  and  the  voluntari- 
ness  of  the  act,  which  made  it  sacrifice.  Hear  Him  :  "  No 
man  taketh  my  life  from  me.  I  have  power  to  lay  it  down, 
and  I  have  power  to  take  it  up  again."  "  This  command- 
ment have  I  received  from  my  Father."  Had  he  been  by 
the  wiles  of  Caiaphas  simply  surprised  and  dragged  strug- 
gling and  reluctant  to  doom,  He  would  have  been  a  victim, 
but  not  a  sacrifice;  He  would  have  been  an  object  of  our 
compassion,  but  by  no  means  of  our  admiring  wonder.  It 
was  the  foresight  of  all  the  result  of  His  opposition  to  the 
world's  sin,  and  His  steady  uncompromising  battle  against 


1 1 6     Caiaphass  View  of  Vicarious  Sacrifice. 

it  notwithstanding,  in  every  one  of  its  forms,  knowing  that 
He  must  be  its  victim  at  the  last,  which  prevented  His  death 
from  being  merely  the  death  of  a  lamb  slain  unconsciously  on 
Jewish  altars,  and  elevated  it  to  the  dignity  of  a  true  and 
proper  sacrifice. 

We  go  beyond  this,  however.  It  was  not  merely  a  sacri- 
fice, it  was  a  sacrifice  for  sin.  "  His  soul  was  made  an  offer- 
ing for  sin."  Neither  was  it  only  a  sacrifice  for  sin — it  was 
a  sacrifice  for  the  world's  sin.  In  the  text,  "  that  Jesus 
should  die  for  that  nation  ;  and  not  for  that  nation  only,  but 
that  also  He  should  gather  together  in  one  the  children  of 
God  that  were  scattered  abroad." 

Two  ideas  are  necessaiy  to  be  distinctly  apprehended  by 
us  in  order  to  understand  that :  the  first  is  the  notion  of 
punishment,  the  second  is  the  idea  of  the  world's  sin. 

By  punishment  is  simply  meant  the  penalty  annexed  to 
transgression  of  a  law.  Punishment  is  of  two  kinds :  the 
penalty  which  follows  ignorant  transgression,  and  the  chas- 
tisement which  ensues  upon  willful  disobedience.  The  first 
of  these  is  called  imputed  guilt,  the  second  is  actual  guilt. 
By  imputed  guilt  is  meant,  in  theological  language,  that  a 
person  is  treated  as  if  he  were  guilty :  if,  for  example,  you  ap- 
proach too  near  the  whirling  wTheel  of  steam  machinery,  the 
mutilation  which  follows  is  the  punishment  of  temerity.  If 
the  traveller  ignorantly  lays  his  hand  on  the  cockatrice's 
den,  the  throb  of  the  envenomed  fang  is  the  punishment  of 
his  ignorance.  He  has  broken  a  law  of  nature,  and  the  guilt 
of  the  infection  is  imputed  to  him  ;  there  is  penalty,  but  there 
is  none  of  the  chastisement  which  follows  sin.  His  conscience 
is  not  made  miserable.  He  only  suffers. 

Farther,  according  to  the  constitution  of  this  world,  it  is 
not  only  our  own  transgressions  of  ignorance,  but  besides, 
the  faults  of  others,  which  bring  pain  and  sorrow  on  us.  The 
man  of  irritable  and  miserably  nervous  temperament  owes 
that  often  to  a  father's  intemperance.  Many  a  man  has  to 
straggle  all  his  life  with  the  penury  which  he  reaps  as  th° 
harvest  of  a  distant  ancestor's  extravagance.  In  the  stride* 
sense  of  the  word,  these  are  punishments — the  consequences 
annexed  to  transgression  :  and,  in  the  language  of  theology, 
they  are  called  imputed  guilt.  But  there~is  an  all-important 
distinction  between  them  and  the  chastisements  of  personal 
iniquity.  If  a  man  suffer  ill  health  or  poverty  as  the  results 
of  his  own  misconduct,  his  conscience  forces  him  to  refer  thia 
to  the  wrath  of  God.  He  is  reaping  as  he  had  sown,  and 
the  miseries  of  conscious  fault  are  added  to  his  penalty. 
But  if  such  things  come  as  the  penalty  of  the  wrong  of  oth- 


Caiaphass  View  of  Vicarious  Sacrifice.      \  1 7 

ers,  then,  philosophically  though  you  may  call  them  punish' 
ment,  in  the  popular  sense  of  the  word  they  are  no  punish- 
ments at  all,  but  rather  corrective  discipline,  nay,  even  rich- 
est blessings,  if  they  are  received  from  a  Father's  hand,  and 
transmuted  by  humbleness  into  the  means  of  spiritual 
growth. 

Apply  all  this  to  the  sacrifice  of  Christ.  Let  ho  man  say 
that  Christ  bore  the  wrath  of  God.  Let  no  man  say  that 
God  was  angry  with  His  Son.  We  are  sometimes  told  of  a 
mysterious  anguish  which  Christ  endured,  the  consequence 
of  Divine  wrath,  the  sufferings  of  a  heart  laden  with  the 
conscience  of  the  world's  transgressions  which  He  was  bear- 
ing as  if  they  were  His  own  sins.  Do  not  add  to  the  Bible 
what  is  not  in  the  Bible.  The  Redeemer's  conscience  was 
not  bewildered  to  feel  that  as  His  own  which  was  not  His 
own.  He  suffered  no  wrath  of  God.  Twice  came  the  voice 
from  heaven,  "  This  is  my  beloved  Son,  in  whom  I  am  well 
pleased.'1''  There  was  seen  an  angel  strengthening  Him. 
Nay,  even  to  the  last,  never  did  the  consciousness  of  purity 
and  the  Father's  love  forsake  Him.  "Father,  into  Thy 
hands  I  commend  my  spirit." 

Christ  came  into  collision  with  the  world's  evil,  and  He 
bore  the  penalty  of  that  daring.  He  approached  the  whirl- 
ing wheel,  and  was  torn  in  pieces.  He  laid  His  hand  upon 
the  cockatrice's  den,  and  its  fangs  pierced  Him.  It  is  the 
law  which  governs  the  conflict  with  evil.  It  can  be  only 

crushed  by  suffering  from  it The  Son  of  man  who 

puts  His  naked  foot  on  the  serpent's  head,  crushes  it:  but 
the  fang  goes  into  His  heel. 

The  Redeemer  bore  imputed  sin.  He  bore  the  penalty  of 
others'  sin.  He  was  punished.  Did  He  bear  the  anger  of 
the  Most  High  ?  Was  His  the  hell  of  an  accusing  con- 
science ? — In  the  name  of  Him  who  is  God,  not  Caiaphas, 
never.  Something  more,  however,  is  necessary  to  complete 
our  notion  of  punishment.  It  is  a  right  estimate  of  law. 
We  are  apt  to  think  of  punishment  as  something  quite  arbi- 
trary, which  can  be  remitted  or  changed  at  will.  Hence  we 
almost  always  connect  it  with  the  idea  of  wrath ;  hence,  the 
heathen  tried  to  bribe  and  coax  their  deities  to  spare ;  and 
hence  the  sacrifice  of  Christ  comes  to  be  looked  upon  in  the 
light  of  a  sagacious  or  ingenious  contrivance,  a  mere 
"  scheme  "  of  redemption. 

Now  remember  what  law  is.  The  moral  laws  of  this  uni- 
verse are  as  immutable  as  God  Himself.  Law  is  the  Being 
of  God.  God  can  not  alter  those  laws :  He  can  not  make 
wrong  right.  He  can  not  make  truth  falsehoods  nor 


\ 


1 1 8     Caiaphass  View  of  Vicarious  Sacrifice- 

hood  truth.  He  can  not  make  sin  blessed,  nor  annex  hell  to 
innocence.  Law  moves  on  its  majestic  course  irresistible. 
If  His  chosen  Son  violates  law,  and  throws  Himself  from  the 
pinnacle,  He  dies.  If  you  resist  a  law  of  the  universe  in  its 
eternal  march,  the  universe  crushes  you,  that  is  all.  Consid- 
er what  law  is,  and  then  the  idea  of  bloody  vengeance  passes 
away  altogether  from  the  sacrifice.  It  is  not  "  an  eye  for  an 
eye,"  and  "  a  tooth  for  a  tooth,"  in  the  sanguinary  spirit  of 
the  old  retaliatory  legislation.  It  is  the  eternal  impossibility 
of  violating  that  law  of  the  universe  whereby  penalty  is  an- 
nexed to  transgression,  and  must  fall,  either  laden  with  curse 
or  rich  in  blessing. 

The  second  idea  which  it  behooves  us  to  master  is  that  of 
the  world's  sin.  The  Apostle  John  always  viewed  sin  as  a 
great  connected  principle — One;  a  single  world-spirit — ex- 
actly as  the  electricity  with  which  the  universe  is  charged  is 
indivisible,  imponderable,  one,  so  that  you  can  not  sepa- 
rate it  from  the  great  ocean  of  fluid.  The  electric  spark 
that  slumbers  in  the  dew-drop  is  part  of  the  flood  which 
struck  the  oak.  Had  that  spark  not  been  there,  it  could  be 
demonstrated  that  the  whole  previous  constitution  of  the 
universe  might  have  been  different,  and  the  oak  not  have 
been  struck. 

Let  us  possess  ourselves  of  this  view  of  sin,  for  it  is  the 
true  one.  Separate  acts  of  sin  are  but  manifestations  of  one 
*  great  principle.  It  was  thus  that  the  Saviour  looked  on  the 
sins  of  His  day.  The  Jews  of  that  age  had  had  no  hand  in 
the  murder  of  Abel  or  Zacharias,  but  they  were  of  kindred 
spirit  with  the  men  who  slew  them.  Condemning  their 
murderers,  they  imitated  their  act.  In  that  imitation  they 
"  allowed  the  deeds  of  their  fathers ;"  they  shared  in  the 
guilt  of  the  act  which  had  been  consummated,  because  they 
had  the  spirit  which  led  to  it.  "  The  blood  of  them  all  shall 
come  on  this  generation."  It  was  so,  too,  that  Stephen  look- 
ed on  the  act  of  his  assassins.  When  God's  glory  streamed 
upon  his  face,  he  felt  that  the  transaction  going  on  then  was 
not  simply  the  violence  of  a  mob  in  an  obscure  corner  of  the 
world,  it  was  an  outbreak  of  the  great  principle  of  evil.  He 
saw  in  their  act  the  resurrection  of  the  spirit  of  those  who 
tad  "  resisted  the  Holy  Ghost "  in  their  day,  slain  the  proph- 
ets, opposed  Moses,  crucified  "  the  just  one,"  and  felt  that 
their  genuine  descendants  were  now  opposing  themselves  to 
the  form  in  which  Truth  and  Goodness  were  appearing  in 
his  day. 

It  is  in  this  way  only  that  you  will  be  able,  with  any  reali 
ty  of  feeling,  to  enter  into  the  truth  that  "  your  sins  nailed 


Caiaphass  View  of  Vicarious  Sacrifice.     1 1  q 

Him  to  the  cross  ;"  that  "  the  Lord  hath  laid  on  "Him  the  in- 
iquity of  us  all ;"  that  He  died  "  not  for  that  nation  only, 
but  that  also  He  should  gather  together  in  one  the  children 
of  God  that  were  scattered  abroad."  If,  for  instance,  indis- 
putable evidence  be  given  of  the  saintliness  of  a  man  wiiose 
creed  and  views  are  not  yours,  and  rather  than  admit  that 
good  in  him  is  good,  you  invent  all  manner  of  possible  mo- 
tives to  discredit  his  excellence,  then  let  the  thought  arise, 
This  is  the  resurrection  of  the  spirit  which  was  rampant  in 
the  days  of  Jesus ;  the  spirit  of  those  who  saw  the  purest 
goodness,  and  rather  than  acknowledge  it  to  be  good,  prefer- 
red to  account  for  it  as  a  diabolical  power.  Say  to  yourself, 
I  am  verging  on  the  spirit  of  the  sin  that  was  unpardonable, 
I  am  crucifying  the  Son  of  God  afresh. 

If  in  society  you  hear  the  homage  unrebuked — Honor  to 
the  rich  man's  splendid  offering,  instead  of  glory  to  the  wid- 
ow's humble  mite — if  you  see  the  weak- and  defenseless  pun- 
ished severely  for  the  sins  which  the  great  and  strong  do  un- 
blushingly,  and  even  with  the  connivance  and,  admiration  of 
society — if  you  find  sins  of  frailty  placed  on  the  same  level 
with  sins  of  pride  and  presumption — or  it  you  find  guilt  of 
any  kind  palliated  instead  of  mourned,  then  let  the  dreadful 
thought  arise  in  the  fullness  of  its  meaning — I  allow  the  deeds     ./ 
of  those  days — His  blood  shall  come  upon  this  generation.^' 
My  sin  and  your  sin,  the  sin  of  all,  bears  the  guilt  of  the  Re-  >. 
deemer's  sacrifice.     It  was  vicarious — He  suffered  for  what 
He  never  did.     "  Not  for  that  nation  only,  but  that  also  He 
should  gather  together  in  one  the  children  of  God  that  were 
scattered  abroad." 

To  conclude :  estimate  rightly  the  death  of  Christ.  It  was 
not  simply  the  world's  example — it  was  the  world's  Sacrifice. 
He  died  not  merely  as  a  martyr  to  the  truth.  His  death  is 
the  world's  life.  Ask  ye  what  life  is  ?  Life  is  not  exemption 
from  penalty.  Salvation  is  not  escape  from  suffering  and 
punishment.  The  Redeemer  suffered  punishment,  but  the  Re- 
deemer's soul  had  blessedness  in  the  very  midst  of  punish- 
ment. Life*is  elevation  of  soul — nobleness — Divine  charac- 
ter. The  spirit  of  Caiaphas  was  death  :  to  receive  all,  and 
give  nothing — to  sacrifice  others  to  himself.  The  spirit  of 
Christ  was  life:  to  give  and  not  receive — to  be  sacrificed, 
and  not  to  sacrifice.  Hear  Him  again :  "  He  that  loseth  his 
life,  the  same  shall  find  it."  That  is  life :  the  spirit  of  losing 
all  for  love's  sake.  That  is  the  soul's  life  which  alone  ia 
blessedness  and  heaven.  By  realizing  that  ideal  of  humani- 
ty, Christ  furnished  the  life  which  we  appropriate  to  oui> 
selves  only  when  we  enter  into  His  spirit. 


I2O  Realizing  the  Second  Advent. 

Listen :  Only  by  renouncing  sin  is  His  death  to  sin  yours 
— only  by  quitting  it  are  you  free  from  the  guilt  of  His  blood 
— only  by  voluntary  acceptance  of  the  law  of  the  Cross,  self- 
surrender  to  the  will  of  God,  and  self-devotion  to  the  good 
of  others  as  the  law  of  your  being,  do  you  enter  into  that 
present  and  future  heaven  which  is  the  purchase  of  His  vica- 
rious sacrifice. 


REALIZING  THE  SECOND  ADVENT. 

"For  I  know  that  my  Redeemer  liveth,  and  that  he  shall  stand  gt  the  lat- 
ter day  upon  the  earth  :  And  though  after  my  skin  worms  destroy  this  body, 
yet  in'my  flesh  shall  I  see  God :  Whom  I  shall  see  for  myself,  and  mine  eyes 
shall  behold,  and  not  another ;  though  my  reins  be  consumed  within  me. " — 
Job  xix.  25-27. 

THE  hardest,  the  severest,  the  last  lesson  which  man  has 
to  learn  upon  this  earth,  is  submission  to  the  will  of  God.  It 
is  the  hardest  lesson,  because  to  our  blinded  eye-sight  it  often 
seems  a  cruel  will.  It  is  a  severe  lesson,  because  it  can  be 
only  taught  by  the  blighting  of  much  that  had  been  most 
dear.  It  is  the  last  lesson,  because  when  a  man  has  learned 
that,  he  is  fit  to  be  transplanted  from  a  world  of  willfulness 
to  a  world  in  which  one  will  alone  is  loved,  and  only  one  is 
done.  All  that  saintly  experience  ever  had  to  teach  resolves 
itself  into  this,  the  lesson  how  to  say  affectionately,  "Not  as 
I  will,  but  as  Thou  wilt."  Slowly  and  stubbornly  our  hearts 
acquiesce  in  that.  The  holiest  in  this  congregation,  so  far  as 
he  has  mastered  the  lesson,  will  acknowledge  that  many  a 
sore  and  angry  feeling  against  his  God  had  to  be  subdued, 
many  a  dream  of  earthly  brightness  broken,  and  many  a 
burning  throb  stilled  in  a  proud,  resentful  heart,  before  he 
was  willing  to  suffer  God  to  be  sovereign  in  His  own  world, 
and  do  with  him  and  his  as  seemed  to  Him  best. 

The  earliest  record  that  we  have  of  this  struggle  in  the. 
human  bosom  is  found  in  the  Book  of  Job.  It  is  the  most 
ancient  statement  we  have  of  the  perplexities  and  miseries 
of  life,  so  graphic,  so  time  to  nature,  that  it  proclaims  at  once 
that  what  we  are  reading  is  drawn  not  from  romance  but 
life.  It  has  been  said  that  religious  experience  is  but  the  fic- 
titious creation  of  a  polished  age,  when  fanciful  feelings  are 
called  into  existence  by  hearts  bent  ua,ck  in  reflex  and  mor- 
bid action  on  themselves.  We  have  an  answer  to  that  in 
this  book.  Religion  is  no  morbid  fancy.  In  the  rough,  rude 


Realizing  the  Second  Advent.  121 

ages  when  Job  lived,  when  men  did  not  dwell  on  their  feel- 
ings as  in  later  centuries,  the  heart-work  of  religion  was 
manifestly  the  same  earnest,  passionate  thing  that  it  is  now. 
The  heart's  misgivings  were  the  same  beneath  the  tent  of  an 
Arabian  Emir  which  they  are  beneath  the  roof  of  a  modern 
Christian.  Blow  after  blow  fell  on  the  Oriental  chieftain. 
One  day  he  was  a  father — a  prince — the  lord  of  many  vas- 
sals and  many  flocks,  and  buoyant  in  one  of  the  best  of  bless- 
ings, health ;  the  next,  he  was  a  childless,  blighted,  ruined 
man.  And  then  it  was  that  there  came  from  Job's  lips  those 
yearnings  for  the  quiet  of  the  grave  which  are  so  touching, 
so  real;  and,  considering  that  some  of  the  strongest  of  the 
elect  of  God  have  yielded  to  them  for  a  moment,  we  might 
almost  say,  so  pardonable :  "  I  should  have  been  at  rest — 
where  the  wicked  cease  from  troubling  and  the  weary  are  at 
rest.  There  the  prisoners  rest  together :  they  hear  nbt  the 
voice  of  the  oppressor.  Wherefore  is  light  given  unto  him 
that  is  in  misery,  and  life  unto  the  bitter  of  soul — which 
long  for  death,  but  it  cometh  not,  and  dig  for  it  more  than 
for  hid  treasures — which  rejoice  exceedingly  and  are  glad 
when  they  can  find  the  grave  ?" 

What  is  the  Book  of  Job  but  the  record  of  an  earnest  soul's 
perplexities  ?  The  double  difficulty  of  life  solved  there,  the 
existence  of  moral  evil— the  question  whether  suffering  is  a 
mark  of  wrath  or  not.  What  falls  from  Job's  lips  is  the 
musing  of  a  man  half-stunned,  half-surprised,  looking  out 
upon  the  darkness  of  life,  and  asking  sorrowfully  why  are 
these  things  so  ?  And  all  that  falls  from  his  friends'  lips  is 
the  common-place  remarks  of  men  upon  what  is  inscrutable — 
maxims  learned  second-hand  by  rote  and  not  by  heart,  frag-, 
ments  of  deep  truths,  but  truths  misapplied,  distorted,  torn 
out  of  all  connection  of  time  and  place,  so  as  to  become  ac- 
tual falsehoods :  only  blistering  a  raw  wound. 

It  was  from  these  awkward  admonitions  that  Job  appealed 
in  the  text.  He  appealed  from  the  tribunal  of  man's  opinion 
to  a  tribunal  where  sincerity  shall  be  cleared  and  vindicated. 
He  appealed  from  a  world  of  confusion,  where  all  the  foun- 
dations of  the  earth  are  out  of  course,  to  a  world  where  all 
shall  be  set  right.  He  appealed  from  the  dark  dealings  of  a 
God  whose  way  it  is  to  hide  Himself,  to  a  God  who  shall 
stand  upon  this  earth  in  the  clear  radiance  of  a  love  on 
which  suspicion's  self  can  not  rest  a  doubt.  It  was  faith 
straining  through  the  mist,  and  discerning  the  firm  land  that 
is  beyond.  "  I  know  that  my  Redeemer  liveth,  and  that  He 
shall  stand  at  the  latter  day  upon  the  earth."  We  take  two 
points  ; 

6 


122  Realizing  the  Second  Advent. 

I.  The  certainty  of  God's  interference  in  the  affairs  of  this 
world. 

II.  The  means  of  realizing  that  interference. 

God's  interference,  again,  is  contemplated  in  this  passage 
in  a  twofold  aspect :  A  present  superintendence — "  I  know 
that  my  Redeemer  liveth."  A  future,  personal,  visible  inter 
ference — "He  shall  stand  at  the  latter  day  upon  the  earth,1* 

I.  His  present  superintendence, 

1.  The  first  truth  contained  in  that  is  God's  personal  ex- 
istence. It  is  not  chance,  nor  fate,  which  sits  at  the  wheel 
of  this  world's  revolutions.  It  was  no  fortuitous  concourse  of 
atoms  which  massed  themselves  into  a  world  of  beauty.  It 
was  no  accidental  train  of  circumstances  which  has  brought 
the  human  race  to  their  present  state.  It  was  a  living  God, 
And  it  is  just  so  far  as  this  is  the  conviction  of  every  day, 
and  every  hour,  and  every  minute — "  My  Kedeemer  liveth  "— 
that  one  man  deserves  to  be  called  more  religious  than  anoth- 
er. To  be  religious  is  to  feel  that  God  is  the  Ever  Near.  It 
is  to  go  through  life  with  this  thought  coming  instinctively 
and  unbidden,  "Thou,  God,  seest  me."  A  life  of  religion  is 
a  life  of  faith :  and  faith  is  that  strange  faculty  by  which  man 
feels  the  presence  of  the  invisible ;  exactly  as  some  animals 
have  the  power  of  seeing  in  the  dark.  That  is  the  difference 
between  the  Christian  and  the  world. 

.  Most  men  know  nothing  beyond  what  they  see.  Tin's  love- 
ly world  is  all  in  all  to  them :  its  outer  beauty,  not  its  hidden 
loveliness.  Prosperity — struggle — sadness — it  is  all  the  same. 
They  struggle  through  it  al!  alone,  and  when  old  age  comes, 
«nd  the  companions  of  early  days  are  gone,  they  feel  that  they 
are  solitary.  In  all  this  strange,  deep  world  they  never  meet, 
or  but  for  a  moment,  the  Spirit  of  it  all,  who  stands  at  their 
very  side.  And  it  is  exactly  the  opposite  of  this  that  makes 
a  Christian.  Move  where  he  will,  there  is  a  Thought  and  » 
Presence  which  he  can  not  put  aside.  He  is  haunted  forever 
by  the  Eternal  Mind.  God  looks  out  upon  him  from  the  clear 
sky,  and  through  the  thick  darkness — is  present  in  the  rain- 
drop that  trickles  down  the  branches,  and  in  the  tempest  that 
crashes  down  the  forest.  A  living  Redeemer  stands  beside 
him — goes  with  him — talks  with  him,  as  a  man  with  his  friend. 
The  emphatic  description  of  a  life  of  spirituality  is:  "Enoch 
walked  with  God :"  and  it  seems  to  be  one  reason  why  a 
manifestation  of  God  was  given  us  in  the  flesh,  that  this  liv- 
ingness  of  God  might  be  more  distinctly  felt  by  us, 

We  must  not  throw  into  these  words  of  Job  a  meaning 
which  Job  had  not.  Reading  these  verses,  some  have 


Realizing  the  Second  Advent.  123 

covered  in  them  all  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the  Second  Ad' 
i  cut — of  a  Resurrection — of  the  Humanity  of  Christ.  This 
is  simply  an  anachronism.  Job  was  an  Arabian  Emir,  not  a 
Christian.  All  that  Job  meant  by  these  words  was,  that  he 
knew  he  had  a  vindicator  in  God  above:  that  though  his 
friends  had  the  best  of  it  then,  and  though  worms  were  prey- 
ing on  his  flesh,  yet  at  last  God  Himself  would  interfere  to 
prove  his  innocence.  But  God  has  given  to  us,  for  our  faith 
to  rest  on,  something  more  distinct  and  tangible  than  He 
gave  to  Job.  There  has  been  One  on  earth  through  whose 
lips  God's  voice  spoke,  and  from  whose  character  was  reflect- 
ed the  character  of  God.  A  living  Person  manifesting  Deity. 
It  is  all  this  added  meaning  gained  from  Christ  with  which 
we  use  thes'e  words:  "I  know  that  my  Redeemer  liveth." 
But  we  must  remember  that  all  that  was  not  revealed  to  Job. 

2.  The  second  truth  implied  in  the  personal  existence  of  a 
Redeemer  is  sympathy.  It  was  the  keenest  part  of  Job's 
trial  that  no  heart  beat  pulse  to  pulse  with  his.  His  friends 
misunderstood  him ;  and  his  wife,  in  a  moment  of  atheistic 
bitterness,  in  the  spirit  of  our  own  infidel  poet,  "  Let  no  man 
say  that  God  in  mercy  gave  that  stroke,"  addressed  him  thus : 
"Curse  God  and  die."  In  the  midst  of  this,  it  seems  to  have 
risen  upon  his  heart  with  a  strange  power  to  soothe,  that  he 
was  not  alone :  gall  and  bitterness  were  distilling  from  the 
lips  of  man,  and  molten  lead  was  dropping  from  the  hand  of 
God.  But  there  was  a  great  difference  between  the  two  in- 
flictions. Men  were  doiii^  their  work,  unknowing  of  the  pain 
they  gave :  God  was  meting  out  His  in  the  scales  of  a  most 
exquisite  compassion,  not  one  drop  too  much,  and  every  drop 
that  fell  had  a  meaning  of  love  in  it.  "  Affliction,"  said  the 
tried  man,  "cometh  not  out  of  the  dust,  neither  doth  trouble 
spring  out  of  the  ground  " — superintending  all  this,  "  I  know 
that  my  Redeemer  liveth." 

And  here  there  is  one  word  full  of  meaning,  from  which  we 
collect  the  truth  of  sympathy.  It  is  that  little  word  of  ap- 
propriation, "  my  "  Redeemer.  Power  is  shown  by  God's  at- 
tention to  the  vast ;  sympathy  by  His  condescension  to  the 
small.  It  is  not  the  thought  of  heaven's  sympathy  by  which 
we  are  impressed,  when  we  gaze  through  the  telescope  on  the 
mighty  world  of  space,  and  gain  an  idea  of  what  is  meant  by 
infinite.  Majesty  and  power  are  there,  but  the  very  vastness 
excludes  the  thought  of  sympathy.  It  is  when  we  look  into 
the  world  of  insignificance  which  the  microscope  reveals,  and 
find  that  God  has  gorgeously  painted  the  atoms  of  creation, 
and  exquisitely  furnished  forth  all  that  belongs  to  minutest 
life,  that  we  feel  that  God  sympathizes  and  individualizes. 


124  Realizing  the  Second  Advent* 

When  we  are  told  that  God  is  the  Redeemer  of  the 
we  know  that  lovfc  dwells  in  the  bosom  of  the  Most  High ; 
but  if  we  want  to  know  that  God  feels  for  us  individually 
and  separately,  we  must  learn  by  heart  this  syllable  of  en- 
dearment, "My  Redeemer."  Child  of  God,  if  you  would 
have  your  thought  of  God  something  beyond  a  cold  feeling 
of  His  presence,  let  faith  appropriate  Christ.  You  are  as  much 
the  object  of  God's  solicitude  as  if  none  lived  but  yourself. 
He  has  counted  the  hairs  of  your  head.  In  Old  Testament 
language,  "  He  has  put  your  tears  into  His  bottle."  He  has 
numbered  your  sighs  and  your  smiles.  He  has  interpreted 
the  desires  for  which  you  have  not  found  a  name  nor  an  ut- 
terance yourself.  If  you  have  not  learned  to  say,  "My  Re- 
deemer," then  just  so  far  as  there  is  any  thing  tender  or  affec- 
tionate in  your  disposition,  you  will  tread  the  path  of  your 
pilgrimage  with  a  darkened  and  a  lonely  heart;  and  when 
the  day  of  trouble  comes,  there  will  be  none  of  that  triumph- 
ant elasticity  which  enabled  Job  to  look  down,  as  from  a 
rock,  upon  the  surges- which  were  curling  their  crests  of  fury 
at  his  feet,  but  could  only  reach  his  bosom  with  their  spent 
spray. 

3.  The  third  thing  implied  in  the  present  superintendence 
is  God's  vindication  of  wrongs.  The  word  translated  here 
Redeemer  is  one  of  quite  peculiar  signification.  In  all  the 
early  stages  of  society  the  redress  of  wrongs  is  not  a  public, 
but  a  private  act.  It  was  then  as  now — blood  for  blood. 
But  the  executioner  of  the  law  was  invested  with  something 
of  a  sacred  character.  Now  he  is  the  mere  creature  of  a 
country's  law,  then  he  was  the  delegated  hand  of  God ;  for 
the  next  of  kin  to  the  murdered  man  stood  forward  solemnly 
in  God's  name  as  the  champion  of  the  defenseless,  the  goel,  or 
Avenger  of  Blood.  Goel  is  the  word  here :  so  that,  trans- 
lated into  the  language  of  those  far-back  days,  Job  was  pro- 
fessing his  conviction  that  there  was  a  champion  or  an 
Avenger,  who  would  one  day  do  battle  for  his  wrongs. 

It  is  a  fearful  amount  of  this  kind  of  work  which  is  in  ar- 
rear  for  the  Avenger  to  execute,  accumulating  century  by 
century,  and  year  by  year.  From  the  days  of  Cain  and  Abel 
there  have  been  ever  two  classes :  the  oppressor  and  the  op- 
pressed; the  gentle  humble  ones  who  refuse  to  right  them- 
selves, and  the  unscrupulous  who  force  them  aside.  The 
Church  has  ever  had  the  world  against  it.  The  world  struck 
its  first  deadly  blow  by  the  hand  of  Cain,  and  it  has  been 
striking  ever  since:  from  the  battle-field,  and  the  martyr's 
stake,  and  the  dungeons  of  the  Inquisition,  and  the  prisons 
of  the  lordly  tyrant,  the  blood  of  the  innocent  has  cried  fo! 


Realizing  the  Second  Advent.  125 

vengeance.  By  taunt  and  sneer,  the  world  has  had  her  tri- 
umph. And  the  servants  of  the  Meekest  have  only  had  this 
to  cheer  them,  "  I  know  that  my  Redeemer  liveth." 

There  is  a  persecution  sharper  than  that  of  the  axe.  There 
is  an  iron  that  goes  into  the  heart  deeper  than  the  knife. 
Cruel  sneers,  and  sarcasms,  and  pitiless  judgments,  and  cold- 
hearted  calumnies — these  are  persecution.  There  is  the  ty- 
rant of  the  nursery,  and  the  play-ground,  and  the  domestic 
circle,  as  well  as  of  the  judgment-hall.  "Better  were  it," 
said  the  Redeemer,  "  for  that  man  ii  a  millstone  had  been 
hanged  about  his  neck."  Did  you  ever  do  that  ?  Did  you 
ever  pour  bitterness  into  a  heart  that  God  was  bruising,  by  a 
cold  laugh,  or  a  sneer,  or  a  galling  suspicion — into  a  sister's 
heart,  or  a  friend's,  or  even  a  stranger's  ? — Remember — when 
you  sent  them,  as  Job's  friends  sent  him,  to  pour  out  their 
griefs  alone  before  their  Father,  your  name  went  up  to  the 
Avenger's  ears,  mingled  with  the  cries  of  His  own  elect. 

There  is  a  second  mode  in  which  God  interferes  in  this 
world's  affairs.  There  is  a  present  superintendence  perceived 
by  faith  ?  but  there  is  a  future  redress  which  will  be  made 
manifest  to  sight.  "He  shall  stand  at  the  latter  day  upon 
the  earth."  I  shall  see  Him. 

First  of  all,  there  will  be  a  visible,  personal  interference. 
All  that  Job  meant  was  in  the  case  of  his  own  wrongs.  But 
if  we  use  those  words,  we  must  apply  them  in  a  higher  sense. 
The  Second  Advent  of  Christ  is  supposed  by  some  to  mean 
an  appearance  of  Jesus  in  the  flesh  to  reign  and  triumph  vis- 
ibly. Others  who  feel  that  the  visual  perception  of  His  form 
would  be  a  small  blessing,  and  that  the  highest  and  truest 
presence  is  always  spiritual  and  realized  by  the  Spirit,  believe 
that  His  advent  will  be  a  coming  in  power.  We  will  not 
dispute :  controversy  whets  the  intellect,  and  only  starves,  or 
worse,  poisons  the  heart.  We  will  take  what  is  certain. 
Every  signal  manifestation  of  the  right,  and  vindication  of 
the  truth  in  judgment,  is  called  in  Scripture  a  coming  of  the 
Son  of  Man.  A  personal  advent  of  the  Redeemer  is  one 
which  can  be  perceived  by  foes  as  well  as  recognized  by 
friends.  The  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  recognized  by  the 
heathen  themselves  as  judgment,  is  called  in  the  Bible  a  com- 
ing of  Christ.  In  the  Deluge,  in  the  destruction  of  the  cities 
of  the  plain,  in  the  confusion  of  tongues,  God  is  said  to  have 
come  down  to  visit  the  earth.  There  are  two  classes,  then, 
who  shall  see  that  sight.  Men  like  Job,  who  feel  that  their 
Redeemer  liveth ;  and  men  like  Balaam,  from  whose  lips 
words  of  truth,  terrible  to  him,  came  :  "  I  shall  see  Him,  but 
not  now ;  I  shall  behold  Him,  but  not  nigh."  "  Every  eye 


126  Realizing  the  Second  Advent. 

shall  see  Him."  You  will  see  the  triumph  of  the  right — the 
destruction  of  the  wrong.  The  awful  question  is,  As  Balaam 
—or  as  Job  ? 

Besides  this,  it  will  be  unexpected :  every  judgment  com- 
ing of  Christ  is  as  the  springing  of  a  mine.  There  is  a  mo- 
ment of  deep  suspense  after  the  match  has  been  applied  to 
the  fuse  which  is  to  fire  the  train.  Men  stand  at  a  distance, 
and  hold  their  breath.  There  is  nothing  seen  but  a  thin, 
small  column  of  white  smoke,  rising  fainter  and  fainter,  till  it 
seems  to  die  away.  Then  men  breathe  again  ;  and  the  inex- 
perienced soldier  would  approach  the  place  thinking  that  the 
thing  has  been  a  failure.  It  is  only  faith  in  the  experience  of 
the  commander,  or  the  veterans,  which  keeps  men  from  hur- 
rying to  the  spot  again — till  just  when  expectation  has  be- 
gun to  die  away,  the  low,  deep  thunder  sends  up  the  column 
of  earth  majestically  to  heaven,  and  all  that  was  on  it  comes 
crushing  down  again  in  its  far  circle,  shattered  and  blacken- 
ed with  the  blast. 

It  is  so  with  the  world.  By  God's  word  the  world  is  doom 
ed.  The  moment  of  suspense  is  past :  the  first  centuries,  in 
which  men  expected  the  convulsion  to  take  place  at  once; 
for  even  apostles  were  looking  for  it  in  their  lifetime.  We 
have  fallen  upon  days  of  skepticism.  There  are  no  signs  of 
ruin  yet.  We  tread  upon  it  like  a  solid  thing  fortified  by  its 
adamantine  hills  forever.  There  is  nothing  against  that  but 
a  few  words  in  a  printed  book.  But  the  world  is  mined  :  and 
the  spark  has  fallen  ;  and  just  at  the  moment  when  serenity 
is  at  its  height,  "  the  heaven  shall  pass  away  with  a  great 
noise,  and  the  elements  shall  melt  with  fervent  heat,"  and  the 
feet  of  the  Avenger  shall  stand  on  the  earth. 

II.  The  means  of  realizing  this  interference. 

There  is  a  difference  between  knowing  a  thing  and  realiz- 
ing it.  When  a  poor  man  becomes  suddenly  the  possessor  of 
a  fortune  or  of  dignity,  it  is  some  time  before  the  thing  be- 
comes so  natural  to  him  that  he  can  act  in  his  new  sphere 
like  his  proper  self:  it  is  all  strangeness  at  first.  When  the 
criminal  hears  the  death-sentence  in  the  dock,  his  cheeks  are 
tearless.  He  hears  the  words,  but  scarcely  understands  that 
they  have  any  thing  to  do  with  him.  He  has  not  realized 
that  it  is  he  himself  that  has  to  die.  When  bereavement 
comes,  it  is  not  at  the  moment  when  the  breath  leaves  the 
body  that  we  feel  what  has  been  lost :  we  know,  but  yet  we 
must  have  it  in  detail:  see  the  empty  chair,  and  the  clothes 
that  will  never  be  worn  again,  and  perceive  day  after  day 
pass,  and  he  comes  not :  then  we  realize. 


Realizing  the  Second  Advent* '  127 

,fot>  finew  that  God  was  the  vindicator  of  wrongs — that  he 
But  why  did  he  go  on  repeating  in  every  possible  form 
the  same  thing :  u  I  shall  see  God— see  him  for  myself— mine 
eyes  shall  behold  Him — yes,  mine  and  not  another's?"  It 
would  seem  as  if  he  were  doing  what  a  man  does  when  he 
repeats  over  and  over  to  himself  a  thing  which  he  can  not 
picture  out  in  its  reality.  It  was  true:  but  it  was  strange, 
and  shadowy,  and  unfamiliar. 

It  is  no  matter  of  uncertainty  to  any  one  of  us  whether  he 
himself  shall  die.  He  knows  it.  Every  time  the  funeral  bell 
tolls,  the  thought  in  some  shape  suggests  itself,  I  am  a  mor- 
tal, dying  man.  That  is  knowing  it.  Which  of  us  has  real- 
ized it  ?  Who  can  shut  his  eyes,  and  bring  it  before  him  as  a 
reality,  that  the  day  will  come  when  the  hearse  will  stand  at 
the  door  for  him,  and  that  all  this  bright  world  will  be  going 
on  without  him;  and  that  the  very  "flesh  which  now  walks 
about  so  complacently,  will  have  the  coffin-lid  shut  down 
upon  it,  and  be  left  to  darkness,  and  loneliness,  and  silence, 
and  the  worm  ?  Or  take  a  case  still  more  closely  suggested 
by  the  text — out  of  the  grave  we  must  arise  again — long  after 
all  that  is  young,  and  strong,  and  beautiful  before  me  shall 
have  mouldered  into  forgetfulness.  Earth  shall  hear  her 
Master's  voice  breaking  the  long  silence  of  the  centuries,  and 
our  dust  shall  hear  it,  and  stand  up  among  the  myriads  that 
are  moving  on  to  judgment.  Each  man  in  his  own  proper 
identity,  his  very  self,  must  see  God,  and  be  seen  by  Him — 
looking  out  on  the  strange  new  scene,  and  doomed  to  be  an 
actor  in  it  for  all  eternity.  We  all  know  that — on  which  of 
our  hearts  is  it  stamped,  not  as  a  doctrine  to  be  proved 
texts,  but  as  one  of  those  things  which  must  be  hereafter, 
in  sight  of  which  we  are  to  live  now  ? 

There  are  two  ways  suggested  to  us  by  this  passage  for 
realizing  these  things.  The  first  of  these  is  meditation.  No 
man  forgets  what  the  mind  has  dwelt  long  on.  It  is  not  by 
a  passing  glance  that  things  become  riveted  in  the  memory. 
It  is  by  forcing  the  memory  to  call  them  up  again  and  again 
in  leisure  hours.  It  is  in  the  power  of  meditation  to  bring 
danger  in  its  reality  so  vividly  before  the  imagination  that 
the  whole  frame  can  start  instinctively  as  if  the  blow  were 
falling,  or  as  if  the  precipice  were  near.  It  is  in  the  power 
of  meditation  so  to  engrave  scenes  of  loveliness  on  a  painter's 
eye  that  he  transfers  to  the  canvas  a  vivid  picture  that  was 
real  to  him  before  it  was  real  to  others.  It  is  in  the  power 
of  meditation  so  to  abstract  the  soul  from  all  that  is  passing 
before  the  bodily  eye,  that  the  tongue  shall  absently  speak 
out  the  words  with  which  the  heart  was  full,  not  knowing 


128  *  Realizing  the  Second  Advent. 

that  others  are  standing  b'y.  It  seems  to  have  been  this  that 
Job  was  doing — he  was  realizing  by  meditation.  You  can 
scarcely  read  over  these  words  without  fancying  them  the 
syllables  of  a  man  who  was  thinking  aloud. 

It  is  like  a  soliloquy  rather  than  a  conversation.  "  I  shal] 
see  him."  Myself.  Not  another.  My  own  eyes. 

This  is  what  we  want.  It  is  good  for  a  man  to  get  alone, 
and  then  in  silence  think  upon  his  own  death,  and  feel  how 
time  is  hurrying  him  along :  that  a  little  while  ago,  and  he 
was  not — a  little  while  still,  and  he  will  be  no  more.  It  is 
good  to  take  the  Bible  in  his  hands,  and  read  those  passages 
at  this  season  of  the  year  which  speak  of  the  Coining  and  the 
End  of  all,  till  from  the  printed  syllables  there  seems  to  come 
out  something  that  has  life,  and  form,  and  substance  in  it, 
and  all  things  that  are  passing  in  the  world  group  themselves 
in  preparation  for  that,  and  melt  into  its  outline.  Let  us  try 
to  live  with  these  things  in  view.  God  our  Friend — Christ 
our  living  Redeemer ;  our  sympathizing  Brother ;  our  con- 
quering Champion  :  the  triumph  of  truth,  the  end  of  wrong. 
We  shall  live  upon  realities  then :  and  this  world  will  fade 
away  into  that  which  we  know  it  is,  but  yet  can  not  .realize 
— an  appearance,  and  a  shadow. 

Lastly,  God  insures  that  His  children  shall  realize  all  this 
by  affliction.  Job  had  admitted  these  things  before,  but  this 
time  he  spoke  from  the  ashes  on  which  he  was  writhing. 
And  if  ever  a  man  is  sincere,  it  is  when  he  is  in  pain.  If 
ever  that  superficial  covering  of  conventionalities  falls  from 
the  soul,  which  gathers  round  it  as  the  cuticle  does  upon  the 
&ody,  and  the  rust  upon  the  metal,  it  is  when  men  are  suffer- 
ing. There  are  many  things  which  nothing  but  sorrow  can 
teach  us.  Sorrow  is  the  great  teacher.  Sorrow  is  the  real- 
izer.  It  is  a  strange  and  touching  thing  to  hear  the  young 
speak  truths  which  are  not  yet  within  the  limits  of  their  ex- 
perience :  to  listen  while  they  say  that  life  is  sorrowful,  that 
friends  are  treacherous,  that  there  is  quiet  in  the  grave. 
When  we  are  boys  we  adopt  the  phrases  that  we  hear.  In  a 
kind  of  prodigal  excess  of  happiness,  we  say  that  the  world  is 
a  dream,  and  life  a  nothing — that  eternity  lasts  forever,  and 
that  all  here  is  disappointment.  But  there  comes  a  day  of 
sharpness,  when  we  find  >to  our  surprise  that  what  we  said 
had  a  meaning  in  it,  and  we  are  startled.  That  is  the  senti- 
mentalism  of  youth  passing  into  reality.  In  the  lips  of  the 
young  such  phrases  are  only  sentimentalities.  What  we 
mean  by  sentimentalism  is  that  state  in  which  a  man  speaks 
things  deep  and  true,  not  because  he  feels  them  strongly,  but 
because  he  perceives  that  they  are  beautifu!3  and  that  U  is 


Realizing  the  Second  Advent.  129 

touching  and  fine  to  say  them — things  which  he  fain  would 
feel,  and  fancies  that  he  does  feel.  Therefore,  when  all  is 
well,  when  friends  abound,  and  health  is  strong,  and  the  com- 
forts of  life  are  around  us,  religion  becomes  faint  and  shad- 
owy. Religious  phraseology  passes  into  cant — the  gay,  and 
light,  and  trilling  use  the  same  words  as  the  holiest ;  till  the 
earnest  man,  who  feels  what  the  world  is  sentimentalizing 
about,  shuts  up  his  heart,  and  either  coins  other  phrases  or 
else  keeps  silence. 

And  then  it  is  that  if  God  would  rescue  a  man  from  that 
unreal  world  of  names  and  mere  knowledge,  He  does  what  he 
did  with  Job — He  strips  him  of  his  flocks,  and  his  herds,  and 
his  wealth ;  or  else,  what  is  the  equivalent,  of  the  power  of 
enjoying  them — the  desire  of  his  eyes  falls  from  him  at  a 
stroke.  Things  become  real  then.  Trial  brings  man  face  to 
face  with  God — God  and  he  touch;  and  the  flimsy  veil  of 
bright  cloud  that  hung  between  him  and  the  sky  is  blown 
away :  he  feels  that  he  is  standing  outside  the  earth  with 
nothing  between  him  and  the  Eternal  Infinite.  Oh,  there  is 
something  in  the  sick-bed,  and  the  aching  heart,  and  the  rest- 
lessness and  the  languor  of  shattered  health,  and  the  sorrow 
of  affections  withered,  and  the  stream  of  life  poisoned  at  its 
fountain,  and  the  cold,  lonely  feeling  of  utter  rawness  of  heart 
which  is  felt  when  God  strikes  home  in  earnest,  that  forces  a 
man  to  feel  what  is  real  and  what  is  not. 

This  is  the  blessing  of  affliction  to  those  who  will  lie  still 
and  not  struggle  in  a  cowardly  or  a  resentful  way.  It  is 
God  speaking  to  Job  out  of  the  whirlwind,  and  saying,  In 
the  sunshine  and  the  warmth  you  can  not  meet  Me :  but  in 
the  hurricane  and  the  darkness,  when  wave  after  wave,  has 
swept  down  and  across  the  soul,  you  shall  see  My  form,  and 
hear  My  voice,  and  know  that  your  Redeemer  liveth. 

6* 


1 30  First  Advent  Lecture. 


XI. 
FIRST  ADVENT   LECTURE. 

THE    GRECIAN. 

"  I  am  debtor  both  to  the  Greeks,  and  to  the  Barbarians ;  both  to  the  wise, 
ind  to  the  unwise.  So,  as  much  as  in  me  is,  I  am  ready  to  preach  the  gos. 
pel  to  you  that  are  at  Rome  also.  For  I  am  not  ashamed  of  the  gospel  of 
Christ :  for  it  is  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation  to  every  one  that  believe;  li ; 
to  the  Jew  first,  and  also  to  the  Greek.  For  therein  is  the  lighteouHi  .->•  ••( 
God  revealed  from  faith  to  faith:  as  it  is  written,  The  just  shall  In  l.y 
faith." — Rom.  i.  14-17. 

THE  season  of  Advent  commemorates  three  facts.  1. 
That  the  Lord  has  come.  2.  That  He  is  perpetually  coming. 
8.  That  He  will  yet  come  in  greater  glory  than  has  yet  ap- 
peared. And  these  are  the  three  Advents:  The  first  in  the 
flesh,  which  is  past ;  the  second  in  the  spirit ;  the  third,  His 
judgment  advent. 

The  first  occupies  our  attention  in  these  lectures. 

We  live  surrounded  by  Christian  institutions ;  breathe  an 
atmosphere  saturated  by  Christianity.  It  is  exceedingly 
difficult  even  to  imagine  another  state  of  things.  In  the  en- 
joyment of  domestic  purity,  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  the  de- 
basing effects  of  polygamy;  in  the  midst  of  political  liber- 
ty, to  conceive  of  the  blighting  power  of  slavery  ;  in  scien- 
tific progress,  to  imagine  mental  stagnation  ;  in  religious  lib- 
erty and  free  goodness,  to  fancy  the  reign  of  superstition. 

Yet  to  realize  the  blessings  of  health  we  must  sit  by  the 
sick-bed ;  to  feel  what  light  is  we  must  descend  into  the 
mine  and  see  the  emaciated  forms  which  dwindle  away  in 
darkness  ;  to  know  what  the  blessing  of  sunshine  is,  go  down 
into  the  valleys  where  stunted  vegetation  and  dim  vapors 
tell  of  a  scene  on  which  the  sun  scarcely  shines  two  hours  in 
the  day.  And  to  know  what  we  have  from  Christianity,  it 
is  well  to  cast  the  eyes  sometimes  over  the  darkness  from 
which  the  Advent  of  Christ  redeemed  us. 

There  are  four  departments  of  human  nature  spoken  of  in 
these  verses  on  which  the  light  shined.  The  apostle  felt  that 
the  Gospel  was  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation  to  the 
Greeks,  the  Romans,  the  Barbarians,  and  the  Jews.  In  the 
present  lecture  we  consider  Christianity  presented  to  the 
Grecian  character,  and  superseding  the  Grecian  religion. 


The  Grecian.  131 

Four  characteristics  marked  Grecian  life  and  Grecian 
religion  :  Restlessness,  worldliness,  the  worship  of  the  beau- 
tiful, the  worship  of  the  human. 

I.  Restlessness.  Polytheism  divided  the  contemplation 
over  many  objects  :  and  as  the  outward  objects  were  mani- 
fold, so  was  there  a  want  of  unity  in  the  inward  life.  The 
Grecian  mind  was  distracted  by  variety.  He  was  to  obtain 
wisdom  from  one  Deity  :  eloquence  from  that  Mercurius  for 
whom  Paul  was  taken ;  purity  from  Diana  for  whom  Ephe- 
sus  was  zealous ;  protection  for  his  family  or  country  from 
the  respective  tutelary  deities ;  success  by  a  prayer  to  For- 
tune. 

Hence  dissipation  of  mind — that  fickleness  for  which  the 
Greeks  were  famous — and  the  restless  love  of  novelty  which 
made  Athens  a  place  of  literary  and  social  gossip — "  some 
new  thing."  All  stability  of  character  rests  on  the  contem- 
plation of  changeless  unity. 

So  in  modern  science,  which  is  eminently  Christian,  having 
exchanged  the  bold  theorizing  of  ancient  times  for  the  pa- 
tient humble  willingness  to  be  taught  by  the  facts  of  nature, 
and  performing  its  wonders  by  exact  imitation  of  them — on 
the  Christian  principle — the  Son  of  man  can  do  nothing  of 
Himself  but  what  He  seeth  the  Father  do. 

And  all  the  results  of  science  have  been  to  simplify  and 
trace  back  the  manifold  to  unity.  Ancient  science  was  only 
a  number  of  insulated  facts  and  discordant  laws ;-  modern 
science  has  gradually  ranged  these  under  fewer  and  ever 
fewer  laws.  It  is  ever  tending  towards  unity  of  law. 

For  example,  gravitation.  "The  planet's  motion,  and  the 
motion  of  the  atom  of  water  that  dashes  tumultuously,  and 
as  it  seems  lawlessly,  down  the  foam  of  the  cataract ;  the 
floating  of  the  cork,  the  sinking  of  the  stone,  the  rise  of  the 
balloon,  and  the  curved  flight  of  the  arrow,  are  all  brought 
under  one  single  law,  diverse  and  opposite  as  they  seem. 

Hence  science  is  calm  and  dignified,  reposing  upon  uniform 
fact.  The  philosopher's  very  look  tells  of  repose,  resting,  as 
he  does,  on  a  few  changeless  principles. 

So  also  in  religion.  Christianity  proclaimed  "  One  God 
and  one  Mediator  between  God  and  Man,  the  man  Christ 
Jesus."  Observe  the  effect  in  the  case  of  two  apostles.  St. 
Paul's  view  of  the  Gospel  contemplated  it  as  an  eternal 
divine  purpose.  His  Gospel,  the  salvation  of  the  Gentiles, 
was  the  eternal  purpose  which  had  been  hidden  from  ages 
and  generations.  His  own  personal  election  was  part  of  an 
eternal  counsel.  All  the  children  of  God  Jiad  been  predesti- 


132  First  Advent  Lecture. 

nated  before  the  creation  "  unto  the  adoption  of  children  by 
Jesus  Christ  to  Himself."  Now  see  the  effect  on  character. 
First,  on  veracity — 2  Cor.  i.  18,  etc.  He  contemplated  the 
changeless  "  yea "  of  God  ;  His  own  yea  became  fixed  as 
God's — changeless,  and  calmly  unalterable. 

Again  in  orthodoxy — "Jesus  Christ,  the  same  yesterday, 

\to-day,  and  forever."     "  Be  not  carried  about  by  divers  and 

strange  doctrines."     Truth  is   one,  error   manifold  —  many 

'opinions,  yet  there  can  be  but  one  faith.     See  how  calm  and 

full  of  rest  all  this  spirit  is. 

Now  consider  St.  John.  His  view  of  the  Gospel  recog- 
nized it  rather  as  tbe  manifestation  of  love  than  the  carry- 
ing out  of  the  unity  of  an  everlasting  purpose.  If  you  view 
the  world  as  the  Greek  did,  all  is  so  various  that  you  must 
cither  refer  it  to  various  deities,  or  to  different  modes  of  the 
same  Deity.  To-day  you  are  happy— God  is  pleased :  to- 
morrow miserable — God  is  angry.  But  St.  John  referred- 
these  all  to  unity  of  character — "God  is  Love."  Pain  and 
pleasure,  the  sigh  and  smile,  the  sunshine  and  the  storm,  nay, 
hell  itself,  to  him  were  but  the  results  of  eternal  love. 

Hence  came  deep  calm — the  repose  which  we  are  toiling 
all  our  lives  to  find,  and  which  the  Greek  never  found. 

II.  Worldliness.  There  are  men  and  nations  to  whom 
this  world  seems  given  as  their  province,  as  if  they  had  no 
aspiration  above  it.  If  ever  there  was  a  nation  who  under- 
stood the  science  of  living,  it  was  the  Grecian.  They  had 
organized  social  and  domestic  life;  filled  existence  with 
comforts ;  knew  how  to  extract  from  every  thing  its  great- 
est measure  of  enjoyment.  This  world  was  their  home ;  this 
visible  world  was  the  object  of  their  worship.  Not  like  the 
Orientals,  who  called  all  materialism  bad,  ami  whose  highest 
object  was  to  escape  from  it,  "  to  be  unclothed,  not  clothed 
upon,"  as  St.  Paul  phrases  it.  The  Greeks  looked  upon  this 
world  in  its  fallen  state,  and  pronounced  it  all  "  very  good." 

The  results  were  threefold. 

1.  Disappointment.  Lying  on  the  infinite  bosom  of  Na- 
ture, the  Greek  was  yet  unsatisfied.  And  there  is  an  insa- 
tiable desire  above  all  external  forms  and  objects  in  man- 
all  men — which  they  can  never  satisfy.  Hence  his  craving 
too,  like  others,  was  from  time  to  time,  "  Who  will  show  us 
any  good?"  This  dissatisfaction  is  exhibited  in  the  parable 
of  the  prodigal,  who  is  but  the  symbol  of  erring  humanity. 
Away  from  his  father's  home,  the  famine  came,  and  he  fed 
on  husks.  Famine 'and  husks  are  the  world's  unsatisfactory 
ness.  A  husk  is  a  thing  that  seems  full — is  really  hollow— 


The  Grecian.  133 

which  stays  the  appetite  for  a  time,  but  will  not  support  the 
life.  And  such  is  this  world — leaving  a  hollowness  at  heart, 
staying  our  craving  but  for  a  time.  "  He  that  drinketh  of 
this  water  shall  thirst  again."  And  the  worldly  man  is  try- 
ing to  satiate  his  immortal  hunger  upon  husks. 

3.  Degradation.  Religion  aims  at  an  ideal  life  above  this 
actual  one — to  found  a  divine  polity — a  kingdom  of  God — a 
church  of  the  best.  And  the  life  of  worldliness  pronounces 
this  world  to  be  all.  This  is  to  be  adorned  and  beautified. 
Life  as  it  is.  Had  you  asked  the  Greek  his  highest  wish,  he 
would  have  replied,  "  This  world,  if  it  could  only  last — I  ask 
no  more."  Immortal  youth  —  and  this  bright  existence. 
This  is  to  feed  on  husks,  but  husks  which  the  swine  did  eat. 
No  degradation  to  the  swine,  for  it  is  their  nature  ;  .  but 
degradation  to  man  to  rest  in  the  outward,  visible,  and  pres- 
ent, for  the  bosom  of  God  is  his  home.  The  Greek,  therefore, 
might  be,  in  his  own  language,  "  a  reasoning  animal,"  but 
not  one  of  the  children  of  heaven. 

3.  Disbelief  in  immortality.  The  more  the  Greek  attached 
himself  to  this  world,  the  more  the  world  unseen  became  a 
dim  world  of  shades.  The  earlier  traditions  of  the  deep- 
thinking  Orientals,  which  his  forefathers-  brought  from  Asia, 
died  slowly  away,  and  any  one  who.  reminded  him  of  them 
was  received  as  one  would  now  be  who  were  to  speak  of  pur- 
gatory. The  cultivated  Athenians  were  for  the  most  part  skep- 
tics in  the  time  of  Christ.  Accordingly,  when  Paul  preach- 
ed at  Athens  the  resurrection  of  the  dead,  they  "  mocked." 

This  bright  world  was  all.  Its  revels,  its  dances,  its  the- 
atrical exhibitions,  its  races,  its  baths,  and  academic  groves, 
where  literary  leisure  luxuriated,  these  were  blessedness, 
and  the  Greek's  hell  was  death.  Their  poets  speak  pathet- 
ically of  the  misery  of  the  wrench  from  all  that  is  dear  and 
bright.  The  dreadfulness  of  death  is  one  of  the  most  re- 
markable things  that  meet  us  in  those  ancient  writings. 

And  these  men  were  startled  by  seeing  a  new  sect  rise  uf 
to  whom  death  was  nothing — who  almost  courted  it.  They 
heard  an  apostle  say  at  Miletus,  u  None  of  these  things  move 
me,  neither  count  I  my  life  dear  unto  myself,  so  that  I  might 
finish  my  course  with  joy."  For  the  cross  of  Christ  had 
crucified  in  their  hearts  the  Grecian's  world.  To  them  life 
was  honor,  integrity,  truth  ;  that  is  the  soul :  to  this  all 
!>ther  was  to  be  sacrificed.  This  was  the  proper  self,  which 
could  only  die  by  sin,  by  denying  its  own  existence.  The 
rise  of  the  higher  life  had  made  this  life  nothing,  "  and  de- 
livered those  who,  through  fear  of  death,  were  all  their  life- 
time subject  unto  bondage." 


1 34  First  Advent  Lecture. 

Appeal  to  the  worldly-minded.  Melancholy  spectacle! 
Men  and  women  shutting  out  the  idea  of  death,  the  courte* 
sies  of  society  concealing  from  them  the  mention  of  their 
age,  by  all  false  appliances  of  dress,  etc.,  etc.,  and  staying  the 
appearance  of  the  hand  of  time.  You  must  die.  The  day 
will  come,  and  the  coffin.  Life  in  God  alone  robs  that 
thought  of  dreadfulness  :  when  the  resurrection  being  begun 
within,  you  can  look  upon  the  decay  of  the  outward  man, 
and  feel,  I  am  not  dying. 

III.  The  worship  of  the  beautiful.  The  Greek  saw  this 
world  almost  only  on  its  side  of  beauty.  His  name  for  it  was 
Cosmos,  divine  order  or  regularity.  He  looked  at  actions  in 
the  same  way.  One  and  the  same  adjective  expressed  the 
noble  and  the  beautiful.  If  he  wanted  to  express  a  perfect 
man,  he  called  him  a  musical  or  harmonious  man. 

What  was  the  consequence  ?  Religion  degenerated  into 
the  arts.  All  the  immortal  powers  of  man  were  thrown  upon 
the  production  of  a  work  of  the  imagination.  The  artist  who 
had  achieved  a  beautiful  statue  was  almost  worshipped ;  the 
poet  who  had  produced  a  noble  poem  was  the  prophet  of  the 
nation ;  the  man  who  gave  the  richest  strains  of  melody  was 
half  divine.  This  was  their  inspiration.  The  arts  became 
religion,  and  religion  ended  in  the  arts. 

Hence,  necessarily,  sensuality  became  religious,  because  all 
feelings  produced  by  these  arts,  chiefly  the  voluptuous  ones, 
were  authorized  by  religion.  There  is  a  peculiar  danger  in 
refinement  of  sensuous  enjoyments.  Coarse  pleasures  dis- 
gust, and  pass  for  what  they  are ;  but  who  does  not  know 
that  the  real  danger  and  triumph  of  voluptuousness  are 
when  it  approaches  the  soul  veiled  under  the  drapery  of  ele- 
gance ?  They  fancied  themselves  above  the  gross  multi- 
tude :  but  their  sensuality,  disguised  even  from  themselves, 
was  sensuality  still — ay,  and  at  times  even,  in  certain  festi- 
vals, broke  out  into  gross  and  unmistakable  licentiousness. 

And  hence  the  greatest  of  the  Greeks,  in  his  imaginary  re- 
public, banished  from  that  perfect  state  all  the  strains  which 
were  soft  and  enfeebling — all  the  poems  that  represented  any 
deeds  of  deities  unworthy  of  the  Divine — all  the  statues 
which  could  suggest  one  single  feeling  of  impurity.  Him- 
self a  worshipper  of  the  purest  beautiful,  it  was  yet  given  to 
his  all  but  inspired  heart  to  detect  the  lurking  danger  before 
which  Greece  was  destined  to  fall — the  approach  of  sensuali- 
ty through  the  worship  of  the  graceful  and  the  refined. 

There  is  this  danger  now.  Men  are  awakened  from  coarse 
rude  life  to  the  desire  of  something  deeper ;  and  the  god  of 


The  Grecian.  135 

spirit  of  this  world  can  subtly  turn  that  aside  into  channels 
which  shall  effectually  enfeeble  and  ruin  the  soul.  Refine- 
ment— melting  imagery — dim  religious  light ;  all  the  witch- 
ery of  form  and  color — music — architecture  ;  all  these,  even 
colored  with  the  hues  of  religion,  producing  feelings  either 
religious  or  quasi-religious,  may  yet  do  the  world's  work. 
For  all  attempt  to  impress  the  heart  through  the  senses, "  to 
make  perfect  through  the  flesh,"  is  fraught  with  that  danger 
beneath  which  Greece  sunk.  There  is  a  self-deception  in 
those  feelings— the  thrill,  and  the  sense  of  mystery,  and  the 
luxury  of  contemplation,  and  the  impressions  on  the  senses  : 
all  these  lie  very  close  to  voluptuousness — enfeeblement  of 
heart — yea,  even  impurity. 

This, 'too,  is  the  ruinous  effect  of  an  education  of  accom- 
plishments. The  education  of  the  taste,  and  the  cultivation 
of  the  feelings  in  undue  proportion,  destroy  the  masculine 
tone  of  mind.  An  education  chiefly  romantic  or  poetical,  not 
balanced  by  hard  practical  life,  is  simply  the  ruin  of  the 
soul. 

If  any  one  ever  felt  the  beauty  of  this  world,  it  was  He. 
The  beauty  of  the  lily  nestling  in  the  grass — He  felt  it  all ; 
but  the  beauty  which  He  exhibited  in  life  was  the  stern  love- 
liness of  moral  action.  The  King  in  His  Beauty  "had  no 
form  or  comeliness ;"  it  was  the  beauty  of  obedience,  of  noble 
deeds,  of  unconquerable  fidelity,  of  unswerving  truth,  of  Di- 
vine self-devotion.  The  Cross  !  the  Cross  !  We  must  have 
something  of  iron  and  hardness  in  our  characters.  The  Cross 
tells  us  that  is  the  true  Beautiful  which  is  Divine :  an  in- 
ward, not  an  outward  beauty,  which  rejects  and  turns  stern- 
ly away  from  the  meretricious  forms  of  the  outward  world, 
which  have  a  corrupting  or  debilitating  tendency. 

IV.  The  worship  of  humanity.  The  Greek  had  strong  hu- 
man feelings  and  sympathies.  He  projected  his  own  self  on 
nature ;  humanized  it ;  gave  a  human  feeling  to  clouds,  for- 
ests, rivers,  seas. 

In  this  he  was  a  step  above  other  idolatries.  The  Hindoo, 
for  instance,  worshipped  monstrous  emblems  of  physical  pow- 
er. Might — gigantic  masses — hundred-handed  deities,  scarce- 
ly human,  you  find  in  Hindostan.  In  Egypt,  again,  life  was  the 
thing  sacred.  Hence  all  that  had  life  was  in  a  way  divine — 
the  sacred  ibis,  crocodile,  bull,  cat,  snake.  All  that  produced 
and  all  that  ended  life.  Hence  death  too  was  sacred.  The 
Egyptian  lived  in  the  contemplation  of  death.  His  coffin 
was  made  in  his  lifetime ;  his  ancestors  embalmed ;  the  sa- 
cred animals  preserved  in  myriad  heaps  through  generations 


1 36  First  Advent  Lecture. 

in  mummy  pits.  The  sovereign's  tomb  was  built  to  last  for, 
not  centuries,  but  thousands  of  years. 

The  Greek  was  above  this.  It  was  not  merely  power,  but 
human  power ;  not  merely  beauty,  but  human  beauty ;  not 
merely  life,  but  human  life,  which  was  .the  object  of  his  pro- 
foundest  veneration.  His  effort  therefore  was,  in  his  concep- 
tion of  his  god,  to  realize  a  beautiful  human  being.  And  not 
the  animal  beauty  of  the  human  only,  but  the  intelligence 
which  informs  and  shines  through  beauty.  All  his  life  he 
was  moulding  into  shape  visions  of  earth — a  glorious  human 
being.  Light  under  the  conditions  of  humanity ;  the  "  sun 
in  human  limbs  arrayed"  was  the  central  object  of  Grecian 
worship. 

Much  in  this  had  a  germ  of  truth — more  was  false.  This 
principle,  which  is  true,  was  evidently  stated :  The  Divine, 
under  the  limitations  of  humanity,  is  the  only  worship  of 
which  man  is  capable.  Demonstrably,  for  man  can  not  con- 
ceive that  which  is  not  in  his  own  mind.  He  may  worship 
what  is  below  himself,  or  that  which  is  in  himself  resembling 
God  ;  but  attributes  of  which  from  his  own  nature  he  has  no 
conception,  he  clearly  can  not  adore. 

The  only  question  therefore  is,  What  he  shall  reckon  di- 
vine, and  in  alliance  with  God  ?  If  power,  then  he  worships 
as  the  Hindoo  ;  if  life,  then  as  the  Egyptian ;  if  physical  and 
intellectual  beauty,  then  as  the  Greek. 

Observe,  they  wanted  some  living  image  of  God  contain- 
ing something  more  truly  divine  to  supplant  their  own.  For 
still,  in  spite  of  their  versatile  and  multifarious  conceptions, 
the  illimitable  Unknown  remained,  to  which  an  altar  stood  in 
Athens.  They  wanted  humanity  in  its  glory — they  asked 
for  a  Son  of  Man. 

Christ  is  Deity  under  the  limitations  of  humanity.  But 
there  is  presented  in  Christ  for  worship,  not  power,  nor  beau- 
ty, nor  physical  life,  but  the  moral  image  of  God's  perfec- 
tions. Through  the  heart,  and  mind,  and  character  of  Jesus 
it  was  that  the  Divinest  streamed.  Divine  character,  that 
was  given  in  Christ  to  worship. 

Another  error.  The  Greek  worshipped  all  that  was  in 
man.  Every  feeling  had  its  beauty  and  its  divine  origin. 
Hence  thieving  had  its  patron  deity,  and  treachery,  and  cun- 
ning ;  and  lust  had  its  temple  erected  for  abominable  wor- 
ship. All  that  was  human  had  its  sanction  in  the  example 
of  some  god. 

Christ  corrects  this.  Not  all  that  is  human  is  divine. 
There  is  a  part  of  our  nature  kindred  with  God  :  the  strength- 
ening of  that,  by  mixture  with  God's  spirit,  is  our  true  and 


Second  Advent  Lecture.  1 37 

proper  humanity — regeneration  of  soul.  There  is  another 
part  whereby  we  are  related  to  the  brutes  :  our  animal  pro- 
pensities, our  lower  inclinations,  our  corrupted  will.  And 
whoever  lives  in  that,  and  strengthens  that,  sinks  not  to  the 
level  of  the  brutes,  but  below  them,  to  the  level  of  the  de- 
mons :  for  he  uses  an  immortal  spirit  to  degrade  himself: 
and  the  immortal  joined  with  evil,  as  the  life  to  the  body,  is 
demoniacal. 

In  conclusion,  remark,  In  all  this  system  one  thing  was 
wanting — the  sense  of  sin.  The  Greek  worshipped  the  beau- 
tiful, adored  the  human,  deified  the  world  :  of  course  this  wor- 
ship found  no  place  for  sin.  The  Greek  would  not  have  spok- 
en to  you  of  sin:  he  would  have  told  you  of  departure  from 
a  right  line ;  want  of  moral  harmony ;  discord  within :  he 
would  have  said  that  the  music  of  your  soul  was  out  of  tune. 
Christ  came  to  convince  the  world  of  sin.  And  after  Him 
began  to  brood  upon  the  hearts  of  Christendom  that  deep 
cloud  that  rests  upon  the  conscience  which  has  been  called 
into  vitality  of  action  and  susceptibility. 

For  this  Greece  had  no  remedy.  The  universe  has  no  rem- 
edy but  one.  There  is  no  prescription  for  the  sickness  of  the 
heart,  but  that  which  is  written  in  the  Redeemer's  blood. 


XII. 
SECOND  ADVENT  LECTURE. 

THE    ROMAN. 

"  I  am  debtor  both  to  the  Greeks,  and  to  the  Barbarians  ;  both  to  the  wise, 
and  to  the  unwise.  So,  as  much  as  in  me  is,  I  am  ready  to  preach  the  gos- 
pel to  you  that  are  at  Rome  also.  For  I  am  not  ashamed  of  the  gospel  of 
Christ :  for  it  is  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation  to  every  one  that  believeth ; 
to  the  Jew  first,  and  also  to  the  Greek." — Rom.  i.  14-16. 

THE  Advent  of  Christ  is  the  gulf  which  separates  ancient 
from  modern  history.  The  dates  B.C.  and  A.D.  are  not  arbi- 
trary but  real  division.  His  coming  is  the  crisis  of  the  world's 
history.  It' was  the  moment  from^whence  light  streamed  into 
the  realms  of  darkness,  and  life  descended  into  the  regions  of 
the  grave.  It  was  the  new  birth  of  worn-out  Humanity. 

Last  Thursday  we  considered  the  effects  of  this  Advent  on 
Greece.  We  found  the  central  principle  of  Grecian  life  to  be 
worldliness.  The  Greek  saw,  sought,  and  worshipped,  noth- 
ing higher  than  this  life,  but  only  this  life  itself.  Hence 


138  Second  Advent  Lecture. 

Greek  religion  degenerated  into  mere  taste,  which  is  peroep 
tion  of  the  beautiful.  The  result  on  character  was  three-fold : 
Restlessness,  which  sent  the  Greek  through  this  world  writh 
his  great  human  heart  unsatisfied,  fickle  in  disposition,  and 
ever  inquiring,  with  insatiable  curiosity,  after  some  new 
thing.  Licentiousness ;  for  whosoever  attaches  his  heart  to 
the  outward  beauty,  without  worshipping  chiefly  in  it  that 
moral  beauty  of  which  all  else  is  but  the  type  and  suggestion, 
necessarily,  slowly,  it  may  be,  but  inevitably,  sinks  down  and 
down  into  the  deepest  abyss  of  sensual  existence.  Lastly, 
unbelief.  The  Greek,  seeing  principally  this  "world,  lost  his 
hold  upon  the  next.  For  the  law  of  faith  is,  that  a  man  can 
only  believe  what  is  already  in  his  spirit.  Pie  believes  as  he 
is.  The  Apostle  Paul  writes  in  astonishment  to  these  Greeks 
(of  Corinth),  "  How  say  some  among  you  there  is  no  resurrec- 
tion of  the  dead  ?"  But  the  thing  was  explicable.  Paul  was 
"  dying  daily."  The  outward  lite  decayed  ;  the  inner  grew 
and  lived  with  more  vitality  every  day.  He/*^  the  life  to 
come  in  which  he  believed.  But  the  Corinthians,  leading  an 
easy,  luxurious  life,  how  could  it  be  a  reality  to  them?  How 
could  they  believe  in  immortality,  in  whom  the  immortal 
scarcely  stirred,  or  only  feebly  ?  To  these  the  apostle  felt 
bound  to  preach  the  living  Gospel.  "  I  am  debtor  to  the 
Greeks." 

To-day,  we  turn  to  the  Roman  nation,  its  religion,  and  its 
life.  At  the  time  of  which  the  New  Testament  speaks,  Greece 
had  been  nearly  a  century  and  a  half  a  province  of  Rome. 
In  the  language  of  Daniel,  the  kingdom  of  brass  had  given 
way  to  the  kingdom  of  iron.  The  physical  might  of  Rome 
had  subdued  Greece,  but  the  mind  of  Greece  had  mastered 
Rome.  The  Greeks  became  the  teachers  of  their  conquerors. 
The  deities  of  Greece  were  incorporated  into  the  national 
faith  of  Rome.  Greek  literature  became  the  education  of  the 
Roman  youth.  Greek  philosophy  was  almost  the  only  phi- 
losophy the  Roman  kne\v.  Rome  adopted  Grecian  arts,  and 
was  insensibly  moulded  by  contact  with  Grecian  life.  ?" 
that  the  world  in  name  and  government  was  Roman,  but  i 
feeling  and  civilization  Greek. 

If,  therefore,  we  would  understand  Roman  life,  we  must 
contemplate  it  at  an  earlier  period,  when  it  was  free  from 
Greek  influence,  and  purely  exhibited  its  own  idiosyncracies. 

The  nation  which  we  contemplate  to-day  was  a  noble  one 
— humanly,  one  of  the  noblest  that  the  world  has  seen. 
Next  to  the  Jewish,  the  very  highest.  We  may  judge  from 
the  fact  of  St.  Paul's  twice  claiming  his  Roman  citizenship, 
and  feeling  the  indignation  of  a  Roman  citizen  at  the  indig 


The  Roman.  139 

nity  of  chastisement.     And  this  too  in  an  age  when  the  name 
had  lost  its  brightness — when  a  luxurious,  wealthy  Greek  could 

Eurchase  his  freedom.     Claudius  Lysias  bought  it  "  with  a 
irge  sum  of  money."     And  yet  we  may  conceive  what  it 
had  been  once,  when  even  the  faint  lustre  of  its  earlier  dignity 
could  inspire  a  foreigner,  and  that  foreigner  a  Jew,  and  that 
Jew  a  Christian,  with  such  respect. 

At  the  outset,  then,  we  have  a  rare  and  high-minded  peo 
pie  and  their  life,  to  think  of.  They  who  have  imbibed  the 
spirit  of  its  writers  from  their  youth  can  neither  speak  nor 
think  of  it  without  enthusiasm.  Scarcely  can  we  forbear  it 
even  in  the  pulpit.  Nor  is  this  an  unchristian  feeling,  earth- 
ly, to  be  checked ;  for  in  order  to  elevate  Christianity,  it  is 
not  necessary  to  vilify  heathenism.  To  exalt  revelation,  we 
need  not  try  to  show  that  natural  religion  has  no  Jtruths. 
To  exhibit  the  blessings  of  the  Advent,  it  is  not  needful  to 
demonstrate  that  man  was  brutalized  without  it.  It  is  a 
poor,  cowardly  system  which  can  only  rise  by  the  degrada- 
tion of  all  others.  Whatever  is  true  belongs  to  the  kingdom 
of  the  truth.  The  purer  the  creed,  the  higher  the  character, 
the  nobler  the  men  who,  without  revelation,  signally  failed  at 
last,  the  more  absolute  is  the  necessity  of  a  Redeemer,  and 
the  more  are  we  constrained  to  refer  gratefully  all  blessings 
to  His  Advent. 

We  take  three  points  :  the  public  and  private  life  of  Rome, 
and  its  moral  and  inevitable  decay  at  last. 

I.  The  public  life  of  Rome. 

First,  I  notice  the  spirit  of  its  religion.  The  very  word 
shows  what  that  was.  Religion,  a  Roman  word,  means  ob- 
ligation, a  binding  power.  Very  different  from  the  corre- 
sponding Greek  expression,  which  implies  worship  by  a  sen- 
suous ceremonial  (threskeia). 

The  Roman  began,  like  the  Jew,  from  law.  He  started 
from  the  idea  of  duty.  But  there  was  an  important  differ- 
ence. The  Jew  was  taught  duty  or  obedience  to  the  law  of 
a  personal,  holy  God.  The  Roman  obeyed,  as  his  Etruscan 
ancestors  taught  him,  a  fate  or  will,  and  with  very  different 
results.  But  at  present  we  only  observe  the  lofty  character 
of  the  early  religion  which  resulted  from  such  a  starting-point. 

The  early  history  of  Rome  is  wrapped  in  fable  ;  but  the 
fable  itself  is  worth  much,  as  preserving  the  spirit  of  the  old 
life  when  it  does  not  preserve  the  facts.  Accordingly,  the 
tradition  taught  that  the  building  of  Rome  was  done  in  obe- 
dience to  the  intimations  of  the  will  of  Heaven.  It  was  re- 
built in  a  site  selected  not  by  human  prudence,  but  by  a  voice 


140  Second  Advent  Lecture. 

divinely  guided.  Its  first  great  legislator  (Numa)  is  repre 
sented  as  giving  laws,  not  from  a  human  heart,  but  after  se- 
cret communion  with  the  superhuman.  It  was  the  belief  of 
Roman  writers  that  the  early  faith  taught  access  to  God  only 
through  the  mind ;  that  therefore  no  images,  but  only  tem- 
ples, were  found  in  Rome  during  the  first  two  centuries  of 
hep  existence.  No  bloody  sacrifices  defiled  the  city.  War 
itself  was  a  religious  act ;  solemnly  declared  by  a  minister  of 
religion  casting  a  spear  into  the  enemy's  territory.  Nay,  we 
even  find  something  in  spirit  resembling  the  Jewish  sabbath ; 
the  command  that  during  the  rites  of  religion  no  traffic 
should  go  on,  nor  workman's  hammer  break  the  consecrated 
silence,  but  that  men  should  devoutly  contemplate  God. 

Here  was  a  high,  earnest,  severe  religion. 

Now  this  resulted  in  government,  as  its  highest  earthly  ex- 
pression. Duty — and  therefore  law  on  earth — as  a  copy  of 
the  will  of  Heaven.  Different  nations  seem,  consciously  or 
unconsciously,  destined  by  God  to  achieve  different  missions. 
The  Jew  had  the  highest :  to  reveal  to  the  world  holiness. 
The  Oriental  stands  as  a  witness  to  the  reality  of  the  Invisi- 
ble above  the  Visible.  The  Greek  reminded  the  world  of 
eternal  beauty ;  and  the  destiny  of  the  Roman  seems  to  have 
been  to  stamp  upon  the  minds  of  mankind  the  ideas  of  law, 
government,  order. 

Beauty  was  not  the  object  of  the  Roman  contemplation, 
nor  worship ;  nor  was  harmony.  The  taste  for  them  might 
be  taught,  superinduced,  but  it  was  not  natural.  It  was  not 
indigenous  to  the  soil  of  his  nature.  Hence,  when  Greece  was 
reduced  to  a  Roman  province,  in  146  B.C.,  the  Roman  soldiers 
took  the  noblest  specimens  of  Grecian  painting  and  converted 
them  into  gambling-tables. 

You  may  distinguish  the  difference  of  the  two  characters 
from  the  relics  wrhich  they  have  left  behind  them.  The  Greek 
produced  a  statue  or  a  temple,  the  expression  of  a  sentiment. 
The  Roman,  standing  upon  visible  fact,  dealing  with  the  prac- 
tical, and  living  in  the  actual  life  of  men,  has  left  behind  him 
works  of  public  usefulness :  noble  roads  which  intersect  em- 
pires, mighty  aqueducts,  bridges,  enormous  excavations  for 
draining  cities  at  which  we  stand  astonished ;  and,  above  all, 
that  system  of  law,  the  slow  result  of  ages  of  experience, 
which  has  so  largely  entered  into  the  modern  jurisprudence 
of  most  European  nations. 

One  of  their  own  Avriters  has  distinctly  recognized  this 
destiny.  "It  is  for  others  to  work  brass  into  breathing 
shape  —  others  may  be  more  eloquent  —  or  describe  the 
circling  movements  of  the  heavens,  and  tell  the  rising  of 


The  Roman.  141 

the  stars.  Thy  work,  O  Roman !  is  to  rule  the  nations : 
these  be  thine  acts  :  to  impose  the  conditions  of  the  world's 
peace,  to  show  mercy  to  the  fallen,  and  to  crush  the  proud." 

In  accordance  with  this,  it  is  a  characteristic  fact  that 
we  find  the  institutions  of  Rome  referred  to  inspiration.  Not 
a  decalogue  of  private  duties,  but  a  code  of  municipal  laws. 
And,  turning  to  the  page  of  Scripture,  whenever  the  Roman 
comes  prominently  forward,  we  always  find  him  the  organ 
of  law,  the  instrument  of  public  rule  and  order.  Pilate  has 
no  idea  of  condemning  unjustly:  "Why,  what  evil  hath  He 
done  ?"  But  he  yields  at  the  mention  of  the  source  of  law, 
the  emperor.  The  Apostle  Paul  appeals  to  Caesar,  and 
even  a  corrupt  Festus  respects  the  appeal:  "Unto  Ca?sar 
shalt  thou  go."  Nor  could  even  the  prisoner's  innocence 
reverse  his  own  appeal :  "  This  man  might  have  been  set  at 
liberty  if  he  had  not  appealed  unto  Caesar."  The  tumult  at 
Ephesus  is  stilled  by  a  hint  of  Roman  interference :  "  We 
are  in  danger  of  being  called  in  question  for  this  day's 
uproar."  When  the  angry  crowd  at  Athens,  and  the  equally 
angry  mob  of  the  Sanhedrim,  was  about  to  destroy  Paul, 
again  the  Roman,  Claudius  Lysias,  comes  "  with  an  army, 
and  rescues  him." 

It  was  always  the  same  thing.  The  Roman  seems  almost 
to  have  existed  to  exhibit  on  earth  a  copy  of  the  Divine 
order  of  the  universe,  the  law  of  the  heavenly  hierarchies. 

II.  Private  life. 

We  observe  the  sanctity  of  the  domestic  ties.  Very 
touching  are  all  the  well-known  anecdotes:  that,  for  in- 
stance, of  the  noble  Roman  matron,  who  felt,  all  spotless  as 
she  was,  life-dishonored,  and  died  by  her  own, hand.  The 
sacredness  of  home  was  expressed  strongly  by  the  idea  of 
two  guardian  deities  (Lares  and  Penates)  who  watched  over 
it.  A  Roman's  own  fireside  and  hearth-stone  were  almost  the 
most  sacred  spots  on  earth.  There  was  no  battle-cry  that 
came  so  to  his  heart  as  that,  "  For  the  altar  and  the  hearth." 
How  firmly  this  was  rooted  in  the  nation's  heart  is  plain 
from  the  tradition,  that  for  170  years  no  separation  took 
place  by  law  between  those  who  had  once  been  united  in 
wedlock. 

There  is  deep  importance  in  this  remark,  for  it  was  to  this 
that  Rome  owed  her  greatness.  The  whole  fabric  of  the 
Commonwealth  rose  out  of  the  Family.  The  family  was 
the  nucleus  round  which  all  the  rest  agglomerated.  First, 
the  family ;  then  the  clan,  made  up  of  the  family  and  its 
dependents  or  clients ;  then  the  tribe ;  lastly,  the 


142  Second  Advent  Lecture. 

And  so  the  noble  structure  of  the  Roman  Commonwealth 
arose,  compacted  and  mortised  together,  but  resting  on  the 
foundation  of  the  hearth-stone. 

Very  different  is  it  in  the  East.  A  nation  there  is  a  col- 
lection of  units,  held  together  by  a  government.  There  is 
a  principle  of  cohesion  in  them,  but  only  such  cohesion  as 
belongs  to  the  column  of  sand,  supported'by  the  whirlwind  : 
when  the  blast  ceases,  the  atoms  fall  asunder.  When  the 
chief  is  slain  or  murdered,  the  nation  is  in  anarchy  —  the 
family  does  not  exist.  Polygamy  and  infanticide,  the  bane 
of  domestic  life,  are  the  destruction,  too,  of  national  existence. 

There  is  a  solemn  lesson  in  this.  Moral  decay  in  the 
family  is  the  invariable  prelude  to  public  corruption.  It  is 
a  false  distinction  which  we  make  between  public  integrity 
and  private  honor.  The  man  whom  you  can  not  admit  into 
your  family,  whose  morals  are  corrupt,  can  not  be  a  pure 
statesman.  Whoever  studies  history  will  be  profoundly 
convinced  that  a  nation  stands  or  falls  with  the  sanctity  of 
its  domestic  ties.  Rome  mixed  with  Greece,  and  learned 
her  morals.  The  Goth  was  at  her  gates;  but  she  fell  not 
till  she  was  corrupted  and  tainted  at  the  heart.  The  domes- 
tic corruption  preceded  the  political.  When  there  was  no 
longer  purity  on  her  hearth-stones,  nor  integrity  in  her  Sen- 
ate, then,  and  not  till  then,  her  death-knell  was  rung. 

We  will  bless  God  for  our  English  homes.  Partly  the 
result  of  our  religion ;  partly  the  result  of  the  climate  which 
God  has  given  us,  according  to  the  law  of  compensation  by 
which  physical  evil  is  repaid  by  moral  blessing ;  so  that,  its 
gloom  and  darkness  making  life  more  necessarily  spent 
within  doors  than  it  is  among  Continental  nations,  our  life  is 
domestic,  and  theirs  is  social.  When  England  shall  learn 
domestic  maxims  from  strangers,  as  Rome  from  Greece,  her 
ruin  is  accomplished.  And  this  blessing,  too,  comes  from 
Christ  —  who  presided  at  the  marriage-feast  at  Cana,  who 
found  a  home  in  the  family  of  Nazareth,  and  consecrated  the 
hearth-stone  with  everlasting  inviolability. 

Let  us  break  up  this  private  life  into  particulars. 

1.  We  find  manly  courage.  This  too  is  preserved  in  a 
.word.  Virtue  is  a  Roman  word  —  manhood,  courage;  for 
courage,  manhood,  virtue  were  one  word.  Words  are  fossil 
thoughts :  you  trace  the  ancient  feeling  in  that  word — you 
trace  it,  too,  in  the  corruption  of  the  word.  Among  the 
degenerate  descendants  of  the  Romans,  virtue  no  longer 
means  manhood ;  it  is  simply  dilettantism.  The  decay  of 
life  exhibits  itself  in  the  debasement  even  of  words. 

We   dwell  on   this  courage,  because   it    was  not  merely 


The  Roman.  143 

animal  daring.  Like  every  thing  Roman,  it  was  connected 
with  religion.  It  was  duty,  obedience  to  will,  self-surrender 
to  the  public  good.  The  Roman  legions  subdued  the  world ; 
but  it  was  not  their  discipline  alone,  nor  their  strength,  nor 
their  brute  daring.  It  was  rather,  far,  their  moral  force — 
a  nation  whose  legendary  and  historical  heroes  could  thrust 
their  hand  into  the  flame,  and  see  it  consumed  without  a 
nerve  shrinking;  or  come  from  captivity  on  parole,  advise 
their  countrymen  against  peace,  and  then  go  back  to  torture 
and  certain  death :  or  devote  themselves  by  solemn  self- 
sacrifice  (like  the  Decii),  who  could  bid  sublime  defiance 
to  pain  and  count  dishonor  the  only  evil.  The  w^orld  must 
bow  before  such  men ;  for  unconsciously,  here  was  a  form 
of  the  spirit  of  the  Cross  —  self-surrender,  unconquerable 
fidelity  to  duty,  sacrifice  for  others.  And  so  far  as  Rome 
had  in  her  that  spirit,  and  so  long  as  she  had  it,  her  career 
was  the  career  of  all  those  who  in  any  form,  even  the  low- 
est, take  up  the  Cross:  she  went  forth  conquering  and  to 
conquer. 

2.  Deep  as  Roman  greatness  was  rooted  in  the  courage 
of  her  men,  it  was  rooted  deeper  still  in  the  honor  of  her 
women.  I  take  one  significant  fact,  which  exhibits  national 
feeling.  There  was  a  fire  in  Rome  called  eternal,  forever 
replenished.  It  was  the  type  and  symbol  of  the  duration 
of  the  Republic.  This  fire  was  tended  by  the  Vestals — a 
beautifully  significant  institution.  It  implied  that  the  dura- 
tion of  Rome  was  co-extensive  with  the  preservation  of  her 
purity  of  morals.  So  long  as  the  dignity  of  her  matrons 
and  her  virgins  remained  unsullied,  so  long  she  would  last. 
No  longer.  Female  chastity  guarded  the  Eternal  City. 

Here  we  observe  something  anticipative  of  Christianity. 
In  the  earlier  ages  after  the  Advent  there  were  divine  honors 
paid  to  the  Queen  of  Heaven,  and  the  land  was  covered  over 
with  houses  set  apart  for  celibacy.  Of  course,  rude  and 
gross  minds  can  find  plenty  to  sneer  at  in  that  institution, 
and  doubtless  the  form  of  the  truth  was  mistaken  enough,  as 
all  mere  forms  of  doctrine  are.  But  the  heart  of  truth  which 
lay  beneath  all  that  superstition  was  a  precious  one.  It  was 
this.  So  long  as  purity  of  heart,  delicacy  of  feeling,  chastity 
of  life,  are  found  in  a  nation,  so  long  that  nation  is  great — no 
longer.  Personal  purity  is  the  divinest  thing  in  man  and 
woman.  It  is  the  most  sacred  truth  which  the  Church  of 
Christ  is  commissioned  to  exhibit  and  proclaim. 

Upon  these  virtues  I  observe :  The  Roman  was  conspicu- 
ous for  the  virtues  of  this  earth — honor,  fidelity,  courage, 
chastity,  all  manliness ;  yet  the  apostle  felt  that  he  had  a 


1 44  Second  Advent  Lecture. 

Gospel  to  preach  to  them  that  were  in  Rome  also.  Moral 
virtues  are  not  religious  graces.  There  are  two  classes  of 
excellence.  There  are  men  whose  lives  are  full  of  moral 
principle,  and  there  are  others  whose  feelings  are  strongly 
devotional.  And,  strange  to  say,  each  of  these  is  found  at 
times  disjoined  from  the  other.  Men  of  almost  spotless 
earthly  honor,  who  scarcely  seem  to  know  what  reverence 
for  things  heavenly  and  devout  aspirations  towards  God 
mean  ;  men  who  have  the  religious  instinct,  pray  with  fer- 
vor, kindle  with  spiritual  raptures,  and  yet  are  impure  in 
their  feelings,  and  fail  in  matters  of  common  truth  and 
honesty.  Each  of  these  is  but  a  half  man,  dwarfed  and 
stunted  in  his  spiritual  growth.  The  "  perfect  man  in  Christ 
Jesus,"  who  has  grown  to  the  "  measure  of  the  stature  of  the 
fullness  of  Christ,"  is  he  who  has  united  these  two  things : 
who,  to  the  high  Roman  virtues  which  adorn  this  earth, 
has  added  the  sublimer  feelings  which  are  the  investiture  of 
Heaven:  in  whom  "justice,  mercy,  truth  "  are  but  the  body 
of  which  the  soul  is  faith  and  love. 

Yet  observe,  these  are  moral  virtues,  and  morality  is  not 
religion.  Still,  beware  of  depreciating  them.  Beware  of 
talking  contemptuously  of  "  mere  morality."  If  we  must 
choose  between  two  things  which  ought  never  to  be  divided, 
moral  principle  and  religious  sentiment,  there  is  no  question 
which  most  constitutes  the  character  "  which  is  not  far  from 
the  kingdom  of  heaven."  Devout  feelings  are  common 
enough  in  childhood,  religious  emotions,  religious  warmth, 
instances  of  which  are  retailed  by  the  happy  parent ;  com- 
mon enough,  too,  in  grown  men  and  women — but  listen — 
those  devout  feelings,  separate  from  high  principle,  do  not 
save  from  immorality :  nay,  I  do  believe,  are  the  very  step- 
ping-stone towards  it.  When  the  sensual  is  confounded 
with  and  mistaken  for  the  spiritual ;  and  merely  devout 
warmth  is  the  rich,  rank  soil  of  heart  in  which  moral  evil 
most  surely  and  most  rankly  grows — you  will  not  easily 
build  Roman  virtues  upon  that.  But  high  principle,  which 
is,  in  other  words,  the  baptism  of  John,  is  the  very  basis  on 
which  is  most  naturally  raised  the  superstructure  of  religious 
faith.  Happy,  thrice  happy  he  who  begins  with  the  law  and 
ends  with  the  gospel. 

HI.  The  decline  of  Roman  life. 

1.  First  "came  corruption  of  the  moral  character.  The 
Roman  worldliness  was  of  a  kind  far  higher  than  the  Gre- 
cian. In  his  way  the  Roman  really  had  the  world's  good  at 
heart.  There  was  a  something  invisible  at  which  he  aimed : 


The  Roman.  145 

invisible  justice,  invisible  order,  invisible  right.  Still  it  was 
only  the  law  on  earth — the  well-being  of  this  existence.  And 
whatever  is  only  of  this  earth  is  destined  to  decay.  The 
soul  of  the  Roman,  bent  on  this  world's  affairs,  became  secu- 
larized, then  animalized,  and  so  at  last,  when  there  was  little 
left  to  do,  pleasure  became  his  aim,  as  it  had  been  the  Gre- 
cian's. Then  came  ruin  swiftly.  When  the  emperors  lived 
for  their  elaborately  contrived  life  of  luxury,  when  the  Roman 
soldier  left  his  country's  battles  to  be  fought  by  mercenaries, 
the  doom  of  Rome  was  sealed.  Yet,  because  it  was  a  nobler 
woiidliness,  less  sensual  and  less  selfish,  the  struggle  with  de- 
cay was  more  protracted  than  in  Greece.  Lofty  spirits  rose 
to  stem  the  tide  of  corruption,  and  the  death-throes  of  Rome 
were^long  and  terrible.  She  ran  a  mighty  career  of  a  thou- 
sand years. 

2.  Skepticism  and  superstition  went  hand  in  hand.  An 
example  of  the  former  we  have  in  Pilate's  question,  "  What 
is  truth  ?"  An  example  of  the  latter  in  the  superstitious 
belief  of  the  inhabitants  of  Lystra  that  Paul  and  Barnabas 
were  "gods  come  to  them  in  the  likeness  of  men."  And  this 
probably  was  a  tolerably  accurate  picture  of  the  state  of 
Roman  feeling.  The  lower  classes  sunk  in  a  debased  super' 
stition — the  educated  classes,  too  intellectual  to  believe  in  it, 
and  yet  having  nothing  better  to  put  in  its  stead.  Or  per- 
haps there  was  also  a  superstition  which  is  only  another 
name  for  skepticism  :  infidelity  trembling  at  itself,  shrinking 
from  its  own  shadow.  There  is  a  fearful  question  for  which 
the  soul  must  find  an  answer — the  mystery  of  its  own  being 
and  destinies.  Men  looked  into  their  own  souls,  and,  listen- 
ing, heard  only  an  awful  silence  there.  No  response  came 
from  the  world  without.  Philosophy  had  none  to  give. 
And  then  men,  terrified  at  the  progress  of  infidelity,  more 
than  half  distrusting  their  own  tendencies,  took  refuge  in 
adding  superstition  to  superstition.  They  brought  in  the 
gods  of  Greece,  and  Egypt,  and  the  East :  as  if  multiplying 
the  objects  of  reverence  strengthened  the  spirit  of  reverence 
in  the  soul ;  as  if  every  new  sacredness  was  a  barrier  be- 
tween them  and  the  dreadful  abyss  of  uncertainty  into  which 
they  did  not  dare  to  look. 

This  is  as  true  now  as  then.  Superstition  is  the  refuge  of 
a  skeptical  spirit,  which  has  a  heart  too  devout  to  dare  to  be 
skeptical.  Men  tremble  at  new  theories,  new  views,  the 
spread  of  infidelity,  and  they  think  to  fortify  themselves 
against  these  by  multiplying  the  sanctities  which  they  rever- 
ence. But  all  this  will  not  do.  Superstition  can  not  do  the 
work  of  faith,  and  give  repose  or  peace.  It  is  not  by  multi 


146  Second  Advent  Lecture. 

plying  ceremonies — it  is  not  by  speaking  of  holy  things  with 
low,  bated  breath — it  is  not  by  entrenching  the  soul  behind 
the  infallibility  of  a  church,  or  the  infallibility  of  the  words 
and  sentences  of  a  book — it  is  not  by  shutting  out  inquiry, 
and  resenting  every  investigation  as  profane,  that  you  can 
arrest  the  progress  of  infidelity.  Faith,  not  superstition,  is 
the  remedy. 

There  is  a  grand  fearlessness  in  faith.  He  who  in  his 
heart  of  hearts  reverences  the  good,  the  true,  the  holy — that 
is,  reverences  God — does  not  tremble  at  the  apparent  success 
of  attacks  upon  the  outworks  of  his  faith.  They  may  shake 
those  who  rested  on  those  outworks — they  do  not  move  him 
whose  soul  reposes  on  the  truth  itself.  He  needs  no  props 
or  crutches  to  support  his  faith.  He  does  not  need  to  multi- 
ply the  objects  of  his  awe  in  order  to  keep  dreadful  doubt 
away.  Founded  on  a  Rock,  Faith  can  afford  to  gaze  undis 
mayed  at  the  approaches  of  Infidelity. 

3.  In  Rome  religion  degenerated  into  allegiance  to  the 
State.  In  Greece,  as  it  has  been  truly  said,  it  ended  in  taste. 
In  Rome  it  closed  with  the  worship  of  the  emperor.  Noth- 
ing shows  the  contrast  between  Greek  and  Roman  feeling 
more  strongly  than  this.  In  Greece  the  poet  became  the 
prophet,  and  the  artist  was  the  man  divinely  inspired.  In 
Rome  the  deification  of  the  emperor,  as  the  symbol  of  gov- 
ernment, was  the  point  towards  which,  unsuspected,  but  by 
a  sure  and  inevitable  consecutiveuess,  the  national  feeling  foi 
ages  had  been  tending. 

.  And  the  distinction  between  the  Christian  and  the  Roman 
tone  of  feeling  is  no  less  strikingly  contrasted  in  the  very 
same  allegiance.  Sacrament,  perhaps,  is  the  highest  word  of 
symbolical  life  in  both.  It  is  a  Roman  word.  In  Rome  it 
meant  an  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  Senate  and  Roman  people. 
Nothing  higher  the  Roman  knew.  In  the  Christian  Church 
it  is  also  the  oath  of  highest  fidelity  ;  but  its  import  there  is 
this :  "  Here  we  offer  and  present  unto  thee,  O  Lord,  our- 
selves, our  souls  and  bodies,  to  be  a  living  sacrifice." 

In  this  contrast  of  the  sacramental  vows,  as  I  have  re- 
marked before,  were  perceptible  the  different  tendencies  of 
the  two  starting-points  of  revealed  religion  and  Roman. 
Judaism  began  from  law  or  obligation  to  a  holy  person. 
Roman  religion  began  from  obedience  to  a  mere  will.  Ju« 
daism  ended  in  Christianity,  whose  central  principle  is  joy- 
ful surrender  to  One  whose  name  is  Love.  The  religion  of 
Rome  ended,  among  the  nobler,  as  Cato  and  the  Antonines, 
in  the  fatalism  of  a  sublime  but  loveless  stoicism,  whose  es< 
sential  spirit  is  submission  to  a  destiny  :  among  <he  ordinary 


The  Roman.  147 

men,  in  mere  zeal  for  the  state,  more  or  less  earthly.  It  stiff 
ened  into  stoicism,  or  degenerated  in  public  spirit. 

4.  The  last  step  we  notice  is  the  decline  of  religion  into  ex- 
pediency. It  is  a  startling  thing  to  see  men  protecting  popu- 
lar superstitions  which  they  despise ;  taking  part  with  solemn 
gravity  in  mummeries  which  in  their  heart  they  laugh  at. 
Yet  such,  we  are  told,  was  the  state  of  things  in  Rome.  It 
is  a  trite  and  often  quoted  observation  of  a  great  Roman, 
that  one  minister  of  religion  could  scarcely  meet  another 
without  a  smile  upon  his  countenance,  indicating  conscious- 
ness of  a  solemn  mockery.  And  an  instance  of  this,  I  believe, 
we  have  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles.  The  town-clerk  or  mag- 
istrate of  Ephesus  stilled  the  populace  by  a  kind  of  accom- 
modation to  their  prejudices  much  in  the  same  way  in  which 
a  nurse  would  soothe  a  passionate  child.  Apparently,  as  we 
are  told,  he  belonged  to  the  friends  of  Paul ;  and  we  can 
scarcely  forbear  a  smile  at  the  solemn  gravity  with  which  he 
assures  the  people  that  there  could  be  no  doubt  that  the  im- 
age fell  down  from  Jupiter  :  no  question  throughout  all  Asia 
and  the  world  about  the  greatness  of  the  "  great  goddess 
Diana." 

For  there  were  cultivated  minds  which  had  apprehended 
some  of  the  truths  of  Christianity — philosophers  who  were 
enlightened  far  beyond  their  age.  But  a  line  of  martyred 
philosophers  had  made  them  cautious.  They  made  a  com- 
promise. They  enjoyed  their  own  light,  kept  silence,  and 
left  the  rest  in  darkness.  The  result  was  destruction  of  their 
own  moral  being ;  for  the  law  of  truth  is  that  it  can  not  be 
shut  up  without  becoming  a  dead  thing,  and  mortifying  the 
whole  nature.  Not  the  truth  which  a  man  knows,  but  that 
which  he  says  and  lives, becomes  the  soul's  life.  Truth  can  not 
bless  except  when  it  is  lived  for,  proclaimed  and  suffered  for. 

This  was  the  plan  of  the  enlightened  when  the  Saviour 
came.  And  this  is  the  lowest  step  of  a  nation's  fall,  when 
the  few  who  know  the  truth  refuse  to  publish  it ;  when  gov- 
ernments patronize  superstition  as  a  mere  engine  for  govern- 
ing; when  the  ministers  of  religion  only  half  believe  the 
dogmas  which  they  teach,  dare  not  even  say  to  one  another 
what  they  feel  and  what  they  doubt ;  when  they  dare  not  be 
true  to  their  convictions  for  fear  of  an  Ephesian  mob. 

Therefore  it  was  necessary  that  One  should  come  into  the 
world  who  should  be  true — the  truest  of  all  that  are  woman- 
born  ;  whose  life  was  truth ;  who  from  everlasting  had  been 
the  truth.  It  was  necessary  that  He  should  come  to  preach 
the  Gospel  to  the  poor,  to  dare-  to  say  to  the  people  some 
truths  which  the  philosophers  dared  not  say,  and  other  truths 


1 48  Third  Advent  Lecture. 

of  which  no  philosopher  had  ever  dreamed.  The  penalty  of 
that  true  life  was  the  sacrifice  which  is  the  world's  Atone« 
ment.  Men  saw  the  Mortal  die.  But  others  saw  the  Im- 
mortal rise  to  take  His  place  at  the  right  hand  of  Power : 
and  the  Spirit  which  has  been  streaming  out  ever  since  from 
that  life  and  death  is  the  world's  present  Light,  and  shall  be 
its  everlasting  Life. 


XIIL 
THIRD  ADVENT  LECTURE. 

THE    BARBARIAN. 

"And  when  they  were  escaped,  then  they  knew  that  the  island  was  called 
Melita.  And  the  barbarous  people  showed  us  no  little  kindness :  for  they 
kindled  a  fire,  and  received  us  every  one,  because  of  the  present  rain,  and 
because  of  the  cold.  And  when  Paul  had  gathered  a  bundle  of  sticks,  and 
laid  them  on  the  fire,  there  came  a  viper  out  of  the  heat,  and  fastened  on  his 
hand.  And  when  the  barbarians  saw  the  venomous  beast  hang  on  his  hand, 
they  said  among  themselves,  No  doubt  this  man  is  a  murderer,  whom,  though 
he  hath  escaped  the  sea,  yet  vengeance  suifereth  not  to  live.  And  he  shook 
off  the  beast  into  the  fire,  and  felt  no  harm.  Howbeit  the}*  looked  when  he 
should  have  swollen,  or  fallen  down  dead  suddenly:  but  after  they  had 
looked  a  great  while,  and  saw  no  harm  come  to  him,  they  changed  their 
minds,  and  said  that  he  was  a  god.  In  the  same  quarters  were  possessions 
of  the  chief  man  of  the  island,  whose  name  was  Publius ;  who  received  us, 
«md  lodged  us  three  days  courteously." — Acts  xxviii.  1-7. 

OF  the  four  divisions  of  the  world  at  the  time  of  the  Ad- 
vent, two  have  already  been  reviewed.  The  Greek,  seeing 
the  right  only  on  its  side  of  beauty,  ended  in  mere  intellect- 
ual refinement.  The  artist  took  the  place  of  God,  and  genius 
stood  for  inspiration.  The  Roman's  destiny  was  different. 
His  was  not  the  kingdom  of  burnished  brass,  but  the  king- 
dom of  iron.  He  set  out  with  the  great  idea  of  duty  and 
law :  exhibited  in  consequence  the  austere  simplicity  of  pure 
domestic  life,  in  public  affairs  government  and  order:  stamp- 
ing upon  the  world  the  great  idea  of  obedience  to  law.  In 
the  decline  of  Rome  the  results  of  this  were  manifest.  After 
a  mighty  career  of  a  thousand  years  Rome  had  run  out  her 
course.  Among  the  loftier  minds  who  stood  out  protesting 
against  her  corruption,  and  daring  in  a  corrupted  age  to  be- 
lieve in  the  superiority  of  right  to  enjoyment,  grand  con- 
tempt for  pleasure,  sublime  defiances  of  pain  told  out  the 
dying  agonies  of  the  iron  kingdom,  worthy  of  the  heart  of 
steel  which  beat  beneath  the  Roman's  robe.  This  was  stoi- 


The  Barbarian.  149 

cism :  the  Grecian  philosophy  which  took  deepest  root,  as 
might  have  been  expected,  in  the  soil  of  Roman  thought. 
Stoicism  was  submission  to  a  destiny :  hard,  rigid,  loveless 
submission.  Its  language  was  Must.  It  must  be,  and  man's 
highest  manliness  is  to  submit  to  the  inevitable.  It  is  right 
because  it  must  be  so.  Besides  these  higher  ones,  there  were 
others  who  carried  out  the  idea  of  duty  in  quite  another  di- 
rection. With  the  mass  of  the  nation,  reverence  for  law 
passed  into  homage  to  the  symbol  of  law — loyalty  to  the 
Government ;  its  highest  expression  being  the  sacramental 
homage  to  the  nation's  authority.  So  that,  as  I  have  alread) 
said,  the  Roman  spirit  stiffened  into  stoicism,  and  degener- 
ated into  worship  of  the  emperor.  This  was  not  accidental, 
it  was  the  inevitable  result  of  the  idea.  It  might  have  taken 
half  the  time,  or  ten  times  as  long ;  but  at  last  the  germ 
must  have  ripened  into  that  fruit  and  no  other.  The  Roman 
began  with  obedience  to  will. 

Law,  meaning  obedience  to  a  holy  God,  passes  by  a  nat- 
ural transition  into  the  Gospel :  that  .is,  reverential  duty  to  a 
person  becomes  the  obedience  of  love  at  last,  which  obeys 
because  the  beautifulness  of  obedience  is  perceived.  The 
Jew  began  in  severity,  ended  in  beauty.  The  Roman  began 
in  severity,  ended  in  rigidity,  or  else  relaxation.  To  him  the 
Advent  came  proclaiming  the  Lord  of  love  instead  of  the  co 
ercive  necessity  of  a  lifeless  fate. 

To  the  Greek  worshipper  of  beauty,  the  Advent  came  with 
an  announcement  of  an  inner  beauty.  He  who  was  to  them, 
and  all  such,  "  a  Root  out  of  a  dry  ground,  with  no  form  or 
comeliness,"  with  nothing  to  captivate  &  refined  taste,  or 
gratify  an  elegant  sensibility,  lived  a  life  which  was  divine 
and  beautiful.  His  religion,  as  contrasted  with  the  Grecian, 
supplementing  it,  and  confirming  in  it  what  was  true, "  was 
the  worship  of  the  Lord  in  the  beauty  of  holiness." 

The  third  department  is  the  necessity  of  the  Advent  for 
the  Barbarian  world. 

By  Barbarian  was  meant  any  religion  but  the  Roman  or 
the  Greek — a  contemptuous  term,  the  spirit  of  which  is  com- 
mou  enough  in  all  ages.  Just  as  now  every  narrow  sect 
monopolizes  God,  claims  for  itself  an  exclusive  heaven,  con- 
temptuously looks  on  all  the  rest  of  mankind  as  sitting  in 
outer  darkness,  and  complacently  consigns  myriads  whom 
God  has  made  to  His  uncovenanted  mercies,  that  is,  to  prob- 
able destruction,  so,  in  ancient  times,  the  Jew  scornfully  des- 
ignated all  nations  but  his  own  as  Gentiles ;  and  the  Roman 
and  Greek,  each  retaliating  in  his  way,  treated  all  nations 
but  his  own  under  the  common  epithet  of  Barbarians. 


1 50  Third  Advent  Lecture. 

We  shall  confine  ourselves  to-day  to  a  single  case  of  bar* 
barian  life.  We  shall  not  enter  into  the  religion  of  our  own 
ancestors,  the  Celts  and  Teutonic  nations,  who  were  barbari< 
ans  then,  nor  that  of  the  Scythians  or  the  Africans.  One  in- 
stance will  be  sufficient. 

Twice  in  his  recorded  history  St.  Paul  came  in  contact 
with  barbarians — twice  he  was  counted  as  a  god.  Once 
among  the  semi-barbarians  of  Lycaonia,  at  Lystra — once  her*? 
at  Melita. 

There  is  a  little  uncertainty  about  the  identification  of  this 
Melita.  It  was  a  name  shared  by  two  islands — Malta,  and 
Melida  in  the  Adriatic.  But  it  seems  to  be  established  be- 
yond all  reasonable  doubt  that  it  was  on  Malta,  not  on  Me- 
lida, that  St.  Paul  was  wrecked.  The  chief  objection  to  this 
view  is,  that  immediately  before  the  wreck  we  are  told — • 
chap,  xxvii.  27 — that  they  were  "driven  up  and  down  in 
Adria."  But  this  is  satisfactorily  answered  by  the  fact  that 
the  name  Adriatic  was  applied  often  loosely  to  all  the  sea 
round  Sicily.  Two  great  arguments  in  favor  of  Malta  then 
remain :  After  leaving  the  island,  the  apostle  touched  at  Sy- 
racuse, and  so  went  on  to  Rhegium  and  Puteoli.  This  is  the 
natural  direction  from  Malta  to  Rome,  but  not  from  Melida. 
Then  besides, "  barbarians  "  will  not  apply  to  the  inhabitants 
of  Melida.  They  were  Greeks  :  whereas  the  natives  of  Mal- 
ta, living  under  Roman  government,  were  originally  Cartha- 
ginians, who  had  been  themselves  a  Phoenician  colony.  The 
epithet  is  perfectly  correct  as  applied  to  them. 

It  is  the  Carthaginian  or  Phoenician  religion,  then,  which 
moulded  the  barbarian  life,  that  we  examine  to-day.  We 
take  three  points. 

I.  Barbarian  virtues. 
II.  Barbarian  idea  of  retribution. 
III.  Barbarian  conception  of  Deity. 

I.  Barbarian  virtues.  Two  errors  have  been  held  on  the 
subject  of  natural  goodness.  The  first,  that  of  those  who 
deny  to  fallen  man  any  goodness  at  all,  and  refuse  to  admit 
even  kindliness  of  feeling.  In  the  language  of  a  celebrated 
and  popular  expounder  of  this  view,  "man  in  his  natural 
state  is  one-half  beast  and  one-half  devil."  This  is  the  effect 
of  a  system.  No  man  in  his  heart  believes  that.  No  moth- 
er ever  gazed  upon  her  child,  baptized  or  unbaptized,  and 
thought  so.  Men  are  better  than  their  creed.  Their  hearts 
are  more  than  a  match  for  their  false  theological  system. 
Beneath  the  black  skin  of  the  African  there  runs  a  blood  as 
warm  as  that  which  is  in  the  blue  veins  of  the  Christian. 


The  Barbarian.  151 

Among  the  civilized  heathen,  the  instinctive  feelings  are  aa 
kindly  and  as  exquisitely  delicate  as  they  were  ever  found 
in  thes  bosom  of  the  baptized.  Accordingly,  we  find  here 
these  natural  barbarian  virtues  of  hospitality  and  sympathy. 
The  shipwrecked  mariners,  wet  and  cold,  were  received  in 
Melita  with  a  warm,  compassionate  welcome.  The  people  of 
the  island  did  not  say,  "  Depart  in  peace,  be  ye  warmed  and 
filled."  They  gave  them  those  things  which  were  necessary 
for  the  body.  And  a  Christian  contemplating  this,  gave  this 
distinct  testimony,  "  The  barbarous  people  showed  us  no  lit- 
tle kindness." 

The  second  error  is  the  opposite  one  of  placing  too  high  a 
value  on  these  natural  virtues.  There  is  a  class  of  writers 
who  talk  much  of  early  unsophisticated  times.  They  tell  of 
the  days  "  when  wild  in  woods  the  noble  savage  ran."  They 
speak  of  pastoral  simplicity,  and  the  reverence  and  piety  of 
mountain  life.  According  to  them,  civilization  is  the  great 
corrupter.  But  the  truth  is,  the  natural  good  feelings  of  hu- 
man nature  are  only  instincts:  no  more  moral  than  a  long 
sight  or  a  delicate  sense  of  hearing.  The  keen  feelings  of 
the  child  are  no  guaranty  of  future  principle — perhaps  rath- 
er the  reverse.  The  profuse  hospitality  of  the  mountaineer, 
who  rarely  sees  strangers,  and  to  whom  gold  is  little  worth, 
becomes  shrewd  and  selfish  calculation  so  soon  as  temptation 
from  passing  traffic  is  placed  in  his  way.  You  may  travel 
among  savages  who  treat  you,  as  a  stranger,  with  courtesy, 
but  yet  feed  on  the  flesh  of  their  enemies.  And  these  Meli- 
tans,  who  "  showed  no  little  kindness  "  to  the  wrecked  crew, 
belonged  to  a  stock  who,  in  the  most  civilized  days  of  Car- 
thage, offered  human  sacrifice,  and  after  every  successful  battle 
with  the  Romans  burnt  the  chief  prisoners  alive  as  a  thank- 
offering  to  Heaven.  If  we  trace  them  still  farther  back,  we 
find  their  Pho3nician  ancestors  in  the  Old  Testament  tainted 
with  the  same  practice,  and  the  Hebrews  themselves  imbib- 
ing it  from  them,  so  as  to  be  perpetually  arraigned  by  their 
prophets  on  the  charge  of  making  their  sons  and  daughters 
"pass  through  the  fire  to  Baal."  They  could  be  kind  to 
strangers,  and  cruel  to  enemies. 

The  Advent  of  Christ  brought  a  new  spirit  into  the  world. 
"A  new  commandment  give  I  unto  you,  that  ye  love  one  an- 
other." That  wasYiot  the  new  part.  The  Melitans  would  not 
have  disagreed  with  that.  ...  "  As  I  have  loved  you,  that 
ye  love  one  another."  "  As  I  have  loved  you,"  ....  that 
makes  all  new.  So  also  1  John  ii.  7,  8.  The  "  old  command- 
ment "  was  old  enough.  Barbarians  felt  in  their  hearts.  But 
the  same  commandment  with  "  true  light "  shining  on  il 
different  indeed. 


152  Third  A  dvent  L  ecture. 

"  Love  your  neighbor,  hate  your  enemy."  Carthaginians 
obeyed  that.  Hear  the  law  of  love  expounded  by  Himself. 
"  But  I  say  unto  you,  Love  your  enemies,  bless  them  that 
curse  you,  do  good  to  them  that  hate  you,  and  pray  for  them 
which  despitefully  use  you  and  persecute  you.  For  if  ye 
love  them  which  love  you,  what  do  ye  more  than  others? 
Do  not  even  .  .  .  (the  barbarians)  .  .  .  the  same  ?"  This  is 
Christianity — that  is,  the  mind  of  Christ. 
;  Remark,  too,  the  principle  on  which  this  is  taught.  "  That 
ye  may  be  the  children  of  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven : 
for  He  maketh  His  sun  to  rise  on  the  evil  and  on  the  good, 
and  sendeth  rain  on  the  just  and  on  the  unjust."  Not  upon 
merely  personal  authority;  not  by  a  law  graven  on  stone, 
nor  even  printed  in  a  book,  to  be  referred  to,  chapter  and 
verse ;  but  on  the  principle  of  the  imitation  of  God.  His 
heart  interpreted  the  universe — He  read  its  "  open  secret,'* 
which  is  open  to  all  who  have  the  heart  to  feel  it,  secret  to 
all  others.  A  secret,  according  to  Him,  to  be  gathered  from 
the  rain  as  it  fell  on  the  just  and  the  unjust,  from  the  dejv 
of  heaven,  from  the  lily,  and  from  the  fowls  of  the  air,  from 
the  wheat,  from  every  law  and  every  atom.  This  was  His 
revelation.  He  revealed  God.  He  spelled  for  us  the  mean- 
ing of  all  this  perplexing,  unintelligible  world.  He  pro- 
claimed its  hidden  meaning  to  be  Love.  •  So  He  converted 
rude  barbarian  instincts  into  Christianj  graces — by  expand- 
ing their  sphere  and  purifying  them  of  selfishness — causing 
them  to  be  regulated  by  principle,  and  elevating  them  into 
a  conscious  imitation  of  God  in  His  revealed  character. 

II.  The  Barbarian  idea  of  retribution. 

The  Apostle  Paul  was  one  of  those  who  are  formed  to  be 
the  leaders  of  the  world.  Foremost  in  persecution,  foremost 
in  Christianity  ("  nothing  behind  the  chiefest  apostles  ")  fore- 
most in  the  shipwreck,  his  voice  the  calmest,  his  heart  the 
stoutest,  his  advice  the  wisest  in  the  tumult ;  foremost,  too, 
when  all  was  over,  not  as  a  prisoner,  but  actively  engaged 
for  the  general  good,  it  is  Paul  who  is  gathering  the  Sticks 
to  make  the  fire.  From  those  sticks  a  viper  sprung  and  fas- 
tened on  his  hand,  and  the  first  impression  of  the  barbarians 
was, "  No  doubt  this  man  is  a  murderer,  whom,  though  he 
hath  escaped  the  sea,  yet  vengeance  suffereth  not  to  live." 

This  is  the  very  basis  of  all  natural  religion — the  idea  of 
the  connection  between  guilt  and  retribution.  In  some 
form  or  other  it  underlies  all  mythologies.  The  sleepless, 
never-dying  avengers  of  wrong — the  Nemesis  who  presides 
over  retribution  —  the  vengeance  which  suffereth  not  the 


The  Barbarian.  153 

murderer  to  live — the  whips  and  scorpions  of  the  Furies — • 
it  seems  the  first  instinct  of  religion. 

In  the  Barbarian  conception  of  it,  however,  there  was 
something  gross,  corporeal,  and  dangerous ;  because  they 
misinterpreted  natural  laws  into  vengeance.  Yet  there  is  a 
proneness  in  man  to  judge  so.  We  expect  that  nature  will 
execute  the  chastisements  of  the  spiritual  world.  Hence  all 
nature  becomes  to  the  imagination  leagued  against  the 
transgressor.  The  stars  in  their  courses  fight  against  Sisera  ; 
the  wall  of  Siloam  falls  on  guilty  men ;  the  sea  will  not  carry 
the  criminal,  nor  the  plank  bear  him  —  the  viper  stings — 
every  thing  is  a  minister  of  wrath.  On  this  conviction  na- 
tions constructed  their  trial  by.  ordeal.  The  guilty  man's 
sword  would  fail  in  the  duel,  and  the  foot  would  strike  and 
be  burnt  by  the  hot  ploughshare.  Some  idea  of  this  sort 
lurks  in  all  our  minds.  We  picture  to  ourselves  the  spectres 
of  the  past  haunting  the  nightly  bed  of  the  tyrant.  We  take 
for  granted  that  there  is  an  avenger  making  life  miserable. 

But  experience  corrects  all  this.  The  tyrant's  sleep  is 
often  as  sweet  and  sound  as  the  infant's.  The  sea  will 
wreck  an  apostle,  and  bear  a  murderer  triumphantly.  The 
viper  stings  the  innocent  turf -cutter.  The  fang  of  evil 
pierces  the  heel  of  the  noblest  as  he  treads  it  down.  It  is 
the  poetry  of  man's  heart,  not  the  reality  of  the  universe, 
which  speaks  of  the  vengeance  which  pursues  guilt  with  un- 
relenting steps  to  slay  ;  only  in  poetry  is  this  form  of  jus- 
tice found ;  only  in  poetry  does  the  fire  refuse  to  burn  the 
innocent ;  only  in  poetry  can  Purity  lay  her  hand  on  the 
fawning  lion's  mane.  If  we  ask  where  these  Melitans  got 
their  idea  of  retribution,  the  reply  is,  out  of  their  own 
hearts.  They  felt  the  eternal  connection  between  wrong- 
doing and  penalty.  The  penalty  they  would  have  executed 
on  murder  w~as  death.  They  naturally  threw  this  idea  of 
theirs  into  the  character  of  God,  and  blended  together  what 
was  theirs  and  what  is  His.  This  is  valuable  as  a  proof  of 
the  instinctive  testimony  of  man's  heart  to  the  realities  of 
retribution.  It  is  utterly  worthless  as  a  testimony  to  the 
form  in  which  retributive  justice  works,  because  it  is  not 
borne  out  by  the  facts  of  life. 

Ao;ain,  that  notion  was  false,  in  that  it  expected  vengeance 
for  flagrant  crime  only.  "  This  man  is  a  murderer."  "There 
is  a  common  and  superstitious  feeling  now  to  that  effect, 
"  Murder  will  out  •:"  as  if  God  had  set  a  black  mark  on  mur- 
der— as  if,  because  it  is  unlikely  to  escape  detection  in  a 
country  where  every  man's  hand  is  against  the  murderer, 
impunity  was  not  common  enough  in  countries  where  hu« 

ST* 


1 54  Third  Advent  Lecture. 

man  life  is  held  cheap.  The  truth  is,  we  think  much  of 
crime,  little  of  sin.  There  is  many  a  murderer  executed 
whose  heart  is  pure  and  whose  life  is  white,  compared  with 
those  of  many  a  man  who  lives  a  respectable  and  even  hon- 
ored life.  David  was  a  murderer.  The  Pharisees  had  com- 
mitted no  crime,  but  their  heart  was  rotten  at  the  core. 
There  was  in  it  the  sin  which  has  no  forgiveness.  It  is  not 
a  Christian  but  a  Barbarian  estimate,  which  ranks  crime 
above  sin,  and  takes  murder  for  the  chief  of  sins  marked  out 
for  Heaven's  vengeance. 

As  information  increased,  this  idea  of  retribution  disap- 
pears. Natural  laws  are  understood,  and  retribution  van- 
ishes; Then  often  comes  Epicureanism  or  Atheism.  "All 
things  come  alike  to  all :  there  is  one  end  to  the  righteous 
and  to  the  sinner ;  to  the  clean  and  to  the  unclean  :  to  him 
that  sacrificeth,  and  to  him  that  sacrificeth  not."  This  is  the 
feeling  of  the  voluptuary  of  Ecclesiastes.  If  so,  then  the  in- 
ference suggests  itself  to  Epicurean  indolence — "  Let  us  eat 
and  drink"" — it  is  all  the  same.  Or  the  skeptical  feeling 
comes  thus :  "  Verily  I  have  cleansed  my  heart  in  vain,  and 
washed  my  hands  in  innocency."  For  assuredly  there  is  no 
vengeance  such  as  this  which  suffers  not  the  murderer  to 
live,  but  arms  the  powers  of  nature  against  him.  Therefore 
why  do  right  instead  of  wrong  ? 

Thus  the  idea  of  retribution  is  gone  for  those  who  see  no 
deeper  than  the  outward  chance  of  penalty. 

The  Advent  of  Christ  brought  deeper  and  truer  views. 
It  taught  what  sin  is,  and  what  suffering  is.  It  showed  the 
Innocent  on  the  Cross  bearing  the  penalty  of  the  world's  sin, 
but  Himself  still  the  Son  of  God,  with  whom  the  Father  was 
not  angry,  but  "well  pleased." 

The  penal  agonies  of  sin  are  chiefly  those  which  are  exe- 
cuted within.  "Vengeance,"  said  the  Melitans,  "  suffereth 
not  the  murderer  to  live."  "  Whosoever  slayeth  Cain,"  said 
God,  "vengeance  shall  be  taken  on  him  sevenfold."  Cain, 
the  murderer,  lives — Christ,  the  holy,  dies.  Cain  is  to  us 
the  dread  type  of  hell.  To  live  !  that  is  hell,  to  live  when 
you  fain  would  die.  There  is  such  a  thing  as  being  salted 
with  fire,  a  never  annihilating  but  still  consuming  torture. 
You  may  escape  the  viper  and  the  wreck.  You  may  by 
prudence  make  this  world  painless,  more  or  less.  You  can 
not  escape  yourself.  Go  where  you  will,  you  carry  with 
you  a  soul  degraded,  its  power  lost,  its  finer  sensibilities  de- 
stroyed. Worse  than  the  viper's  tooth  is  the  punishment 
of  no  longer  striving  after  goodness,  or  aspiring  after  the  life 
of  God.  Just  as  the  man  can  not  see  through  the  glass  on 


The  Barbarian.  155 

which  he  breathes,  sin  darkens  the  windows  of  the  soul. 
You  can  not  look  out  even  to  know  the  glories  of  the  fair 
world  from  which  your  soul  excludes  itself.  There  is  no 
punishment  equal  to  the  punishment  of  being  base.  To  sink 
from  sin  to  sin,  from  infamy  to  infamy,  that  is  the  fearful 
retribution  which  is  executed  in  the  spiritual  world.  You 
are  safe,  go  where  you  will,  from  the  viper :  as  safe  as  if 
you  were  the  holiest  of  God's  children.  The  fang  is  in  your 
soul. 

HI.  The  Barbarian  conception  of  Deity. 

When  the  viper  fell  off,  and  Paul  was  left  uninjured,  they 
changed  their  mind  and  said  that  he  was  a  god. 

Observe  first,  this  implied  a  certain  advance  in  religious 
notions.  There  is  a  stage  of  worship  prior  to  that  of  man- 
worship.  Man  finds  himself  helpless  among  the  powers  of 
nature,  and  worships  the  forces  themselves  which  he  finds 
around  him.  This  takes  different  forms.  The  highest  is  the 
worship  of  that  host  of  heaven  from  which  Job  professed 
himself  to  be  free.  With  some  it  is  the  adoration  of  lifeless 
things :  the  oak  which  has  been  made  sacred  by  the  light- 
ning-stroke ;  the  "  meteoric  stone "  which  fell  down  from 
Jupiter.  So  the  Israelites  adored  the  brazen  serpent,  with 
which  power  had  once  been  in  connection.  Evidently  there 
can  be  no  holy  influence  in  this.  Men  worship  them  by  fear, 
fortify  themselves  by  charms  and  incantations :  do  not  try 
to  please  God  by  being  holy,  but  defend  themselves  from 
danger  by  jugglery.  The  Christians  of  the  early  ages  car- 
ried about  bits  of  consecrated  bread  to  protect  themselves 
from  shipwreck. 

Besides  this,  men  have  worshipped  brute  life — some  ani- 
mal, exhibiting  a  limited  quality,  which  is  yet  reckoned  a 
type  of  the  Divine.  The  hawk-eyed  deities  of  Egypt,  for  in- 
stance, implied  omniscience.  Beast-worship  was  that  of 
Egypt.  Israel  learned  it  there,  and  in  an  early  stage  of  their 
history  imitated  the  highest  form  which  they  knew,  that  of 
Apis,  in  their  golden  calf. 

It  is  quite  clear  that  the  Melitans  were  in  a  stage  beyond 
this.  It  is  a  step  when  men  rise  from  the  worship  of  lifeless 
things  to  that  of  animals — another  when  they  rise  to  worship 
human  qualities;  for  they  are  nearest  the  Divine.  Perhaps 
a  step  higher  still,  when,  like  the  early  Romans,  they  wor- 
ship a  principle  like  Destiny,  separate  from  all  shape.  They 
were  in  the  stage  of  worshipping  what  is  human. 

2.  But  in  this  worship  of  the  human  we  have  to  distinguish 
that  it  was  the  adoration  of  the  marvellous,  not  the  rever* 


156  Third  Advent  Lecture. 

ence  for  the  good.  It  was  not  Paul's  character  to  which 
they  yielded  homage.  It  was  only  to  the  wonderful  mys- 
tery of,  as  they  supposed,  miraculous  escape.  So,  too,  at 
Lystra.  It  was  the  miracle  which  they  chiefly  saw. 

All  that  would  pass  away  when  they  knew  that  he  was  a 
man  of  like  passions  with  themselves,  or  when  they  were  in- 
formed that  it  was  a  providential  escape  which  might  have 
happened  to  any  ordinary  man.  When  the  savage  sees  the 
flash  of  European  fire-arms  he  kneels  as  to  a  god  ;  but  when 
he  has  learned  its  use,  his  new  religion  is  gone.  When  the 
Americans  first  saw  the  winged  ships  of  Spain,  they  thought 
that  the  deities  spoke  in  thunder;  but  when  they  discovered 
the  secret  of  their  humanity,  the  worship  ceased.  And  thus 
science  is  every  day  converting  the  religion  of  mere  wonder 
into  Atheism.  The  mere  worship  of  the  mysterious  has  but 
a  limited  existence.  As  you  teach  laws,  you  undermine  that 
religion.  Men  cease  to  tremble.  The  Laplander  would  no 
longer  be  awed  by  the  eclipse  if  he  knew  how  to  calculate  it 
with  unerring  accuracy.  The  savage's  dread  of  lightning  as 
the  bolt  of  God,  is  over  when  he  sees  the  philosopher  draw 
it  from  the  clouds,  and  experimentalize  on  it  in  his  laboratory. 
The  awe  created  by  a  pestilence  is  passed,  when  it  is  found 
to  be  strictly  under  the  guidance  of  natural  laws.  And  the 
Romanist,  or  the  semi-Romanist,  whose  religion  is  chiefly  a 
sense  of  the  mysterious,  the  solemn,  and  the  awful,  and 
whose  flesh  creeps  when  he  sees  a  miracle  in  the  consecration 
of  the  sacraments,  ends,  as  is  well  known,  in  infidelity,  when 
enlightenment  and  reason  have  struck  the  ground  of  false 
reverence  from  beneath  his  feet. 

It  is  upon  this  indisputable  basis  that  the  mightiest  sys 
tern  of  modern  Atheism  has  been  built.  The  great  founder 
of  that  system  divides  all  human  history  into  three  periods. 
The  first,  in  which  the  Supernatural  is  believed  in  ;  and  a 
personal  agent  is  believed  in  as  the  cause  of  all  phenomena. 
The  second,  in  which  metaphysical  abstractions  are  assumed 
as  Causes.  The  third,  the  Positive  stage,  in  which  nothing 
is  expected  but  the  knowledge  of  sequences  by  experience ; 
the  Absolute,  that  lies  beneath  all  phenomena,  being  forever 
unknowable,  and  a  God,  if  there  be  a  God,  undiscoverable  by 
the  intellect  of  man. 

This  conclusion  is  irrefragable.  Granted  that  the  only  ba- 
sis of  religion  is  awe,  a  worship  of  the  marvellous,  then  ver- 
ily, there  "remains  nothing  for  the  human  race  to  end  in  but 
blank  and  ghastly  Atheism. 

Therefore  has  the  Redeemer's  Advent  taught  a  deeper  truth 
to  man.  The  Apostle  Paul  spoke  almost  slightingly  of  the 


The  Barbarian.  157 

marvellous.  "  Covet  earnestly  the  best  gifts :  yet  show  1 
unto  you  a  more  excellent  way.  Though  I  speak  with  the 
tongues  of  men  and  angels,  and  have  not  love,  I  am  become 
as  sounding  brass,  or  a  tinkling  cymbal."  Love  is  diviner 
than  all  wondrous  powers. 

So,  too,  the  Son  of  God  came  into  this  world,  depreciating 
the  merely  mysterious.  ''An  evil  and  adulterous  genera- 
tion seeketh  after  a  sign.  No  sign  shall  be  given  to  it." 
"Except  ye  see  signs  and  wonders,  ye  will  not  believe." 
Nay,  His  own  miracles  themselves,  so  far  as  the  merely  won- 
drous in  them  was  concerned,  He  was  willing,  on  one  occa- 
sion at  least,  to  place  on  the  same  level  with  the  real  or  sup- 
posed ones  of  exorcists  among  themselves.  "  If  I  by  Beel- 
zebub cast  out  devils,  by  whom  do  your  sons  cast  them  out  ?" 
It  was  not  the  power,  nor  the  supernatural  in  them,  which 
proved  them  divine.  It  was  their  peculiar  character — their 
benevolence,  their  goodness,  their  love — which  manifested 
Deity. 

Herein  lies  the  vast  fallacy  ot  the  French  skeptic.  The 
worship  of  the  merely  Supernatural  must,  as  science  pro- 
gresses, legitimately  end  in  Atheism.  Yes,  all  science  re- 
moves the  Cause  of  causes  farther  and  farther  back  from  hu- 
man ken,  so  that  the  baffled  intellect  is  compelled  to  confess 
at  last  we  can  not  find  it.  But  "the  world  by  wisdom  knew 
not  God."  There  is  a  power  in  the  soul,  quite  separate  from 
the  intellect,  which  sweeps  away  or  recognizes  the  marvel- 
lous, by  which  God  is  felt.  Faith  stands  serenely  far  above 
the  reach  of  the  atheism  of  science.  It  does  not  rest  on  the 
wonderful,  but  on  the  eternal  wisdom  and  goodness  of  God. 
The  revelation  of  the  Son  was  to  proclaim  a  Father,  not  a 
mystery.  No  science  can  sweep  away  the  everlasting  love 
which  the  heart  feels,  and  which  the  intellect  does  not  even 
pretend  to  judge  or  recognize.  And  he  is  safe  from  the  in- 
evitable decay  which  attends  the  mere  Barbarian  worship, 
who  has  felt  that  as  faith  is  the  strongest  power  in  the  mind 
of  man,  so  is  love  the  divinest  principle  in  the  bosom  of  God  • 
in  other  words,  he  who  adores  God  as  known  in  Christ,  rath- 
er than  trembles  before  the  Unknown — whose  homage  \s 
yielded  to  Divine  Character  rather  than  to  Divine  Power. 


158     The  Principle  of  the  Spiritual  Harvest. 


XIV. 
THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  HARVEST. 

"Be  not  deceived;  God  is  not  mocked:  for  whatsoever  a  man  soweth. 
that  shall  he  also  reap.  For  he  that  soweth  to  his  flesh  shall  of  the  flesh  reap 
corruption ;  but  he  that  soweth  to  the  Spirit  shall  of  the  Spirit  reap  life  ever- 
lasting."— Gal.  vi.  7,  8. 

THERE  is  a  close  analogy  between  the  world  of  nature 
and  the  world  of  spirit.  They  bear  the  impress  of  the  same 
hand ;  and  hence  the  principles  of  nature  and  its  laws  are 
the  types  a»d  shadows  of  the  Invisible.  Just  as  two  books, 
though  on  different  subjects,  proceeding  from  the  same  pen, 
manifest  indications  of  the  thought  of  one  mind,  so  the 
worlds,  visible  and  invisible,  are  two  books  written  by  the 
same  finger,  and  governed  by  the  same  idea.  Or  rather, 
they  are  but  one  book,  separated  into  two  only  by  the  nar- 
row range  of  our  ken.  For  it  is  impossible  to  study  the  uni- 
verse at  all  without  perceiving  that  it  is  one  system.  Be~ 
gin  with  what  science  you  will,  as  soon  as  you  get  beyond 
the  rudiments,  you  are  constrained  to  associate  it  with  an- 
other. 

You  can  not  study  agriculture  long  without  finding  that 
it  absorbs  into  itself  meteorology  and  chemistry :  sciences 
run  into  one  another  till  you  get  the  "  connection  of  the  sci- 
ences ;"  and  you  begin  to  learn  that  one  Divine  idea  con- 
nects the  whole  in  one  system  of  perfect  order. 

It  was  upon  this  principle  that  Christ  taught.  Truths 
come  forth  from  His  lips,  not  stated  simply  on  authority,  but 
based  on  the  analogy  of  the  universe.  ^  His  human  mind,  in 
perfect  harmony  with  the  Divine  mind  with  which  it  is  mix- 
ed, discerned  the  connection  of  things,  and  read  the  Eternal 
Will  in  the  simplest  laws  of  nature.  For  instance,  if  it  were 
a  question  whether  God  would  give  His  Spirit  to  them  that 
asked,  it  was  not  replied  to  by  a  truth  revealed  on  His  au- 
thority ;  the  answer  was  derived  from  facts  lying  open  to  all 
men's  observation.  "  Behold  the  fowls  of  the  air"—"  behold 
the  lilies  of  the  field  " — learn  from  them  the  answer  to  your 
question.  A  principle  was  tnere.  God  supplies  the  wants 
which  He  has  created.  He  feeds  the  ravens — He  clothes  the 
lilies — He  will  feed  with  His  Spirit  the  craving  spirits  of  His 
children. 


The  Principle  of  the  Spiritual  Harvest.     1 59 

It  was  on  this  principle  of  analogy  that  St.  Paul  taught  in 
this  text.  He  tells  us  that  there  is  a  law  in  nature  accord- 
ing to  which  success  is  proportioned  to  the  labor  spent  upon 
the  work.  In  kind  and  in  degree,  success  is  attained  in 
kind; Tor  example,  he  who  has  sown  his  field  with  beech- 
mast  does  not  receive  a  plantation  of  oaks  ;  a  literary  educa- 
tion is  not  the  road  to  distinction  in  arms,  but  to  success  in 
letters ;  years  spent  on  agriculture  do  not  qualify  a  man  to 
be  an  orator,  but  they  make  him  a  skillful  farmer.  Success, 
again,  is  proportioned  to  labor  in  degree,  because,  ordinarily, 
as  is  the  amount  of  seed  sown,  so  is  the  harvest :  he  who 
studies  much  will  know  more  than  he  who  studies  little.  In 
almost  all  departments  it  is  "  the.  diligent  hand  which  mak- 
eth  rich." 

The  keen  eye  of  Paul  discerned  this  principle  reaching  far 
beyond  what  is  seen,  into  the  spiritual  realm  which  is  un- 
seen. As  tare-seed  comes  up  tares,  and  wheat-seed  wheat ; 
and  as  the  crop  in  both  cases  is  in  proportion  to  two  condi- 
tions, the  labor  and  the  quantity  committed  to  the  ground 
— so  in  things  spiritual,  too,  whatsoever  a  man  soweth,  that 
shall  he  also  reap.  Not  something _else,  but  "  that."  The 
proportion  holds  in  kind — ft  holds,  too,  in  degree,  in  spiritual 
things  as  in  natural.  "  He  which  soweth  sparingly  shall 
reap  also  sparingly  ;  and  he  which  soweth  bountifully  shall 
reap  also  bountifully."  If  we  could  understand  and  rightly 
expound  that  principle,  we  should  be  saved  from  much  of  the 
disappointment  and  surprise  which  come  from  extravagant 
and  unreasonable  expectations.  I  shall  try  first  to  elucidate 
the  principle  w'hich  these  verses  contain,  and  then  examine 
the  two  branches  of  the  principle. 

I.  The  principle  is  this,  "  God  is  not  mocked :  for  whatso 
ever  a  man  soweth,  that  shall  he  also  reap." 

There  are  two  kinds  of  good  possible  to  men  :  one  enjoyed 
by  our  animal  being,  the  other  felt  and  appreciated  by  our 
spirits.  Every  man  understands  more  or  less  the  difference 
between  these  two  :  between  prosperity  and  well-doing — be- 
tween indulgence  and  nobleness — between  comfort  and  in- 
ward peace — between  pleasure  and  striving  after  perfection 
— between  happiness  and  blessedness.  These  are  two  kinds 
of  harvest,  and  the  labor  necessary  for  them  respectively  is 
of  very  different  kinds.  The  labor  which  procures  the  har- 
vest of  the  one  has  no  tendency  to  secure  the  other. 

We  will  not  deprec  are  the  advantages  of  this  world.  It 
is  foolish  and  unreal  to  do  so.  Comfort,  affluence,  success, 
freedom  from  care,  rank,  station — these  are  in  their  real  way 


1 60     The  Principle  of  the  Spiritual  Harvest. 

goods ;  only  the  labor  bestowed  upon  them  does  not  proem  a 
one  single  blessing  that  is  spiritual. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  seed  which  is  sown  for  a  spiritual 
harvest  has  no  tendency  whatever  to  procure  temporal  well- 
being.  Let  us  see  what  are  the  laws  of  the  sowing  and  reap 
ing  in  this  department.  Christ  has  declared  them :  "  Bless- 
ed are  the  pure  in  heart :  for  they  shall  see  God."  "  Bless- 
ed are  they  that  hunger  and  thirst  after  righteousness :  for 
they  shall  be  filled  "  (with  righteousness).  "  Blessed  are  they 
that  mourn  :  for  they  shall  be  comforted."  You  observe, 
the  beatific  vision  of  the  Almighty — fullness  of  righteous- 
ness— divine  comfort.  There  is  nothing  earthly  here — it  is, 
spiritual  results  for  spiritual  labor.  It  is  not  said  that  the 
pure  in  heart  shall  be  made  rich  ;  nor  that  they  who  hunger 
after  goodness  shall  be  filled  with  bread ;  nor  that  they  who 
mourn  shall  rise  in  life  and  obtain  distinction.  Each  depart- 
ment has  its  own  appropriate  harvest — reserved  exclusively 
to  its  own  method  of  sowing. 

Every  thing  in  this  world  has  its  price,  and  the  price  buys 
that,  not  something  else.  Every  harvest  demands  its  own 
preparation,  and  that  preparation  will  not  produce  another 
sort  of  harvest.  Thus,  for  example,  you  can  not  have  at 
once  the  soldier's  renown  and  the  quiet  of  a  recluse's  life. 
The  soldier  pays  his  price  for  his  glory — sows  and  reaps. 
His  price  is  risk  of  life  and  limb,  nights  spent  on  the  hard 
ground,  a  weather-beaten  constitution.  If  you  will  not  pay 
that  price,  you  can  not  have  wrhat  he  has — military  reputa- 
tion. You  can  not  enjoy  the  statesman's  influence  together 
with  freedom  from  public  notoriety.  If  you  sensitively 
shrink  from  that,  you  must  give  up  influence  ;  or  else  pay 
his  price — the  price  of  a  thorny  pillow,  unrest,  the  chance  of 
being  to-day  a  nation's  idol,  to-morrow  the  people's  execra- 
tion. You  can  not  have  the  store  of  information  possessed 
by  the  student,  and  enjoy  robust  health  :  pay  his  price,  and 
you  have  his  reward.  His  price  is  an  emaciated  frame,  a  de- 
bilitated constitution,  a  transparent  hand,  and  the  rose  taken 
out  of  the  sunken  cheek.  To  expect  these  opposite  things : 
i  soldier's  glory  and  quiet,  a  statesman's  renown  and  peace, 
the  student's  prize  and  rude  health,  would  be  to  mock  God, 
to  reap  what  has  not  been  sowed. 

Now  the  mistakes  men  make,  and  the  extravagant  expec- 
tations in  which  they  indulge,  are  these :  they  sow-for  earth, 
and  expect  to  win  spiritual  blessings,  or  they  sow  to  the 
Spirit,  and  then  wonder  that  they  have  not  a  harvest  of  the 
good  things  of  earth.  In  each  case  they  complain.  What 
have  I  done  to  be  treated  so  ? 


The  Principle  of  the  Spiritual  Harvest.     1 6 1 

The  unreasonableness  of  all  this  appears  the  moment  we 
have  understood  the  conditions  contained  in  this  principle, 
"  Whatsoever  a  man  soweth,  that  shall  he  also  reap." 

It  is  a  common  thing  to  hear  sentimental  wonderings 
about  the  unfairness  of  the  distribution  of  things  here.  The 
unprincipled  get  on  in  life,  the  saints  are  kept  back.  The 
riches  and  rewards  of  life  fall  to  the  lot  of  the  undeserving. 
The  rich  man  has  his  good  things,  and  Lazarus  his  evil  things. 
Whereupon  it  is  taken  for  granted  that  there  must  be  a  fu- 
ture life  to  make  this  fair :  that  if  there  were  none,  the  con- 
stitution of  this  world  would  be  unjust.  That  is,  that  be- 
cause a  man  who  has  sown  to  the  Spirit  does  not  reap  to  the 
flesh  here,  he  will  hereafter ;  that  the  meed  of  well-doing 
must  be  somewhere  in  the  universe  the  same  kind  of  recom- 
pense which  the  rewards  of  the  unprincipled  were  here — 
comfort,  abundance,  physical  enjoyment — or  else  all  is  wrong. 

But  if  you  look  into  it,  the  balance  is  perfectly  adjusted 
even  here.  God  has  made  his  world  much  better  than  you 
and  I  could  make  it.  Every  thing  reaps  its  own  harvest,  ev- 
ery act  has  its  own  reward.  And  before  you  covet  the  en- 
joyment which  another  possesses,  you  must  first  calculate  the 
cost  at  which  it  was  procured. 

For  instance,  the  religious  tradesman  complains  that  his 
honesty  is  a  hindrance  to  his  success :  that  the  tide  of  cus- 
tom pours  into  the  doors  of  his  less  scrupulous  neighbors  in 
the  same  street,  while  he  himself  waits  for  hours  idle.  My 
brother,  do  you  think  that  God  is  going  to  reward  honor,  in- 
tegrity, high-mindedness,  with  this  world's  coin?  Do  you 
fancy  that  He  will  pay  spiritual  excellence  with  plenty  of 
custom?  Now,  consider  the  price  that  man  has  paid  for  his 
success.  Perhaps  mental  degradation  and  inward  dishonor. 
His  advertisements  are  all  deceptive;  his  treatment  of  his 
workmen  tyrannical ;  his  cheap  prices  made  possible  by  in- 
ferior articles.  Sow  that  man's  seed,  and  you  will  reap  that 
man's  harvest.  Cheat,  lie,  advertise,  be  unscrupulous  in  your 
assertions,  custom  will  come  to  you.  But  if  the  price  is  too 
dear,  let  him  have  his  harvest,  and  take  yours;  yours  is 
a  clear  conscience,  a  pure  mind,  rectitude  within  and  with- 
out. Will  you  part  with  that  for  his  ?  Then  why  do  you 
complain  ?  He  has  paid  his  price,  you  do  not  choose  to 
pay  it. 

Again,  it  is  not  an  uncommon  thing  to  see  a  man  rise  from 
insignificance  to  sudden  wealth  by  speculation.  Within  the 
last  ten  or  twenty  years  England  has  gazed  on  many  such  a 
phenomenon.  In  this  case,  as  in  spiritual  things,  the  law  seems 
to  hold :  He  that  hath,  to  him  shall  be  given.  Tens  of  thou* 


1 62     The  Principle  of  the  Spiritual  Harvest. 

sands  soon  increase  and  multiply  to  hundreds  of  thousands, 
His  doors  are  besieged  by  the  rich  and  great.  Royalty  ban- 
quets at  his  tableland  nobles  court  his  alliance.  Whereupon 
some  simple  Christian  is  inclined  to  complain  :  "  How  strange 
that  so  much  prosperity  should  be  the  lot  of  mere  clever- 


ness 


Well,  are  these  really  God's  chief  blessings  ?  Is  it  for  such 
as  these  you  serve  Him  ?  And  would  these  indeed  satisfy 
your  soul?  Would  you  have  God  reward  his  saintliest  with 
these  gauds  and  gewgaws — all  this  trash — rank,  and  wealth, 
and  equipages,  and  plate,  and  courtship  from  the  needy 
great  ?  Call  you  that  the  heaven  of  the  holy  ?  Compute 
now  what  was  paid  for  that?  The  price  that  merchant- 
prince  paid,  perhaps  with  the  blood  of  his  own  soul,  was 
shame  and  guilt.  The  price  he  is  paying  now  is  perpetual 
dread  of  detection ;  or  worse  still,  the  hardness  which  can 
laugh  at  detection ;  or  one  deep  lower  yet,  the  low  and  grov- 
elling soul  which  can  be  satisfied  with  these  things  as  a 
paradise,  and  ask  no  higher.  He  has  reaped  enjoyment — 
yes,  and  he  has  sown,  too,  the  seed  of  infamy. 

It  is  all  fair.  Count  the  cost.  "He  that  saveth  his  life 
shall  lose  it."  Save  your  life  if  you  like,  but  do  not  complain 
if  you  lose  your  nobler  life — yourself:  win  the  whole  world, 
but  remember  you  do  it  by  losing  your  own  soul.  Every  sin 
must  be  paid  for ;  every  sensual  indulgence  is  a  harvest,  the 
price  for  which  is  so  much  ruin  for  the  soul.  "  God  is  not 
mocked" 

Once  more,  religious  men  in  every  profession  are  surprised 
to  find  that  many  of  its  avenues  are  closed  to  them.  The 
conscientious  churchman  complains  that  his  delicate  scruples 
or  his  bold  truthfulness  stand  in  the  way  of  his  preferment ; 
while  another  man,  who  conquers  his  scruples  or  softens  the 
eye  of  truth,  rises,  and  sits  down  a  mitred  peer  in  Parliament. 
The  honorable  lawyer  feels  that  his  practice  is  limited,  while 
the  unprincipled  practitioner  receives  all  he  loses ;  and  the 
Christian  physician  feels  sore  and  sad  at  perceiving  that  char- 
latanism succeeds  in  winning  employment ;  or,  if  not  char- 
latanism, at  least  that  affability  and  courtly  manners  take  the 
place  that  is  due  to  superior  knowledge. 

Let  such  men  take  comfort,  and  judge  fairly.  Porjularity 
is  one  of  the  things  of  an  earthly  harvest  for  which  quite 
earthly  qualifications  are  required.  I  say  not  always  dishon- 
orable qualifications,  but  a  certain  flexibility  of  disposition  ; 
a  certain  courtly  willingness  to  sink  obnoxious  truths,  and 
adapt  ourselves  to  the  prejudices  of  the  minds  of  others ;  a 
certain  adroitness  at  catching  the  tone  of  those  with  whom 


The  Principle  of  the  Spiritual  Harvest.     1 63 

we  are.     Without  some  of  these  things  no  man  can  be  popu 
lar  in  any  profession. 

But  you  havenresolved  to  be  a  liver — a  doer — a  champion 
of  the  truth.  Your  ambition  is  to  be  pure  in  the  last  re- 
cesses of  the  mind.  You  have  your  reward  :  a  soul  upright 
and  manly — a  fearless  bearing,  that  dreads  to  look  no  man  in 
the  face-^-a  willingness  to  let  men  search  you  through  and 
through,  and  defy  them  to  see  any  difference  between  what 
you  seem  and  what  you  are.  Now,  your  price :  your  price  is 
dislike.  The  price  of  being  true  is  the  Cross.  The  warrior 
of  the  truth  must  not  expect  success.  What  have  you  to  do 
with  popularity  ?  Sow  for  it,  and  you  will  have  it.  But  if 
you  wish  for  it,  or  wish  for  peace,  you  have  mistaken  your 
calling ;  you  must  not  be  a  teacher  of  the  truth ;  you  must 
not  cut  prejudice  against  the  grain  :  you  must  leave  medical, 
legal,  theological  truth,  to  harder  and  nobler  men,  who  are 
willing  to  take  the  martyr's  cross,  and  win  the  martyr's 
crown. 

This  is  the  "mistake  men  make.  They  expect  both  har- 
vests, paying  only  one  price.  They  would  be  blessed  with 
goodness  and  prosperity  at  once.  They  would  have  that  on 
which  they  bestowed  no  labor.  They  take  sinful  pleasure, 
and  think  it  very  hard  that  they  must  pay  for  it  in  agony, 
and  worse  than  agony,  souls  deteriorated.  They  would 
monopolize  heaven  in  their  souls,  and  the  world's  prizes  at 
the  same  time.  This  is  to  expect  to  come  back,  like  Joseph's 
brethren  from  the  land  of  plenty,  with  the  corn  in  their  sacks, 
and  the  money  returned,  too,  in  their  sacks'  mouths.  No,  no ; 
it  will  not  clo.  "Be  not  deceived;  God  is  not  mocked." 
Reap  what  you  have  sown.  If  you  sow  the  wind,  do  not 
complain  if  your  harvest  is  the  whirlwind.  If  you  sow  to  the 
Spirit,  be  content  with  a  spiritual  reward :  invisible — within : 
"  more  life  and  higher  life." 

II.  Next,  the  two  branches  of  the  application  of  this 
principle. 

First :  He  that  soweth  to  the  flesh,  shall  of  the  flesh  reap 
corruption.  There  are  two  kinds  of  life :  one  of  the  flesh, 
another  of  the  spirit.  Amidst  the  animal  and  selfish  desires 
of  our  nature  there  is  a  voice  which  clearly  speaks  of  duty, 
right,  perfection.  This  is  the  Spirit  of  Deity  in  man ;  it  is 
the  life  of  God  in  the  soul.  This  is  the  evidence  of  our 
divine  parentage. 

But  there  is  a  double  temptation  to  live  the  other  life 
instead  of  this.  First,  the  desires  of  our  animal  nature  are 
keener  than  those  of  our  spiritual.  The  cry  of  Passion  is 


1 64     The  Principk  of  the  Spiritual  Harvest. 

louder  than  the  calm  voice  of  Duty.  Next,  the  reward  in 
the  case  of  our  sensitive  nature  is  given  sooner.  It  takes 
less  time  to  amass  a  fortune  than  to  become  heavenly- 
minded.  It  costs  less  to  indulge  an  appetite  than  it  does 
to  gain  the  peace  of  lulled  passion.  And  hence,  when  men 
feel  that  for  the  spiritual  blessing,  the  bread  must  be  cast 
upon  the  waters  which  shall  not  be  found  until  after  many 
days  (skepticism  whispers  "  never !"),  it  is  quite  intelligible 
why  they  choose  the  visible  and  palpable,  instead  of  the 
invisible  advantage,  and  plan  for  an  immediate  harvest 
rather  than  a  distant  one. 

The  other  life  is  that  of  the  flesh.  The  "  flesh  "  includes 
all  the  desires  of  our  unrenewed  nature  —  the  harmless  aa 
well  as  sinful.  Any  labor,  therefore,  which  is  bounded  by 
present  well-being  is  sowing  to  the  flesh — whether  it  be  the 
gratification  of  an  immediate  impulse,  or  the  loner-contrived 
plan  reaching  forward  over  many  years.  Sowing  to  the 
flesh  includes,  therefore, 

1.  Those  who  live  in  open  riot.  He  sows  to  the  flesh 
who  pampers  its  unruly  animal  appetites.  Do  not  think 
that  I  speak  contemptuously  of  our  animal  nature,  as  if  it 
were  not  human  and  sacred.  The  lowest  feelings  of  our 
nature  become  sublime  by  being  made  the  instruments  of 
our  nobler  emotions.  Love,  self-command,  will  elevate  them 
all ;  and  to  ennoble  and  purify,  not  to  crush  them,  is  the 
long,  slow  work  of  Christian  life.  Christ,  says  St.  Paul,  is 
the  Saviour  of  the  body*  But  if,  instead  of  subduing  these 
to  the  life  of  the  Spirit,  a  man  gives  to  them  the  rein  and 
even  the  spur,  the  result  is  not  difficult  to  foresee.  There 
are  men  who  do  this.  They  "  make  provision  for  the  flesh, 
to  fulfill  the  lusts  thereof."  They  whet  the  appetites  by 
indulgence.  They  whip  the  jaded  senses  to  their  work. 
Whatever  the  constitutional  bias  may  be,  anger,  intemper- 
ance, epicurism,  indolence,  desires,  there  are  societies,  con- 
versations, scenes,  which  supply  fuel  for  the  flame,  as  well 
as  opposite  ones  which  cut  off  the  nutriment.  To  indulge 
in  these,  knowing  the  result,  is  to  foster  the  desire  which 
brings  forth  the  sin  which  ends  in  death.  This  is  "sowing 
to  the  flesh." 

If  there  be  one  to  whom  these  words  which  I  have  used, 
veiled  in  the  proprieties  due  to  delicate  reserve,  are  not 
without  meaning,  from  this  sentence  of  God's  word  let  him 
learn  his  doom.  He  is  looking  forward  to  a  harvest  wherein 
he  may  reap  the  fruit  of  his  present  anticipations.  And  he 
shall  reap  it.  He  shall  have  his  indulgence,  he  shall  enjoy 
his  guilty  rapture,  he  shall  have  his  unhallowed  triumph,- 


The  Principle  of  the  Spiritual  Harvest.     1 65 

and  the  boon  companions  of  his  pleasures  shall  award  him 
the  meed  of  their  applause.  He  has  sown  the  seed,  and  i» 
fair  requital  he  shall  have  his  harvest.  It  is  all  fair.  He 
shall  enjoy.  But  tarry  a  while :  the  law  hath  yet  another 
hold  upon  him.  This  deep  law  of  the  whole  universe  goes 
farther.  He  has  sown  to  the  flesh,  and  of  the  flesh  he  has 
reaped  pleasure;  he  has  sown  to  the  flesh,  and  of  the  flesh 
he  shall  reap  corruption.  That  is,  in  his  case,  the  ruin  of 
the  soul.  It  is  an  awful  thing  to  see  a  soul  in  ruins :  like  a 
temple  which  once  was  fair  and  noble,  but  now  lies  over- 
thrown, matted  with  ivy,  weeds,  and  tangled  briers,  among 
which  things  noisome  crawl  and  live.  He  shall  reap  the 
harvest  of  disappointment  —  the  harvest  of  bitter,  useless 
remorse.  The  crime  of  sense  is  avenged  by  sense,  which 
wears  by  time.  He  shall  have  the  worm  that  gnaws,  and 
the  fire  that  is  not  quenched.  He  shall  reap  the  fruit  of 
long-indulged  desires,  which  have  become  tyrannous  at  last, 
and  constitute  him  his  own  tormentor.  His  harvest  is  a 
soul  in  flames,  and  the  tongue  that  no  drop  can  cool.  Pas- 
sions that  burn,  and  appetites  that  crave,  when  the  power 
of  enjoyment  is  gone.  He  has  sowed  to  the  flesh.  "  God  is 
not  mocked."  The  man  reaps. 

2.  There  is  a  less  gross  way  of  sowing  to  the  flesh.  There 
are"  men  of  sagacity  and  judgment  in  the  affairs  of  this  life 
whose  penetration  is  almost  intuitive  in  all  things  where  the 
step  in  question  involves  success  or  failure  here.  They  are 
those  who  are  called  in  the  parable  the  children  of  this 
world,  wise  in  their  generation.  They  moralize  and  specu- 
late about  eternity,  but  do  not  plan  for  it.  There  is  no  seed 
sown  for  an  invisible  harvest.  If  they  think  they  have 
sown  for  such  a  harvest,  they  might  test  themselves  by  the 
question,  What  would  they  lose  if  there  were  to  be  no  eter- 
nity ?  -  For  the  children  of  God,  so  far  as  earth  is  concerned, 
"  If  in  this  life  only  they  have  hope  in  Christ,  then  are  they 
of  all  men  most  miserable."  But  they  —  these  sagacious, 
prudent  men  of  this  world — they  have  their  reward.  What 
have  they  ventured,  given  up,  sacrificed,  which  is  all  lost 
forever,  if  this  world  be  all  ?  What  have  they  buried  like 
seed  in  the  ground,  lost  forever,  if  there  be  no  eternity? 

Now  we  do  not  say  these  men  are  absolutely  wicked. 
We  distinguish  between  their  sowing  to  the  flesh,  and  the 
sowing  of  those  profligates  last  spoken  of.  All  we  say  is, 
there  is  "  corruption  "  written  on  their  harvest.  It  was  for 
earth,  and  with  earth  it  perishes.  It  may  be  the  labor  of 
the  statesman,  planning,  like  the  Roman  of  old,  the  govern- 
ment and  order  of  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth ;  or  that  of  the 


1 66     Tke  Principle  of  the  Spiritual  Harvest. 

astronomer,  weighing  suns,  prescribing  rules  of  return  to 
comets,  and  dealing  with  things  above  earth  in  space,  but 
unspiritual  still ;  or  that  of  the  son  of  a  humbler  laborious- 
ness,  whose  wprk  is  merely  to  provide  for  a  family:  or, 
lastly,  the  narrower  range  of  the  man  of  pleasure,  whose 
chief  care  is  where  he  shall  spend  the  next  season,  in  what 
metropolis,  or  which  watering-place,  or  how  best  enjoy  the 
next  entertainment. 

All  these  are  objects  more  or  less  harmless.  But  they 
end.  The  pyramid  crumbles  into  dust  at  last.  The  mighty 
empire  of  the  eternal  city  breaks  into  fragments  which  dis- 
appear. The  sowers  for  earth  have  their  harvest  here :  Suc- 
cess in  their  schemes — quiet  intellectual  enjoyment — exemp- 
tion from  pain  arid  loss — the  fruits  of  worldly-wise  sagacity. 
And  that  is  all.  "  When  the  breath  goeth  forth,  they  return 
to  their  dust,  and  all  their  thoughts  perish."  The  grave  is 
not  to  them  the  gate  of  paradise,  but  simply  the  impressive 
mockery  which  the  hand  of  death  writes  upon  that  body  for 
which  they  lived,  and  with  which  all  is  gone.  They  reap 
corruption,  for  all  they  have  toiled  for  decays ! 

Ye  that  lead  the  life  of  respectable  worldliness,  let  these 
considerations  arrest  your  indifference  to  the  Gospel.  You 
have  sown  for  earth.  Well.  And  then — what?  Hear  the 
Gospel,  which  tells  of  a  Saviour  whose  sacrifice  is  the  world's 
life — wrhose  death  is  the  law  of  life;  from  whose  resurrection 
streams  a  Spirit  which  can  change  carnal  into  spiritual  men — 
whose  whole  existence,  reflecting  God,  was  the  utterance  of 
the  Divine  truth  and  rule  of  heavenly  life,  the  blessedness  of 
giving.  To  live  so,  and  to  believe  so,  is  to  sow  to  the  Spirit. 

Lastly,  sowing  to  the  Spirit.  "  He  that  soweth  to  the 
Spirit,  shall  of  the  Spirit  reap  life  everlasting." 

What  is  meant  by  sowing  to  the  Spirit  here  is  plain.  "  Let 
us  not  be  weary  in  well-doing,"  says  the  apostle  directly  after: 
"  for  in  due  season  we  sfiall  reap  if  we  faint  not."  Well-do- 
ing :  not  faith,  but  works  of  goodness,  were  the  sowing  that 
he  spoke  of. 

There  is  proclaimed  here  the  rewardableness  of  works.  So 
in  many  other  passages :  "  Abounding  in  the  work  of  the  Lord, 
forasmuch  as  ye  know  that  your  labor  is  not  in  vain  in  the 
Lord."  "  Laying  up  a  good  foundation  for  the  time  to  come,' 
was  the  reason  alleged  for  charging  rich  men  to  be  willing  to 
give  ;  and  so  all  through.  There  is  an  irreversible  principle. 
The  amount  of  harvest  is  proportioned  to  the  seed  sown  ex- 
actly. There  are  degrees  of  glory.  The  man  who  gives  out 
of  his  abundance  has  one  blessing.  She  who  gives  the  mite, 
all  she  had.  even  all  her  living,  has  another,  quite  different 


Tfe  Principle  of  the  Spiritual  Harvest.     167 

The  rectitude  of  this  principle,  and  what  it  is,  will  be  plainer 
from  the  following  considerations : 

1.  The  harvest  is  life  eternal.     But  eternal  life  here  does 
not  simply  mean  a  life  that  lasts  forever.     That  is  the  destiny 
of  the  soul — all  souls,  bad  as  well  as  good.     But  the  bad  do 
not  enter  into  this  "eternal  life."     It  is  not  simply  the  dura- 
tion, but  the  quality  of  the  life  which  constitutes  its  charac- 
ter of  eternal.     A  spirit  may  live  forever,  yet  not  enter  into 
this.     And  a  man  may  live  but  for  five  minutes  the  life  of 
Divine  benevolence,  or  desire  for  perfectness :  in  those  five 
minutes  he  has  entered  into  the  life  which  is  eternal — never 
fluctuates,  but  is  the  same  unalterably,  forever  in  the  life  of 
God.     This  is  the  reward. 

2.  The  reward  is  not  arbitrary,  but  natural.     God's  re- 
wards and  God's  punishments  are  all  natural.     Distinguish 
between  arbitrary  and  natural.     Death  is  an  arbitrary  pun- 
ishment for  forgery :  it  might  be  changed  for  transportation. 
It  is  not  naturally  connected.     It  depends  upon  the  will  of 
the  law-maker.    But  trembling  nerves  are  the  direct  and  nat- 
ural results  of  intemperance.     They  are,  in  the  order  of  na- 
ture, the  results  of  wrong-doiri*g.    The  man  reaps  what  he  has 
sown.     Similarly  in  rewards.     If  God  gave  riches  in  return 
for  humbleness,  that  would  be  an  arbitrary  connection.     He 
did  give  such  a  reward  to  Solomon.     But  when  He  gives  life 
eternal,  meaning  by  life  eternal  not  duration  of  existence  but 
heavenly  quality  of  existence,  as  explained  already,  it  is  all 
natural.     The  seed  sown  in  the  ground  contains  in  itself  the 
future  harvest.     The  harvest  is  but  the  development  of  the 
germ  of  life  in  the  seed.     A  holy  act  strengthens  the  inward 
holiness.    It  is  a  seed  of  life  growing  into  more  life.    "  What- 
soever a  man  soweth,  that  shall  he  reap."     He  that  sows 
much,  thereby  becomes  more  conformed  to  God  than  he  w^as 
before — in  heart  and  spirit.     That  is  his  reward  and  harvest. 
And  just  as  among  the  apostles  there  was  one  whose  spirit, 
attuned  to  love,  made  him  emphatically  the  disciple  whom 
Jesus  loved,  so  shall  there  be  some  who,  by  previous  disci- 
pline of  the  Holy  Ghost,  shall  have  more  of  His  mind,  anfl 
understand  more  of  His  love,  and  drink  deeper  of  His  joy 
than  others — they  that  have  sowed  bountifully. 

Every  act  done  in  Christ  receives  its  exact  and  appropriate 
reward.  They  that  are  meek  shall  inherit  the  earth.  They 
that  are  pure  shall  see  God.  They  that  suffer  shall  reign 
with  Him.  They  that  turn  many  to  righteousness  shall  shine 
as  the  stars  forever.  They  that  receive  a  righteous  man  in 
the  name  of  a  righteous  man — that  is,  because  he  is  a  right- 
eous man — shall  receive  a  righteous  man's  reward.  Even  the 


1 68  The  Loneliness  of  Christ. 

cup  of  cold  water,  given  in  the  name  of  Christ,  shall  not  lose 
its  icward. 

It  will  be  therefore  seen  at  once,  reward  is  not  the  result 
of  merit.  It  is,  in  the  order  of  grace,  the  natural  consequence 
of  well-doing.  It  is  life  becoming  more  life.  It  is  the  soul 
developing  itself.  It  is  the  Holy  Spirit  of  God  in  man  making 
itself  more  felt,  and  mingling  more  and  more  with  his  soul, 
felt  more  consciously  with  an  ever-increasing  heaven.  You 
reap  what  you  sow — not  something  else,  but  that.  An  act 
of  love  makes  the  soul  more  loving.  A  deed  of  humbleness 
deepens  humbleness.  The  thing  reaped  is  the  very  thing 
sown,  multiplied  a  hundred-fold.  You  have  sown  a  seed  of 
life,  you  reap  life  everlasting. 


XV. 
THE  LONELINESS  OF  CHRIST. 

"Jesus  answered  them,  Do  ye  now  believe?  Behold,  the  hour  cometh, 
yea,  is  now  come,  that  ye  shall  be  scattered,  every  man  to  his  own,  and  shall 
leave  me  alone  :  and  yet  I  am  not  alone,  because  the  Father  is  with  me." — 
John  xvi.  31,  32. 

THERE  are  two  kinds  of  solitude :  the  first  consisting  of 
insulation  in  space,  the  other  of  isolation  of  the  spirit.  The 
first  is  simply  separation  by  distance.  When  we  are  seen, 
touched,  heard  by  none,  we  are  said  to  be  alone.  And  all 
hearts  respond  to  the  truth  of  that  saying,  This  is  not  soli- 
tude ;  for  sympathy  can  people  our  solitude  with  a  crowd. 
The  fisherman  on  the  ocean  alone  at  night  is  not  alone  when 
he  remembers  the  earnest  longings  which  are  arising  up  to 
heaven  at  home  for  his  safety ;  the  traveller  is  not  alone  when 
the  faces  which  will  greet  him  on  his  arrival  seem  to  beam 
upon  him  as  he  trudges  on ;  the  solitary  student  is  not  alone 
when  he  feels  that  human  hearts  will  respond  to  the  truths 
which  he  is  preparing  to  address  to  them. 

The  other  is  loneliness  of  soul.  There  are  times  when 
hands  touch  ours,  but  only  send  an  icy  chill  of  unsympa 
thizing  indifference  to  the  heart :  when  eyes  gaze  into  ours, 
but  with  a  glazed  look  which  can  not  read  into  the  bottom 
of  our  souls — when  words  pass  from  our  lips,  but  only  come 
back  as  an  echo  reverberated  without  replying  through  a 
dreary  solitude — when  the  multitude  throng  and  press  us,  and 
we  can  not  say,  as  Christ  said,  "  Somebody  hath  touched  me :" 


The  Loneliness  of  Christ.  169 

for  the  contact  has  been  not  between  soul  and  soul,  but  only 
between  form  and  form. 

And  there  are  two  kinds  of  men  who  feel  this  last  solitude 
in  different  ways.  The  first  are  the  men  of  self-reliance : 
self-dependent — who  ask  no  counsel,  and  crave  no  sympathy 
— who  act  and  resolve  alone — who  can  go  sternly  through 
duty,  and  scarcely  shrink,  let  what  will  be  crushed  in  them.' 
Such  men  command  respect ;  for  whoever  respects  himself 
constrains  the  reverence  of  others.  They  are  invaluable  in 
all  those  professions  of  life  in  which  sensitive  feeling  would 
be  a  superfluity ;  they  make  iron  commanders ;  surgeons 
who  do  not  shrink ;  and  statesmen  who  do  not  flinch  from 
their  purpose  for  the  dread  of  unpopularity.  But  mere  self- 
dependence  is  weakness,  and  the  conflict  is  terrible  when  a 
human  sense  of  weakness  is  felt  by  such  men. 

Jacob  was  alone  when  he  slept  in  his  way  to  Padan-aram, 
the  first  night  that  he  was  away  from  his  father's  roof,  with 
the  world  before  him,  and  all  the  old  associations  broken  up, 
and  Elijah  was  alone  in  the  wilderness  when  the  court  had 
deserted  him,  and  he  sajd,  "  They  have  digged  down  Thine 
altars,  and  slain  Thy  prophets  with  the  sword:  and  I,  even 
I,  only  am  left,  and  they  seek  my  life  to  take  it  away." 
But  the  loneliness  of  the  tender  Jacob  was  very  different 
from  that  of  the  stern  Elijah.  To  Jacob  the  sympathy  he 
yearned  for  wras  realized  in  the  form  of  a  simple  dream.  A 
ladder  raised  from  earth  to  heaven  figured  the  possibility  of 
communion  between  the  spirit  of  man  and  the  Spirit  of  God. 
In  Elijah's  case,  the  storm,  and  the  earthquake,  and  the  fire 
did  their  convulsing  work  in  the  soul,  before  a  still,  small 
voice  told  him  that  he  was  not  alone.  In  such  a  spirit  the 
sense  of  weakness  comes  with  a  burst  of  agony,  and  the 
dreadful  conviction  of  being  alone  manifests  itself  with  a 
rending  of  the  heart  of  rock.  It  is  only  so  that  such  souls 
can  be  taught  that  the  Father  is  with  them,  and  that  they 
are  not  alone. 

There  is  another  class  of  men  who  live  in  sympathy. 
These  are  affectionate  minds  which  tremble  at  the  thought 
of  being  alone :  not  from  want  of  courage,  nor  from  weak- 
ness of  intellect  conies  their  dependence  upon  others,  but 
from  the  intensity  of  their  affections.  It  is  the  trembling 
spirit  of  humanity  in  them.  They  want  not  aid,  nor  even 
countenance,  but  only  sympathy.  And  the  trial  comes  to 
them  not  in  the  shape  of  fierce  struggle,  but  of  chill  and  ut- 
ter loneliness,  when  they  are  called  upon  to  perform  a  duty 
on  which  the  world  looks  coldly,  or  to  embrace  a  truth  whicn 
has  not  found  lodgment  yet  in  the  breasts  of  others. 


1 70  The  Loneliness  of  Christ. 

It  is  to  this  latter  and  not  to  the  former  class  that  we 
must  look  if  we  would  understand  the  spirit  in  which  the 
words  of  the  text  were  pronounced.  The  deep  humanity  of 
the  soul  of  Christ  was  gifted  with  those  finer  sensibilities  of 
affectionate  nature  which  stand  in  need  of  sympathy.  He 
not  only  gave  sympathy,  but  wanted  it  too,  from  others. 
He  who  selected  the  gentle  John  to  be  his  friend — who  found 
solace  in  female  sympathy,  attended  by  the  women  who 
ministered  to  him  out  of  their  substance — who  in  the  triai- 
iiour  could  not  bear  even  to  pray  without  the  human  pres- 
ence— which  is  the  pledge  and  reminder  of  God's  presence — • 
had  nothing  in  Him  of  the  hard,  merely  self-dependent 
character.  Even  this  verse  testifies  to  the  same  fact,  A 
stem  spirit  never  could  have  said, "  I  am  not  alone ;  the  Fa- 
ther is  with  Me  ;"  never  would  have  felt  the  loneliness  which 
needed  the  balancing  truth.  These  words  tell  of  a  struggle 
— an  inward  reasoning — a  difficulty  and  a  reply — a  sense  of 
solitude — "  I  shall  be  alone ;"  and  an  immediate  correction 
of  that,  "not  alone — the  Father  is  with  Me." 

There  is  no  thought  connected  witb  the  life  of  Christ  more 
touching,  none  that  seems  so  peculiarly  to  characterize  His 
spirit,  than  the  solitariness  in  which  He  lived.  Those  who 
understood  Him  best  only  half  understood  Him.  Those 
who  knew  Him  best  scarcely  could  be  said  to  know  Him, 
On  this  occasion  the  disciples  thought — Now  we  do  under- 
stand— now  we  believe.  The  lonely  spirit  answered,  "  Do 
ye  now  believe  ?  Behold,  the  hour  cometh  that  ye  shall  be 
scattered,  every  man  to  his  own,  and  shall  leave  Me  alone." 

Very  impressive  is  that  trait  in  His  history.  He  was  in 
this  world  alone. 

I.  First,  then,  we  meditate  on  the  loneliness  of  Christ. 
II.  On  the  temper  of  His  solitude, 

1.  The  loneliness  of  Christ  was  caused  by  the  Divine  ele 
vation  of  His  character.  His  infinite  superiority  severed 
Him  from  sympathy;  His  exquisite  affectionateness  made 
that  want  of  sympathy  a  keen  trial. 

There  is  a  second-rate  greatness  which  the  world  can  com- 
prehend. If  we  take  two  who  are  brought  into  direct  con- 
trast by  Christ  Himself,  the  one  the  type  of  human,  the  oth- 
er that  of  Divine  excellence,  the  Son  of  Man  and  John  the 
Baptist,  this  becomes  clearly  manifest.  John's  life  had  a 
certain  rude,  rugged  goodness,  on  which  was  written,  in 
characters  which  required  no  magnifying-glass  to  read,  spir- 
itual excellence.  The  world,  on  the  whole,  accepted  him. 
Pharisees  and  Sadducees  went  to  his  baptism.  The  people 


The  Loneliness  of  Christ.  \  7 1 

idolized  him  as  a  prophet ;  and  if  he  had  not  chanced  to 
cross  the  path  of  a  weak  prince  and  a  revengeful  woman,  we 
can  see  no  reason  why  John  might  not  have  finished  his 
course  with  joy,  recognized  as  irreproachable.  If  we  in- 
quire why  it  was  that  the  world  accepted  John  and  rejected 
Christ,  one  reply  appears  to  be  that  the  life  of  the  one  was 
finitely  simple  and  one-sided,  that  of  the  other  divinely  com- 
plex. 

In  physical  nature,  the  naturalist  finds  no  difficulty  in  com- 
prehending the  simple  structure  of  the  lowest  organizations 
of  animal  life,  where  one  uniform  texture  and  one  organ  per- 
forming the  office  of  brain  and  heart  and  lungs,  at  once  leave 
little  to  perplex.  But  when  he  comes  to  study  the  complex 
anatomy  of  man,  he  has  the  labor  of  a  lifetime  before  him. 
It  is  not  difficult  to  master  the  constitution  of  a  single  coun- 
try ;  but  when  you  try  to  understand  the  universe,  you  find 
infinite  appearances  of  contradiction  :  law  opposed  by  law — 
motion  balanced  by  motion — happiness  blended  with  misery  : 
and  the  power  to  elicit  a  divine  order  and  unity  out  of  this 
complex  variety  is  given  to  only  a  few  of  the  gifted  of  the 
race.  That  which  the  structure  of  man  is  to  the  structure 
of  the  limpet — that  which  the  universe  is  to  a  single  coun- 
try— the  complex  and  boundless  soul  of  Christ  was  to  the 
souls  of  other  men. 

Therefore,  to  the  superficial  observer,  His  life  was  a  mass 
of  inconsistencies  and  contradictions.  All  thought  them- 
selves qualified  to  point  out  the  discrepancies.  The  Phari- 
sees could  not  comprehend  how  a  holy  teacher  could  eat  with 
publicans  and  sinners.  His  own  brethren  could  not  recon- 
cile His  assumption  of  a  public  office  with  the  privacy  which 
He  aimed  at  keeping.  "  If  thou  doest  these  things,  show 
thyself  to  the  world."  Some  thought  He  was  "  a  good 
man,"  others  said,  "  Nay,  but  He  deceiveth  the  people." 
And  hence  it  was  that  lie  lived  to  see  all  that  acceptance 
which  had  marked  the  earlier  stage  of  His  career,  as  for  in- 
stance at  Capernaum,  melt  away.  First  the  Pharisees  took 
the  alarm ;  then  the  Sadducees ;  then  the  political  party  of 
the  Herodians  ;  then  the  people.  That  was  the  most  terrible 
of  all :  for  the  enmity  of  the  upper  classes  is  impotent ;  but 
when  that  cry  of  brute  force  is  stirred  from  the  deeps  of  so- 
ciety, as  deaf  to  the  voice  of  reason  as  the  ocean  in  its 
strength  churned  into  raving  foam  by  the  winds,  the  heart 
of  mere  earthly  oak  quails  before  that.  The  apostles,  at  all 
events,  did  quail.  One  denied,  another  betrayed,  all  desert- 
ed. They  "  were  scattered,  each  to  his  own  :"  and  the  Truth 
Himself  was  left  alone  in  Pilate's  judgment-hall. 


172  The  Loneliness  of  Christ. 

Now  learn  from  this  a  very  important  distinction.  To 
feel  solitary  is  no  uncommon  thing.  To  complain  of  being 
alone,  without  sympathy  and  misunderstood,  is  general 
enough.  In  every  place,  in  many  a  family,  these  victims  of 
diseased  sensibility  are  to  be  found,  and  they  might  find  a 
weakening  satisfaction  in  observing  a  parallel  between  their 
own  feelings  and  those  of  Jesus.  But  before  that  parallel  is 
assumed,  be  very  surQ  that  it  is,  as  in  His  case,  the  elevation 
of  your  character  which  severs  you  from  your  species.  The 
world  has  small  sympathy  for  Divine  goodness;  but  it  also 
has  little  for  a  great  many  other  qualities  which  are  disagree- 
able to  it.  You  meet  with  no  response — you  are  passed  by 
— find  yourself  unpopular — meet  with  little  communion. 
Well ;  is  that  because  you  are  above  the  world,  nobler,  de- 
vising and  executing  grand  plans  which  they  can  not  com- 
prehend— vindicating  the  wronged,  proclaiming  and  living 
on  great  principles — offending  it  by  the  saintliness  of  your 
purity,  and  the  unworldliness  of  your  aspirations  ?  Then 
yours  is  the  loneliness  of  Christ.  Or  is  it  that  you  are 
wrapped  up  in  self — cold,  disobliging,  sentimental,  indifferent 
about  the  welfare  of  others,  and  very  much  astonished  that 
they  are  not  deeply  interested  in  you  ?  You  must  not  use 
these  words  of  Christ.  They  have  nothing  to  do  with  you. 

Let  us  look  at  one  or  two  of  the  occasions  on  which  this 
loneliness  was  felt. 

The  first  time  was  when  He  was  but  twelve  years  old, 
when  His  parents  found  Him  in  the  temple,  hearing  the 
doctors  and  asking  them  questions.  High  thoughts  were  in 
the  child's  soul :  expanding  views  of  life ;  larger  views  of 
duty  and  His  own  destiny.  » 

There  is  a  moment  in  every  true  life — to  some  it  comes 
very  early — when  the  old  routine  of  duty  is  not  large  enough 
— when  the  parental  roof  seems  too  low,  because  the  Infinite 
above  is  arching  over  the  soul — when  the  old  formulas  in 
creeds,  catechisms,  and  articles  seem  to  be  narrow,  and  they 
must  either  be  thrown  aside,  or  else  transformed  into  living 
and  breathing  realities — when  the  earthly  father's  authority 
is  being  superseded  by  the  claims  of  a  Father  in  heaven. 

That  is  a  lonely,  lonely  moment,  when  the  young  soul  first 
feels  God  ;  when  this  earth  is  recognized  as  an  "  awful  place, 
yea,  the  very  gate  of  heaven ;"  when  the  dream-ladder  is 
seen  planted  against  the  skies,  and  we  wake,  and  the  dream 
haunts  us  as  a  sublime  reality. 

You  may  detect  the  approach  of  that  moment  in  the 
young  man  or  the  young  woman  by  the  awakened  spirit  of 
inquiry :  by  a  certain  restlessness  of  look,  and  an  eager  ear* 


The  Loneliness  of  Christ.  173 

nestness  of  tone — by  the  devouring  study  of  all  kinds  of  books 
— by  the  waning  of  your  own  influence,  while  the  inquirer 
is  asking  the  truth  of  the  doctors  and  teachers  in  the  vast 
temple  of  the  world — by  a  certain  opinionativeness,  which  is 
austere  and  disagreeable  enough  ;  but  the  austerest  moment 
of  the  fruit's  taste  is  that  in  which  it  is  passing  from  green- 
ness into  ripeness.  If  you  wait  in  patience,  the  sour  will 
become  sweet.  Rightly  looked  at,  that  opinionativeness  is 
more  truly  anguish  :  the  fearful  solitude  of  feeling  the  inse- 
curity of  all  that  is  human ;  the  discovery  that  life  is  real, 
and  many  forms  of  social  and  religious  existence  hollow. 
The  old  moorings  are  torn  away,  and  the  soul  is  drifting, 
drifting,  drifting,  very  often  without  compass,  except  the 
guidance  of  an  unseen  hand,  into  the  vast  infinite  of  God. 
Then  come  the  lonely  words,  and  no  wonder,  "  How  is  it 
that  ye  sought  me  ?  Wist  ye  not  that  I  must  be  about  my 
Father's  business  ?" 

2.  That  solitude  was  felt  by  Christ  in  trial.  In  the  des- 
ert, in  Pilate's  judgment-hall,  in  the  garden,  He  was  alone — 
and  alone  *  must  every  son  of  man  meet  his  trial-hour.  The 
individuality  of  the  soul  necessitates  that.  Each  man  is  a 
new  soul  in  this  world ;  untried,  with  a  boundless  possible 
before  him.  No  one  can  predict  what  he  may  become,  pre- 
scribe his  duties,  or  mark  out  his  obligations.  Each  man's 
own  nature  has  its  own  peculiar  rules ;  and  he  must  take  up 
his  life-plan  alone,  and  persevere  in  it  in  a  perfect  privacy 
with  which  no  stranger  int^rmeddleth.  Each  man's  tempta- 
tions are  made  up  of  a  host  of  peculiarities,  internal  and  ex- 
ternal, which  no  other  mind  can  measure.  You  are  tried 
alone — alone  you  pass  into  the  desert — alone  you  must  bear 
and  conquer  in  the  agony — alone  you  must  be  sifted  by  the 
world.  There  are  moments  known  only  to  a  man's  own  self, 
when  he  sits  by  the  poisoned  springs  of  existence  "  yearning 
for  a  morrow  which  shall  free  him  from  the  strife."  And 
there  are  trials  more  terrible  than  that.  Not  when  vicious 
inclinations  are  opposed  to  holy,  but  when  virtue  conflicts 
with  virtue,  is  the  real  rending  of  the  soul  in  twain.  A 
temptation  in  which  the  lower  nature  struggles  for  mastery 
can  be  met  by  the  whole  united  force  of  the  spirit.  But  it 
is  when  obedience  to  a  heavenly  Father  can  be  only  paid  by 
disobedience  to  an  earthly  one  ;  or  fidelity  to  duty  can  be 
only  kept  by  infidelity  to  some  entangling  engagement ;  or 
the  straight  path  must  be  taken  over  the  misery  of  others ; 
or  the  counsel  of  the  affectionate  friend  must  be  met  with  a 
"  Get  thee  behind  me,  Satan,"  oh,  i£  is  then,  when  human  ad- 
vice is  unavailable,  that  the  soul  feels  what  it  is  to  be  alone. 


1 74  The  Loneliness  of  Christ. 

Once  more  —  the  Redeemer's  soul  was  alone  in  dying 
The  hour  had  come — they  were  all  gone,  and  He  was,  as  He 
predicted,  left  alone.  All  that  is  human  drops  from  us  in 
that  hour.  Human  faces  flit  and  fade,  and  the  sounds  of 
the  world  become  confused.  "  I  shall  die  alone  " — yes,  and 
alone  you  live.  The  philosopher  tells  us  that  no  atom  in 
creation  touches  another  atom — they  only  approach  within  a 
certain  distance ;  then  the  attraction  ceases,  and  an  invisible 
something  repels — they  only  seem  to  touch.  No  soul  touches 
another  soul  except  at  one  or  two  points ;  and  those  chiefly 
external — a  fearful  and  a  lonely  thought,  but  one  of  the 
truest  of  life.  Death  only  realizes  that  which  has  been  the  fact 
all  along.  In  the  central  deeps  of  our  being  wre  are  alone. 

II.  The  spirit  or  temper  of  that  solitude. 

1.  Observe  its  grandeur.  I  am  alone,  yet  not  alone. 
There  is  a  feeble  and  sentimental  way  in  which  we  speak  of 
the  Man  of  Sorrows.  We  turn  to  the  cross,  and  the  agony, 
and  the  loneliness,  to  touch  the  softer  feelings,  to  arouse 
compassion.  You  degrade  that  loneliness  by  your  compas- 
sion. Compassion  !  compassion  for  Him  !  Adore  if  you 
will — respect  and  reverence  that  sublime  solitariness  with 
which  none  but  the  Father  was — but  no  pity ;  let  it  draw 
out  the  firmer  and  manlier  graces  of  the  soul.  Even  tender 
sympathy  seems  out  of  place. 

For  even  in  human  things,  the  strength  that  is  in  a  man 
can  be  only  learnt  when  he  is  thrown  upon  his  own  resources 
and  left  alone.  What  a  man  can  do  in  conjunction  with  oth- 
ers does  not  test  the  man.  Tell  us  wrhat  he  can  do  alone. 
It  is  one  thing  to  defend  the  truth  when  you  know  that  your 
audience  are  already  prepossessed,  and  that  every  argument 
will  meet  a  willing  response ;  and  it  is  another  thing  to  hold 
the  truth  when  truth  must  be  supported,  if  at  all,  alone — met 
by  cold  looks  and  unsympathizing  suspicion.  It  is  one  thing 
to  rush  on  to  danger  with  the  shouts  and  the  sympathy  of 
numbers ;  it  is  another  thing  when  the  lonely  chieftain  of 
the  sinking  ship  sees  the  last  boatful  disengage  itself,  and 
folds  his  arms  to  go  down  into  the  majesty  of  darkness, 
crushed,  but  not  subdued. 

Such  and  greater  far  was  the  strength  and  majesty  of  the 
Saviour's  solitariness.  It  was  not  the  trial  of  the  lonely  her- 
mit. There  is  a  certain  gentle  and  pleasing  melancholy  in 
the  life  which  is  lived  alone.  But  there  are  the  forms  of  na- 
ture to  speak  to  him,  and  he  has  not  the  positive  opposition 
of  mankind  if  he  has  the  absence  of  actual  sympathy.  It  is 
a  solemn  thing,  doubtless,  to  be  apart  from  men,  and  to  feel 


The  Loneliness  of  Christ.  1 75 

eternity  rushing  by  like  an  arrowy  river.  But  the  solitude 
of  Christ  was  the  solitude  of  a  crowd.  In  that  single  human 
bosom  dwelt  the  thought  which  was  to  be  the  germ  of  the 
world's  life  :  a  thought  unshared,  misunderstood,  or  rejected. 
Can  you  not  feel  the  grandeur  of  those  words,  when  the  Man 
reposing  on  His  solitary  strength,  felt  the  last  shadow  of  per- 
fect isolation  pass  across  His  soul :  "  My  God,  my  God,  why 
hast  Thou  forsaken  me  ?" 

Next,  learn  from  these  words  self-reliance,  "  Ye  shall 
leave  me  alone."  Alone,  then,  the  Son  of  man  was  content 
to  be.  He  threw  Himself  on  His  own  solitary  thought ;  did 
not  go  down  to  meet  the  world,  but  waited,  though  it  might 
be  for  ages,  till  the  world  should  come  round  to  Him.  He 
appealed  to  the  future ;  did  not  aim  at  seeming  consistent ; 
left  His  contradictions  unexplained ;  "  I  came  from  the  Fa- 
ther, I  leave  the  world,  and  go  to  the  Father."  "  Now," 
said  they,  "  thou  speakest  no  proverb " — that  is,  enigma. 
But  many  a  hard  and  enigmatical  saying  before  He  had 
spoken,  and  He  left  them  all.  A  thread  runs  through  all 
true  acts,  stringing  them  together  into  one  harmonious 
chain ;  but  it  is  not  for  the  Son  of  God  to  be  anxious  to 
prove  their  consistency  with  each  other. 

This  is  self-reliance — to  repose  calmly  on  the  thought 
which  is  deepest  in  our  bosoms,  and  be  unmoved  if  the 
world  will  not  accept  it  yet.  To  live  on  your  own  convic- 
tions against  the  world  is  to  overcome  the  world  ;  to  believe 
that  what  is  truest  in  you  is  true  for  all ;  to  abide  by  that, 
and  not  be  over-anxious  to  be  heard  or  understood,  or  sym- 
pathized with,  certain  that  at  last  all  must  acknowledge  the 
same,  and  that  while  you  stand  firm,  the  world  will  come 
round  to  you,  that  is  independence.  It  is  not  difficult  to  get 
away  into  retirement,  and  there  live  upon  your  own  convic- 
tions ;  nor  is  it  difficult  to  mix  with  men,  and  follow  their 
convictions ;  but  to  enter  into  the  world,  and  there  live  out 
firmly  and  fearlessly  according  to  your  own  conscience,  that 
is  Christian  greatness. 

There  is  a  cowardice  in  this  age  which  is  not  Christian. 
We  shrink  from  the  consequences  of  truth.  We  look  round 
and  cling  dependently.  We  ask  what  men  will  think — what 
others  will  say— whether  they  will  not  stare  in  astonishment. 
Perhaps  they  will ;  but  he  who  is  calculating  that,  will  ac- 
complish nothing  in  this  life.  The  Father — the  Father  who 
is  with  us  and  in  us — what  does  He  think  ?  God's  work  can 
not  be  done  without  a  spirit  of  independence.  A  man  is  got 
pome  way  in  the  Christian  life  when  he  has  learned  to  say 
liumbly  and  yet  majestically,  "  I  dare  to  be  alone." 


176  The  Loneliness  of  Christ. 

Lastly,  remark  the  humility  of  this  loneliness.  Had  the 
Son  of  man  simply  said,  I  can  be  alone,  He  would  have  said 
no  more  than  any  proud,  self-relying  man  can  say.  But 
when  he  added,  "  because  the  Father  is  with  me,"  that  inde- 
pendence assumed  another  character,  and  self-reliance  be- 
came only  another  form  of  reliance  upon  God.  Distinguish 
between  genuine  and  spurious  humility.  There  is  a  false 
humility  which  says,  "  It  is  my  own  poor  thought,  and  I 
,must  not  trust  it.  I  must  distrust  my  own  reason  and  judg- 
ment, because  they  are  my  own.  I  must  not  accept  the  dic- 
tates of  my  own  conscience,  for  it  is  not  my  own,  and  is  not 
trust  in  self  the  great  fault  of  our  fallen  nature  ?" 

Very  well.  Now  remember  something  else.  There  is  a 
Spirit  which  beareth  witness  with  our  spirits ;  there  is  a  God 
who  "  is  not  far  from  any  one  of  us ;"  there  is  a  "  Light 
which  lighteth  every  man  which  cometh  into  the  world."  Do 
not  be  unnaturally  humble.  The  thought  of  your  mind,  per- 
chance, is  the  thought  of  God.  To  refuse  to  follow  that  may 
be  to  disown  God.  To  take  the  judgment  and  conscience  of 
other  men  to  live  by,  where  is  the  humility  of  that  ?  From 
whence  did  their  conscience  and  judgment  come?  Was  the 
fountain  from  which  they  drew  exhausted  for  you  ?  If  they 
refuse  like  you  to  rely  on  their  own  conscience,  and  you  rely 
upon  it,  how  are  you  sure  that  it  is  more  the  mind  of  God 
than  your  own  which  you  have  refused  to  hear  ? 

Look  at  it  in  another  way.  The  charm  of  the  words  of 
great  men — those  grand  sayings  which  are  recognized  as  true 
as  soon  as  heard — is  this,  that  you  recognize  them  as  wisdom 
which  has  passed  across  your  own  mind.  You  feel  that  they 
are  your  own  thoughts  come  back  to  you,  else  you  would 
not  at  once  admit  them :  "  All  that  floated  across  me  before, 
only  I  could  not  say  it,  and  did  not  feel  confident  enough  to 
assert  it,  or  had  not  conviction  enough  to  put  it  into  words." 
Yes,  God  spoke  to  you  what  He  did  to  them :  only  they  be- 
lieved it,  said  it,  trusted  the  Word  within  them,  and  you  did 
not.  Be  sure  that  often  when  you  say,  "  It  is  only  my  own 
poor  thought,  and  I  am  alone,"  the  real  correcting  thought  is 
this,  "  Alone,  but  the  Father  is  with  me ;"  therefore  I  can 
live  that  lonely  conviction. 

There  is  no  danger  in  this,  whatever  timid  minds  may 
think — no  danger  of  mistake,  if  the  character  be  a  true  one. 
For  we  are  not  left  in  uncertainty  in  this  matter.  It  is  given 
us  to  know  our  base  from  our  noble  hours — to  distinguish 
between  the  voice  which  is  from  above,  and  that  which 
speaks  from  below,  out  of  the  abyss  of  our  animal  and  selfish 
nature.  Samuel  could  distinguish  between  the  impulse, 


The  New  Commandment,  Etc.  177 

quite  a  human  one,  which  would  have  made  him  select  Eliab 
out  of  Jesse's  sons,  and  the  deeper  judgment  by  which  "the 
Lord  said,  Look  not  on  his  countenance,  nor  on  the  height 
of  his  stature,  for  I  have  refused  him."  Doubtless  deep 
truth  of  character  is  required  for  this ;  for  the  whispering 
voices  get  mixed  together,  and  we  dare  not  abide  by  our 
own  thoughts,  because  we  think  them  our  own,  and  not 
God's ;  and  this  because  we  only  now  and  then  endeavor  to 
know  in  earnest.  It  is  only  given  to  the  habitually  true  to 
know  the  difference.  He  knew  it,  because  all  His  blessed 
life  long  He  could  say,  "My  judgment  is  just,  because  I  seek 
not  my  own  will,  but  the  will  of  Him  which  sent  me." 

The  practical  result  and  inference  of  all  this  is  a  very  sim- 
ple, but  a  very  deep  one — the  deepest  of  existence.  Let  life 
be  a  life  of  faith.  Do  not  go  timorously  about,  inquiring 
what  others  think,  what  others  believe,  and  what  others  say. 
It  seems  the  easiest,  it  is  the  most  difficult  thing  in  life,  to  do 
this — believe  in  God.  God  is  near  you.  Throw  yourself 
fearlessly  upon  Him.  Trembling  mortal,  there  is  an  unknown 
might  within  your  soul  which  will  wake  when  you  command 
it.  The  day  may  come  when  all  that  is  human,  man  and 
woman,  will  fall  off  from  yon,  as  they  did  from  Him.  Let 
His  strength  be  yours.  Be  independent  of  them  all  now. 
The  Father  is  with  you.  Look  to  Him,  and  He  will  save  you. 


XVI. 

THE  NEW  COMMANDMENT  OF  LOVE  TO  ONE 
ANOTHER. 

"A  new  commandment  I  give  unto  you,  That  ye  love  one  another;  as  I 
have  loved  you,  that  ye  also  love  one  another." — John  xiii.  34. 

THESE  words  derive  impressiveness  from  having  been  spok- 
en immediately  before  the  last  Supper,  and  on  the  eve  of 
the  great  Sacrifice :  the  commandment  of  love  issued  appro- 
priately at  the  time  of  the  Feast  of  Love,  and  not  long  before 
the  great  Act  of  Love.  For  the  love  of  Christ  was  no  fine 
sat/ing:  it  cost  Him  His  life  to  say  these  words  with  mean- 
ing, "  As  I  have  loved  you." 

There  is  a  difficulty  in  the  attempt  to  grasp  the  meaning 
of  this  command,  arising  from  the  fact  that  words  change 
their  meaning.  Our  Lord  affixed  a  new  significance  to  the 
word  love  :  it  had  been  in  use,  of  course,  before,  but  the  new 
sense  in  which  He  used  it  made  it  a  new  word. 

8* 


178  The  New  Commandment  of 

His  law  is  not  adequately  represented  by  the  word  lovec. 
because  love  is,  by  conventional  usage,  appropriated  to  one 
species  of  human  affection,  which,  in  the  commoner  men,  is 
the  most  selfish  of  all  our  feelings ;  and  in  the  best  is  too  ex- 
clusive and  individual  to  represent  that  charity  which  is  uni- 
versal. 

Nor  is  charity  a  perfect  symbol  of  His  meaning ;  for  chari- 
ty, by  use,  is  identified  with  another  form  of  love  which  is  but 
a  portion  of  it,  almsgiving  ;  and  too  saturated  with  that 
meaning  to  be  entirely  disengaged  from  it,  even  when  we 
use  it  most  accurately. 

Benevolence  or  philanthropy,  in  derivation,  come  nearer  to 
the  idea ;  but  yet  you  feel  at  once  that  these  words  fall 
short ;  they  are  too  tame  and  cold ;  too  merely  passive,  as 
states  of  feeling  rather  than  forms  of  life. 

We  have'  no  sufficient  word.  There  is  therefore  no  help 
for  it,  but  patiently  to  strive  to  master  the  meaning  of  this 
mighty  word  love,  in  the  only  light  that  is  left  us — the  light 
of  the  Saviour's  life :  "As  I  have  loved  you :"  that  alone  ex- 
pounds it.  We  will  dispossess  our  minds  of  all  preconceived 
notions  ;  remove  all  low  associations,  all  partial  and  conven- 
tional ones.  If  we  would  understand  this  law,  it  must  be 
ever  a  "new"  commandment,  ever  receiving  fresh  light  and 
meaning  from  His  life. 

Take,  I.  The  novelty  of  the  law — "  That  ye  love  one  an- 
other."* 

IL  The  spirit  or  measure  of  it — "As  I  have  loved  you." 

I.  Its  novelty.  A  "new  commandment,"  yet  that  law 
was  old.  See  1  John  ii.  7,  8.  It  was  new  as  an  historical  fact. 
We  talk  of  the  apostolic  mission  as  a  matter  of  course ;  we 
say  that  the  apostles  were  ordered  to  go  and  plant  churches, 
and  so  we  dismiss  the  great  fact.  But  we  forget  that  the 
command  was  rather  the  result  of  a  spirit  working  from  with- 
in, than  of  an  injunction  working  from  without.  That  spirit 
was  love. 

And  when  that  new  spirit  was  in  the  world,  see  how 
straightway  it  created  a  new  thing.  Men  before  that  had 
travelled  into  foreign  countries :  the  naturalist  to  collect 
specimens;  the  historian  to  accumulate  facts;  the  philoso- 
pher to  hive  up  wisdom,  or  else  he  had  staid  in  his  cell  or 
grove  to  paint  beautiful  pictures  of  love.  But  the  spectacle 
of  an  Apostle  Paul  crossing  oceans — not  to  conquer  kingdoms 
— not  to  hive  up  knowledge,  but  to  impart  life — not  to  accu- 
mulate stores  for  self,  but  to  give,  and  to  spend  himself—- 
was new  in  the  history  of  the  world.  The  celestial  fire  had 


Love  to  one  Another.  1 79 

the  hearts  of  men,  and  their  hearts  flamed  ;  and  it 
caught,  and  spread,  and  would  not  stop.  On  they  went,  that 
glorious  band  of  brothers,  in  their  strange  enterprise,  over 
oceans,  and  through  forests,  penetrating  into  the  dungeon, 
and  to  the  throne — to  the  hut  of  the  savage  feeding  on  hu- 
man flesh,  and  to  the  shore  lined  with  the  skin-clad  inhabit- 
ants of  these  far  isles  of  Britain.  Read  the  account  given 
by  Tertullian  of  the  marvellous  rapidity  with  which  the 
Christians  increased,  and  you  are  reminded  of  one  of  those 
vast  armies  of  ants  which  moves  across  a  country  in  irresisti- 
ble myriads,  drowned  by  thousands  in  rivers,  cut  off  by  fire, 
consumed  by  man  and  beast,  and  yev  fresh  hordes  succeeding 
interminably  to  supply  their  place. 

A  new  voice  was  heard  :  a  new  yearning  upon  earth ;  mau 
pining  at  being  severed  from  his  brother,  and  longing  to 
burst  the  false  distinctions  which  had  kept  the  best  hearts 
from  each  other  so  long — an  infant  cry  of  life — the  cry  of  the 
young  Church  of  God.  And  all  this  from  Judea — the  nar- 
rowest, most  bigoted,  most  intolerant  nation  on  the  face  of 
the  earth. 

Now  I  say  that  this  was  historically  a  newr  thing. 

2.  It  was  new  in  extent.  It  was,  in  literal  words,  an  old 
commandment  given  before  both  to  Jew  and  Gentile.  To 
the  Jew,  as,  for  instance,  "Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as 
thyself:  I  am  the  Lord."  To  the  Gentile,  in  the  recognition 
which  was  so  often  made  of  the  beauty  of  the  law  in  its  par- 
tial application,  as  in  the  case  of  friendship,  patriotism,  domes- 
tic attachment,  and  so  on. 

But  the  difference  lay  in  the  extent  in  which  these  words 
"one  another"  were  understood.  By  them,  or  rather  by 
"  neighbor,"  the  Jew  meant  his  countrymen  ;  and  narrowed 
that  down  again  to  his  friends  among  his  countrymen — so 
that  the  well-known  Rabbinical  gloss  upon  these  words,  cur- 
rent in  the  days  of  Christ,  was,  "  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neigh- 
bor and  hate  thine  enemy."  And  what  the  Gentile  under- 
stood by  the  extent  of  the  law  of  love,  we  may  learn  from 
the  well-known  words  of  their  best  and  wisest,  who  thanked 
heaven  that  he  was  born  a  man,  and  not  a  brute — a  Greek, 
and  not  a  barbarian :  as  if  to  be  a  barbarian  were  identical 
with  being  a  brute. 

Now  listen  to  Christ's  exposition  of  the  word  neighbor. 
"  Ye  have  heard  that  it  was  said,  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neigh- 
bor and  hate  thine  enemy.  But  I  say  unto  you,  Love  your 
enemies."  And  he  went  farther :  as  a  specimen  of  a  neigh- 
bor, he  specially  selected  one  of  that  nation  whom,  as  a  theo- 
logian and  a  patriot,  every  Jew  had.  been  taught  to  hata 


1 80  The  New  Commandment  of 

And  just  as  the  application  of  electricity  to  the  innumerable 
wants  of  human  life  and  to  new  ends  is  reckoned  a  new  dis- 
covery and  invention  of  modern  times  (though  the  fact  has 
been  familiar  for  ages  to  the  Indian  child  in  the  forest  of 
the  Far  West,  and  applied  by  him  for  ages  to  his  childish 
sports),  so  the  extension  of  this  grand  principle  of  Love  to 
all  the  possible  cases  of  life,  and  to  all  possible  persons  — 
even  though  the  principle  was  known  and  applied  long  be 
fore,  in  love  to  friends,  country,  and  relations — is  truly  and 
properly  "  a  new  commandment,"  a  discovery,  a  gospel,  a 
revelation. 

3.  It  was  new  in  being  made  the  central  principle  of  a 
system.  Never  had  obedience  before  been  trusted  to  a  prin- 
ciple :  it  had  always  been  hedged  round  by  a  law.  The 
religion  of  Christ  is  not  a  law7,  but  a  spirit ;  not  a  creed,  but 
a  life.  To  the  one  motive  of  love,  God  has  intrusted  the 
whole  work  of  winning  the  souls  of  His  redeemed.  The  heart 
of  man  was  made  for  love — pants  and  pines  for  it :  only  in  the 
love  of  Christ,  and  not  in  restrictions,  can  his  soul  expand. 
Now  it  was  reserved  for  One  to  pierce,  wTith  the  glance  of  in- 
tuition, down  into  the  springs  of  human  action,  and  to  pro* 
claim  the  simplicity  of  its  machinery.  "  Love,"  said  the 
apostle  after  Him,  "Love  is  the  fulfilling  of  the  law." 

We  are  told  that  in  the  new  commandment  the  old  per- 
ishes :  that  under  the  law  of  love,  man  is  free  from  the  law 
of  works.  ^Let  us  see  how. 

Take  any  commandment — for  example,  the  sixth,  the  sev- 
enth, the  eighth.  I  may  abstain  from  murder  and  theft,  de- 
terred by  law ;  because  law  has  annexed  to  them  certain 
penalties.  But  I  may  also  rise  into  the  spirit  of  charity  • 
then  I  am  free  from  the  law ;  the  law  was  not  made  for  a 
righteous  man :  the  law  no  more  binds  or  restrains  me,  now 
that  I  love  my  neighbor,  than  the  dike  built  to  keep  in  the 
sea  at  high  tide  restrains  it  when  that  sea  has  sunk  to  low- 
water  mark. 

Or  the  seventh.  You  may  keep  that  law  from  dread  of 
discovery,  or  you  may  learn  a  higher  love :  and  then  you  can 
not  injure  a  human  soul ;  you  can  not  degrade  a  human 
spirit.  Charity  has  made  the  old  commandment  superfluous. 
In  the  strong  language  of  St.  John,  you  can  not  sin,  because 
you  are  born  of  God. 

It  was  the  proclamation  of  this,  the  great  living  principle 
of  human  obedience,  not  with  the  pedantry  of  a  philosopher, 
nor  the  exaggeration  of  an  orator,  but  in  the  simple  reality 
of  life,  which  made  this  commandment  of  Christ  a  new  com- 
mand men  t. 


Love  to  one  Another.  1 8 1 

II.  The  spirit  or  measure  of  the  law  —  "as  I  have  loved 
you." 

Broadly,  the  lova  of  Christ  was -the  spirit  of  giving  all  He 
had  to  give.  "  Greater  love  hath  no  man  than  this,  that  a 
man  lay  down  his  life  for  his  friend."  Christ's  love  was  not 
a  sentiment ;  it  was  a  self-giving.  To  that  His  adversaries 
bore  testimony:  "He  saved  others;  himself  He  can  not 
save."  Often  as  \Ve  have  read  these  words,  did  it  ever  strike 
us,  and  if  not,  does  it  not  bring  a  flash  of  surprise  when  we 
perceive  it,  that  these  words,  meant  as  taunt,  were  really  the 
noblest  panegyric,  a  testimony  higher  and  more  adequate  far 
than  even  that  of  the  centurion  ?  "  He  saved  others ;  him- 
self He  can  not  save."  The  first  clause  contained  the  answer 
to  the  second — "  Himself  He  can  not  save  !"  How  could  He, 
having  saved  others  ?  How  can  any  keep  what  he  gives  ? 
How  can  any  live  for  self,  when  He  is  living  for  others  ? 
Unconsciously,  those  enemies  were  enunciating  the  very 
principle  of  Christianity,  the  grand  law  of  all  existence,  that 
only  by  losing ,self  you  can  save  others;  that  only  by  giving 
life  you  can  bless.  Love  gives  itself!  The  mother  spends 
herself  in  giving  life  to  her  child  ;  the  soldier  dies  for  his 
country;  nay,  even  the  artist  produces  nothing  destined  for 
immortality,  nothing  that  will  live,  except  so  far  as  he  has 
forgotten  himself,  and  merged  his  very  being  in  his  work. 

"  He  saved,  others ;  himself  He  can  not  save."  That  was 
the  love  of  Christ.  Now  to  descend  to  particulars. 

That  spirit  of  self-giving  manifests  itself  in  the  shape  of 
considerate  kindliness.  Take  three  cases:  First,  that  in 
which  he  fed  the  people  with  bread.  "  I  have  compassion 
on  the  multitude,  because  they  continue  with  me  now  three 
days,  and  have  nothing  to  eat."  There  was  a  tenderness 
which,  not  absorbed  in  his  own  great  designs,  considered  a 
number  of  small  particulars  of  their  state,  imagined,  provided, 
and  this  for  the  satisfaction  of  the  lowest  wants.  Again,  to 
the  disciples  :  "  Come  ye  yourselves  apart  into  a  desert  place, 
and  rest  awhile."  He  would  not  overwork  them  in  the  sub- 
limest  service.  He  did  not  grudge  from  duty  their  interval 
of  relaxation  ;  He  even  tenderly  enforced  it.  Lastly,  His 
dying  words  :  "  Behold  thy  mother !  Woman,  behold  thy 
son  !"  Short  sentences.  He  was  too  exhausted  to  say 
more.  But  in  that  hour  of  death-torture,  He  could  think  of 
her  desolate  state  when  he  was  gone,  and  with  delicate, 
thoughtful  attention  provide  for  her  well-being. 

There  are  people  who  would  do  great  acts  ;  but  because 
they  wait  for  great  opportunities,  life  passes,  and  the  acts  of 
love  are  not  done  at  all.  Observe,  this  considerateness  of 


1 8  2  The  New  Commandment  of 

Christ  was  shown  in  little  things.  And  such  are  the  parts 
of  human  life.  Opportunities  for  doing  greatly  seldom  occur ; 
life  is  made  up  of  infinitesimals.  If  you  compute  the  sum  of 
happiness  in  any  given  day,  you  will  find  that  it  was  com- 
posed of  small  attentions,  kind  looks,  which  made  the  heart 
swell,  and  stirred  into  health  that  sour,  rancid  film  of  misan- 
thropy wrhich  is  apt  to  coagulate  on  the  stream  of  our  inward 
life,  as  surely  as  we  live  in  heart  apart  from  our  fellow-crea- 
tures. 

Doubtless  the  memory  of  each  one  of  us  will  furnish  him 
with  the  picture  of  some  member  of  a  family  whose  very 
presence  seemed  to  shed  happiness:  a  daughter,  perhaps, 
whose  light  step,  even  in  the  distance,  irradiated  every  one's 
countenance.  What  was  the  secret  of  such  a  one's  power  ? 
what  had  she  done?  Absolutely  nothing;  but  radiant 
smiles,  beaming  good-humor,  the  tact  of  divining  what  every 
one  felt  and  every  one  wanted,  told  that  she  had  got  out  of 
self  and  learned  to  think  for  others ;  so  that  at  one  time  it 
showed  itself  in  deprecating  the  quarrel  which  lowering 
brows  and  raised  tones  already  showed  to  be  impending,  by 
sweet  words;  at  another,  by  smoothing  an  invalid's  pillow; 
at  another,  by  soothing  a  sobbing  child ;  at  another,  by  hu- 
moring and  softening  a  father  who  had  returned  weary  and 
ill-tempered  from  the  irritating  cares  of  business.  None  but 
she  saw  those  things.  None  but  a  loving  heart  could  see 
them.  That  was  the  secret  of  her  heavenly  power. 

Call  you  those  things  homely  trifles,  too  homely  for  a  ser- 
mon ?  By  reference  to  the  character  of  Christ,  they  rise  into 
something  quite  sublime.  For  that  is  loving  as  He  loved. 
And  remark,  too,  these  trifles  prepared  for  larger  deeds.  The 
one  who  will  be  found  in  trial  capable  of  great  acts  of  love, 
is  ever  the  one  who  is  always  doing  considerate  small  ones. 
The  soul  which  poured  itself  out  to'death  upon  the  cross  for 
the  human  race,  was  the  Spirit  of  Him  who  thought  of  the 
wants  of  the  people,  contrived  for  the  rest  of  the  disciples, 
and  was  thoughtful  for  a  mother. 

Once  again — it  was  a  love  never  foiled  by  the  unworthiness 
of  those  on  whom  it  had  been  once  bestowed.  It  was  a  love 
wrhich  faults,  desertion,  denial,  unfaithfulness  could  not  chill, 
even  though  they  wrung  His  heart.  He  had  chosen  and  He 
trusted.  Even  in  ordinary  manhood,  that  is  a  finely-temper- 
ed heart,  one  of  no  ordinary  mould,  which  can  say,  "It  ever 
was  my  way,  and  shall  be  still,  when  I  do  trust  a  man,  to 
trust  him  wholly." 

And  yet  there  was  every  thing  to  shake  His  trust  in  hu- 
manity. The  Pharisees  called  him  Good  Master,  and  were 


Love  to  one  Another.  183 

circumventing  Him  all  the  while.  The  people  shouted  ho- 
sannas,  and  three  days  afterwards  were  shrieking  for  His 
blood.  One  disciple  who  had  dipped  in  the  same  dish,  and 
been  trusted  with  His  inmost  counsels,  deceived  and  betrayed 
Him;  another  wa.s  ashamed  of  Him;  three  fell  asleep  while 
He  was  preparing  for  death  ;  all  forsook  Him.  Yet  nothing 
is  more  surprising  than  that  unshaken,  I  had  well-nigh  said 
obstinate,  trust  with  which  He  clung  to  His  hopes  of  our 
nature,  and  believed  in  the  face  of  demonstration. 

As  we  mix  in  life,  there  comes,  especially  to  sensitive  na- 
tures, a  temptation  to  distrust.  In  young  life  we  throw  our- 
selves with  unbounded  and  glorious  confidence  on  such  as 
we  think  well  of — an  error  soon  corrected :  for  we  soon  find 
out — too  soon — that  men  and  women  are  not  what  they 
seem.  Then  comes  disappointment ;  and  the  danger  is  a  re- 
action of  desolating  and  universal  mistrust.  For  if  we  look 
on  the  doings  of  man  with  a  merely  worldly  eye,  and  pierce 
below  the  surface  of  character,  we  are  apt  to  feel  bitter  scorn 
and  disgust  for  our  fellow-creatures.  We  have  lived  to  see 
human  hollowness ;  the  ashes  of  the  Dead  Sea  shore ;  the 
falseness  of  what  seemed  so  fair;  the  mouldering  beneath 
the  whited  sepulchre  :  and  no  wonder  if  we  are  tempted  to 
think  "  friendship  all  a  cheat — smiles  hypocrisy — words  de- 
ceit ;"  and  they  who  are  what  is  called  knowing  in  life  con- 
tract by  degrees,  as  the  result  of  their  experience,  a  hollow 
distrust  of  men,  and  learn  to  sneer  at  apparently  good  mo- 
tives— that  demoniacal  sneer  which  we  have  seen,  ay,  per- 
haps felt,  curling  the  lip  at  times,  "  Doth  Job  serve  God  for 
naught  ?" 

The  only  preservation  from  this  withering  of  the  heart  is 
love.  Love  is  its  own  perennial  fount  of  strength.  The 
strength  of  affection  is  a  proof  not  of  the  worthiness  of  the 
object,  but  of  the  largeness  of  the  soul  which  loves.  Love 
descends,  not  ascends.  The  might  of  a  river  depends  not  on 
the  quality  of  the  soil  through  which  it  passes,  but  on  the  in- 
exhaustibleness  and  depth  of  the  spring  from  which  it  pro- 
ceeds. The  greater  mind  cleaves  to  the  smaller  with  more 
force  than  the  other  to  it.  A  parent  loves  the  child  more 
than  the  child  the  parent ;  and  partly  because  the  parent's 
heart  is  larger,  not  because  the  child  is  worthier.  The  Sav- 
iour loved  His  disciples  infinitely  more  than  His  disciples 
loved  Him,  because  His  heart  was  infinitely  larger.  Love 
trusts  on — ever  hopes  and  expects  better  things ;  and  this,  a 
trust  springing  from  itself  and  out  of  its  own  deeps  alone. 

And  more  than  this.  It  is  this  trusting  love  that  makes 
men  what  they  are  trusted  to  be — so  realizing  itself.  Would 


1 84  The  New  Commandment,  Etc. 

you  make  men  trustworthy?  Trust  them.  Would  you 
make  them  true  ?  Believe  them.  This  was  the  real  force 
of  that  sublime  battle-cry  which  no  Englishman  hears  with- 
out emotion.  When  the  crews  of  the  fleet  of  Britain  knew 
that  they  were  expected  to  do  their  duty,  they  did  their  duty. 
They  felt,  in  that  spirit-stirring  sentence*  that  they  were 
trusted;  and  the  simultaneous  cheer  that  rose  from  every 
ship  was  a  forerunner  of  victory — the  battle  was  half-won  al- 
ready. ,  They  went  to  serve  a  country  which  expected  from 
them  great  things,  and  they  did  great  things.  Those  preg- 
nant words  raised  an  enthusiasm  for  the  chieftain  who  had 
thrown  himself  upon  his  men  in  trust,  which  a  double  line  of 
hostile  ships  could  not  appall,  nor  decks  drenched  in  blood 
extinguish. 

And  it  is  on  this  principle  that  Christ  wins  the  hearts  of 
His  redeemed.  He  trusted  the  doubting  Thomas,  and  Thom- 
as arose  with  a  faith  worthy  "  of  his  Lord  and  his  God."  He 
would  not  suffer  even  the  lie  of  Peter  to  shake  His  convic- 
tion that  Peter  might  love  him  yet,  and  Peter  answered  no- 
bly to  that  sublime  forgiveness.  His  last  prayer  was  in  ex- 
tenuation and  hope  for  the  race  who  had  rejected  Him,  and 
the  kingdoms  of  the  world  are  become  His  own.  He  has 
loved  us,  God  knows  why — I  do  not — and  we,  all  unworthy 
though  we  be,  respond  faintly  to  that  love,  and  try  to  be 
what  He  would  have  us. 

Therefore  come  what  may,  hold  fast  to  love.  Though  men 
should  rend  your  heart,  let  them  not  embitter  or  harden  it. 
We  win  by  tenderness,  we  conquer  by  forgiveness.  Oh, 
strive  to  enter  into  something  of  that  large  celestial  charity 
which  is  meek,  enduring,  unretaliating,  and  which  even  the 
overbearing  world  can  not  withstand  forever.  Learn  the 
new  commandment  of  the  Son  of  God.  Not  to  love  merely, 
but  to  love  as  He  loved.  Go  forth" in  this  spirit  to  your  life- 
duties:  go  forth,  children  of  the  Cross,  to  carry  every  thing 
before  you,  and  win  victories  for  God  by  the  conquering 
power  of  a  love  like  His. 


The  Message  of  the  Church  to  Men  of  Wealth.   1 85 


XVII. 

THE  MESSAGE  OF  THE  CHURCH  TO  MEN  OF 
WEALTH. 

"And  Nabal  answered  David's  servants,  and  said,  Who  is  David?  and 
who  is  the  son  of  Jesse?  There  be  many  servants  nowadays  that  break 
away  every  man  from  his  master.  Shall'l  then  take  my  bread,  and  my 
water,  and  my  flesh  that  I  have  killed  for  my  shearers,  and  give  it  unto  men, 
whom  I  know  not  whence  they  be?" — 1  Sam.  xxv.  10,  11. 

I  HAVE  selected  this  passage  for  our  subject  this  evening, 
because  it  is  one  of  the  earliest  cases  recorded  in  the  Bible 
in  which  the  interests  of  the  employer  and  the  employed, 
the  man  of  wealth  and  the  man  of  work,  stood,  or  seemed  to 
stand,  in  antagonism  to  each  other. 

It  was  a  period  in  which  an  old  system  of  things  was 
breaking  up,  and  the  new  one  was  not  yet  established.  The 
patriarchal  relationship  of  tutelage  and  dependence  was 
gone,  and  monarchy  was  not  yet  in  firm  existence.  Saul 
was  on  the  throne  but  his  rule  was  irregular  and  disputed. 
Many  things  were  slowly  growing  up  into  custom  which  had 
not  yet  the  force  of  law ;  and  the  first  steps  by  which  cus- 
tom passes  into  law  from  precedent  to  precedent  are  often 
steps  at  every  one  of  which  struggle  and  resistance  must 
take  place. 

The  history  of  the  chapter  is  briefly  this :  Nabal,  the 
wealthy  sheep-master,  fed  his  flocks  in  the  pastures  of  Car- 
rael.  David  was  leader  of  a  band  of  men  who  got  their  liv- 
ing by  the  sword  on  the  same  hills  :  outlaws,  whose  excesses 
he  in  some  degree  restrained,  and  over  whom  he  retained  a 
leader's  influence.  A  rude  irregular  honor  was  not  unknown 
among  those  fierce  men.  They  honorably  abstained  from 
injuring  Nabal's  flocks.  They  did  more:  they  .protected 
jhem  from  all  harm  against  the  marauders  of  the  neighbor- 
hood. By  the  confession  of  Nabal's  own  herdsmen,  "they 
were  a  wall  unto  them  both  by  night  and  day,  all  the  time 
they  were  with  them  keeping  their  flocks." 

And  thus  a  kind  of  right  grew  up :  irregular  enough,  but 
sufficient  to  establish  a  claim  on  Nabal  for  remuneration  of 
these  services  ;  a  new  claim,  not  admitted  by  him :  reckoned 
by  him  an  exaction,  which  could  be  enforced  by  no  lawj 


1 86  The  Message  of  the  Church 

only  by  that  law  which  is  above  all  statute-law,  deciding  ac- 
cording to  emergencies — an  indefinable  instinctive  sense  of 
fairness  and  justice.  But  as  there  was  no  law,  and  each  man 
was  to  himself  a  law,  and  the  sole  arbiter  of  his  own  rights, 
what  help  was  there  but  that  disputes  should  rise  between 
the  wealthy  proprietors  and  their  selfconstituted  champions, 
with  exaction  and  tyranny  on  the  one  side,  churlishness  and 
parsimony  on  the  other  ?  Hence  a  fruitful  and  ever-fresh 
source  of  struggle  :  the  one  class  struggling  to  take  as  much, 
and  the  other  to  give  as  little  as  possible.  In  modern  lan- 
guage, the  Rights  of  Labor  were  in  conflict  with  the  Rights 
of  Property. 

The  story  proceeds  thus :  David  presented  a  demand,  mod- 
erate and  courteous  enough  (vs.  6,  7,  8).  It  was  refused  by 
Nabal,  and  added  to  the  refusal  were  those  insulting  taunts 
of  low  birth  and  outcast  condition  which  are  worse  than 
injury,  and  sting,  making  men's  blood  run  fire.  One  court 
of  appeal  was  left.  There  remained  nothing  but  the  trial  by 
force.  "  Gird  ye  on,"  said  David,  "  every  man  his  sword." 

Now  observe  the  fearful,  hopeless  character  of  this  strug- 
gle. The  question  had  come  to  this :  whether  David,  with 
his  ferocious  and  needy  six  hundred  mountaineers,  united  by 
the  sense  of  wrong,  or  Nabal,  with  his  well-fed  and  trained 
hirelings,  bound  by  interest  and  not  by  love  to  his  cause, 
were  stronger?  Which  was  the  more  powerful — want  whet- 
ted by  insult,  or  selfishness  pampered  by  abundance ;  they 
who  wished  to  keep  by  force,  or  they  who  wished  to  take  ? 
An  awful  and  uncertain  spectacle,  but  the  spectacle  which  is 
exhibited  in  every  country  where  rights  are  keenly  felt,  and 
duties  lightly  regarded — where  insolent  demand  is  met  by  in- 
sulting defiance.  Wherever  classes  are  held  apart  by  rivalry 
and  selfishness,  instead  of  drawn  together  by  the  law  of  love 
— wherever  there  has  not  been  established  a  kingdom  of 
heaven,  but  only  a  kingdom  of  the  world — there  exist  the 
forces  of  inevitable  collision. 

I.  The  causes  of  this  false  social  state. 
II.  The  message  of  the  Church  to  the  man  of  wealth. 

I.  False  basis  on  which  social  superiority  was  held  to  rest. 
Throughout  Nabal's  conduct  was  built  upon  the  assump- 
tion of  his  own  superiority.  He  was  a  man  of  wealth.  Da- 
vid was  dependent  on  his  own  daily  efforts.  Was  not  that 
enough  to  settle  the  question  of  superiority  and  inferiority  ? 
It  was  enough  on  both  sides  for  a  long  time,  till  the  falsehood 
of  the  assumption  became  palpable  and  intolerable.  But  pal- 
pable and  intolerable  it  did  become  at  last. 


To  Men  of  Wealth.  187 

A  social  falsehood  will  be  borne  long,  even  with  consider- 
able inconvenience,  until  it  forces  itself  obtrusively  on  men's 
attention,  and  can  be  endured  no  longer.  The  exact  point 
at  which  this  social  falsehood,  that  wealth  constitutes  supe- 
riority, and  has  a  right  to  the  subordination  of  inferiors,  be- 
comes intolerable,  varies  according  to  several  circumstances. 

The  evils  of  poverty  are  comparative — they  depend  on  cli- 
mate. In  warm  climates,  where  little  food,  no  fuel,  and  scan- 
ty shelter  are  required,  the  sting  is  scarcely  felt  till  poverty 
becomes  starvation.  They  depend  on  contrast.  Far  above 
the  point  where  poverty  becomes  actual  famine,  it  may  be- 
come unbearable  if  contrasted  strongly  with  the  unnecessary 
luxury  and  abundance  enjoyed  by  the  classes  above.  Where 
all  sutler  equally,  as  men  and  officers  suffer  in  an  Arctic  voy- 
age, men  bear  hardship  with  cheerfulness:  but  where  the  suf- 
fering weighs  heavily  on  some,  and  the  luxury  of  enjoyment 
is  out  of  all  proportion  monopolized  by  a  few,  the  point  of 
reaction  is  reached  long  before  penury  has  become  actual 
want :  or  again,  when  wealth  or  rank  -assumes  an  insulting, 
domineering  character — when  contemptuous  names  for  the 
poor  are  invented,  and  become  current  among  the  more  un- 
feeling of  a  wealthy  class — then  the  falsehood  of  superiority 
can  be  tolerated  no  longer :  for  we  do  not  envy  honors  which 
are  meekly  borne,  nor  wealth  which  is  unostentatious. 

Now  it  was  this  which  brought  matters  to  a  crisis.  David 
had  borne  poverty  long — nay,  he  and  his  men  had  long  en- 
dured the  contrast  between  their  own  cavern-homes  and  beds 
upon  the  rock,  and  Nabal's  comforts.  But  when  Nabal  add- 
ed to  this  those  pungent  biting  sneers  which  sink  into  poor 
men's  hearts  and  rankle — which  are  not  forgotten,  but  come 
out  fresh  in  the  day  of  retribution — "  Who  is  David  ?  and 
who  is  the  son  of  Jesse?  There  be  many  servants  nowadays 
that  break  away  every  man  from  his  master,"  then  David 
began  to  measure  himself  with  Nabal;  not  a  wiser  man-— nor 
a  better — nor  even  a  stronger.  Who  is  this  Nabal  ?  Intel- 
lectually, a  fool ;  morally,  a  profligate,  drowning  reason  in 
excess  of  wine  at  the  annual  sheep-shearing;  a  tyrant  over 
his  slaves — overbearing  to  men  who  only  ask  of  him  their 
rights.  Then  rose  the  question  which  Nabal  had  better  not 
have  forced  men  to  answer  for  themselves.  By  what  right 
does  this  possessor  of  wealth  lord  it  over  men  who  are  infe- 
rior in  no  one  particular? 

Now  observe  two  things. 

1.  An  apparent  inconsistency  in  David's  conduct.  David 
had  received  injury  after  injury  from  Saul,  and  had  only  for- 
given. One  injury  from  Nabal,  and  David  is  striding  over 


1 88  The  Message  of  the  Church 

the  hills  to  revenge  his  wrong  with  naked  steel.  How  came 
this  reverence  and  irreverence  to  mix  together? 

We  reply.  Saul  had  a  claim  of  authority  on  David's  al- 
legiance ;  Nabal  only  one  of  rank.  Between  these  the  Bible 
makes  a  vast  difference.  It  says,  The  powers  which  be  are 
ordained  of  God.  But  upper  and  lower,  as  belonging  to  dif- 
ference in  property,  are  fictitious  terms:  true,  if  character 
corresponds  with  titular  superiority;  false,  if  it  does  not. 
And  such  was  the  difference  manifested  in  the  life  of  the  Son 
of  God.  To  lawful  authority,  whether  Roman,  Jewish,  or 
even  priestly,  He  paid  deference ;  but  to  the  titled  mark  of 
conventional  distinction,  none.  Rabbi,  Rabbi,  was  no  Divine 
authority.  It  was  not  power,  a  delegated  attribute  of  God — 
it  was  only  a  name.  In  Saul,  therefore,  David  reverenced 
one  his  superior  in  authority ;  but  in  Nabal  he  only  had  be- 
fore him  one  surpassing  him'in  wealth.  And  David  refused, 
somewhat  too  rudely,  to  acknowledge  the  bad,  great  man  as 
his  superior:  would  pay  him  no  reverence,  respect,  or  alle- 
giance whatever.  Let  us  mark  that  distinction  well,  so  often 
confused — kings,  masters,  parents :  here  is  a  power  ordained 
of  God.  Honor  it.  But  wealth,  name,  title,  distinctions, 
always  fictitious,  often  false  and  vicious,  if  you  can  claim 
homage  for  these  separate  from  worth,  you  confound  two 
things  essentially  different.  Try  that  by  the  test  of  His  life. 
Name  the  text  where  Christ  claimed  reverence  for  wealth 
or  rank.  On  the  Mount  did  the  Son  of  Man  bow  the  knee 
to  the  majesty  of  wealth  and  wrong,  or  was  His  Sonship 
shown  in  this,  that  He  would  not  bow  down  to  that  as  if  of 
God? 

2.  This  great  falsehood  respecting  superior  and  inferior 
rested  on  a  truth.  There  had  been  a  superiority  in  the 
wealthy  class  once.  In  the  patriarchal  system  wealth  and 
rule  had  gone  together.  The  father  of  the  family  and  tribe 
was  the  one  in  whom  proprietorship  was  centred;  but  the 
patriarchal  system  had  passed  away.  Men  like  Nabal  suc- 
ceeded to  the  patriarch's  wealth,  and  expected  the  subordi- 
nation which  had  been  yielded  to  patriarchal  character  and 
.position ;  and  this  when  every  particular  of  relationship  was 
altered.  Once  the  patriarch  was  the  protector  of  his  depend- 
ents. Now  David's  class  was  independent,  and  the  protect- 
ors, rather  than  the  protected :  at  all  events,  able  to  defend 
themselves.  Once  the  rich  man  was  ruler  in  virtue  of  pa- 
ternal relationship.  Now  wealth  was  severed  from  rule  and 
relationship :  a  man  might  be  rich,  yet  neither  a  ruler,  nor  a 
protector,  nor  a  kinsman.  And  the  fallacy  of  Nabal's  expec- 
tation consisted  in  this,  that  he  demanded  for  wealth  that 


To  Men  of  Wealth.  1 89 

reverence  which  had  once  been  due  to  men  who  happened  to 
be  wealthy. 

It  is  a  fallacy  in  which  we  are  perpetually  entangled. 
We  expect  reverence  for  that  which  was  once  a  symbol  of 
what  was  reverenced,  but  is  reverenced  no  longer.  Here  in 
England  it  is  common  to  complain  that  there  is  no  longer  any 
respect  of  inferiors  towards  superiors — that  servants  were 
once  devoted  and  grateful,  tenants  submissive,  subjects  en- 
thusiastically loyal.  But  we  forget  that  servants  were  once 
protected  by  their  masters,  and  tenants  safe  from  wrong 
only  through  the  guardianship  of  their  powerful  lords ;  that 
thence  a  personal  gratitude  grew  up  ;  that  now  they  are  pro- 
tected by  the  law  from  wrong  by  a  different  social  system 
altogether ;  and  that  the  individual  bond  of  gratitude  sub- 
sists no  longer.  We  expect  that  to  masters  and  employers 
the  same  reverence  and  devotedness  shall  be  rendered  which 
were  due  to  them  under  other  circumstances,  and  for  differ- 
ent reasons  ;  as  if  wealth  and  rank  had  ever  been  the  claim  to 
reverence,  and  not  merely  the  accidents  and  accompaniments 
of  the  claim — as  if  any  thing  less  sacred  than  holy  ties  could 
purchase  sacred  feelings — as  if  the  homage  of  free  manhood 
could  be  due  to  gold  and  name — as  if  to  the  mere  Nabal-fool 
who  is  labelled  as  worth  so  much,  and  whose  signature  car- 
ries with  it  so  much  coin,  the  holiest  and  most  ennobling 
sensations  of  the  soul,  reverence  and  loyalty,  were  due  by 
God's  appointment. 

No.  That  patriarchal  system  has  passed  forever.  No 
sentimental  waitings  for  the  past,  no  fond  regrets  for  the 
virtues  of  a  by-gone  age,  no  melancholy,  poetical,  retrospect- 
ive antiquarian  ism  can  restore  it.  In  Church  and  State  the 
past  is  past :  and  you  can  no  more  bring^  back  the  blind 
reverence,  than  the  rude  virtues  of  those  days.  The  day  has 
come  in  which,  if  feudal  loyalty  or  patriarchal  reverence  are 
to  be  commanded,  they  must  be  won  by  patriarchal  virtues 
or  feudal  real  superiorities. 

II.  Cause  of  this  unhealthy  social  state :  A  false  concep- 
tion respecting  rights. 

It  would  be  unjust  to  Nabal  to  represent  this  as  an  act  of 
willful  oppression  and  conscious  injustice.  He  did  what  ap- 
peared to  him  fair  between  man  and  man.  He  paid  his 
laborers.  Why  should  he  pay  any  thing  beyond  stipulated 
wages  ? 

David^s  demand  appeared  an  extravagant  and  insolent 
one,  provoking  unfeigned  astonishment  and  indignation.  It 
was  an  invasion  of  his  rights.  It  was  a  dictation  with  re- 


1 90  The  Message  of  the  Church 

spect  to  the  employment  of  that  which  was  his  own.  "Shall 
I  then  take  my  bread,  and  my  water,  and  my  flesh  that  I 
have  killed  for  my  shearers,  and  give  it  unto  men  whom  I 
know  not  whence  they  be  ?" 

Recollect,  too,  there  was  something  to  be  said  for  Nabal. 
This  view  of  the  irresponsible  right  of  property  was  not  his 
invention.  It  was  the  view  probably  entertained  by  all  his 
class.  It  had  descended  to  him  from  his  parents.  They 
were  prescriptive  and  admitted  rights  on  which  he  stood. 
And  however  false  or  unjust  a  prescriptive  right  may  be, 
however  baseless  when  examined,  there  is  much  excuse  for 
those  who  have  inherited  and  not  invented  it ;  for  it  is  hard 
to  see  through  the  falsehood  of  any  system  by  which  we 
profit,  and  which  is  upheld  by  general  consent,  especially 
when  good  men  too  uphold  it.  Rare  indeed  is  that  pure- 
heartedness  which  sees  with  eagle  glance  through  conven- 
tionalisms. This  is  a  wrong,  and  I  and  my  own  class  are 
the  doers  of  it. 

On  the  other  hand,  David  and  his  needy  followers  were 
not  slow  to  perceive  that  they  had  their  rights  over  that 
property  of  Nabal's, 

Men  on  whom  wrongs  press  are  the  first  to  feel  them,  and 
their  cries  of  pain  and  indignation  are  the  appointed  means 
of  God  to  direct  to  their  wrongs  the  attention  of  society. 
Very  often  the  fierce  and  maddened  shriek  of  suffering  is 
the  first  intimation  that  a  wrong  exists  at  all. 

There  was  no  law  in  Israel  to  establish  David's  claims. 
This  guardianship  of  Nabal's  flocks  was  partly  a  self-consti- 
tuted thing.  No  bargain  had  been  made,  no  sum  of  reward 
expressly  stipulated.  But  there  is  a  law  besides  and  above 
all  written  law,  which  gives  to  written  laws  their  authority, 
and  from  which  so  often  as  they  diverge,  it  is  woe  to  the 
framers  of  the  law  :  for  their  law  must  perish,  and  the 
Eternal  Law  unseen  will  get  itself  acknowledged  as  a  truth 
from  heaven  or  a  "truth  from  hell — a  truth  begirt  with  fire 
and  sword,  if  they  will  not  read  it  except  so. 

In  point  of  fact,  David  had  a  right  to  a  share  of  Nabal's 
profits.  The  harvest  was  in  part  David's  harvest,  for  with- 
fout  David  it  never  could  have  been  reaped.  The  sheep  were 
in  part  David's  sheep,  for  without  David  not  a  sheep  would 
have  been  spared  by  the  marauders  of  the  hills.  Not  a 
sheaf  of  corn  was  carried  to  Nabal's  barn,  nor  a  night  passed 
in  repose  by  Nabal's  shepherds,  but  what  told  of  the  share 
of  David  in  the  saving  of  that  sheaf,  and  the  procurement  of 
that  repose  (not  the  less  real  because  it  was  past  and  mi- 
Been).  The  right  which  the  soldier  has  by  law  to  his  pay, 


To  Men  of  Wealth.  191 

«vas  the  right  which  David  had  by  unwritten  law — a  right 
resting  on  the  fact  that  his  services  were  indispensable  for 
the  harvest. 

Here,  then,  is  one  of  the  earliest  instances  of  the  Rights 
of  Labor  coming  into  collision  with  the  Rights  of  Property  : 
rights  shadowy,  undefined,  perpetually  shifting  their  bound- 
aries, varying  with  every  case,  altering  with  every  age,  in- 
capable of  being  adjusted  except  rudely  by  law,  and  leaving 
always  something  which  the  most  subtle  and  elaborate  law 
can  not  define,  and  which  in  any  moment  may  grow  up  into 
a  wrong. 

Now  when  it  comes  to  this,  Rights  against  Rights,  there 
is  no  determination  of  the  question  but  by  overwhelming 
numbers  or  blood.  David's  remedy  was  a  short,  sharp,  de- 
cisive one.  "  Gird  ye  on  every  man  his  sword."  And  it  is 
difficult,  for  the  sake  of  humanity,  to  say  to  which  side  in 
such  a  quarrel  we  should  wish  well.  If  the  rich  man  succeed 
in  civil  war,  he  will  bind  the  chain  of  degradation  more  se- 
verely and  more  surely  for  years,  or  ages,  on  the  crushed  serf. 
If  the  champions  of  popular  rights  succeed  by  the  sword, 
you  may  then  await  in  awe  the  reign  of  tyranny,  licentious- 
ness, and  lawlessness.  For  the  victory  of  the  lawless,  with 
the  memory  of  past  wrongs  to  avenge,  is  almost  more  san- 
guinary than  the  victory  of  those  who  have  had  power  long, 
and  whose  power  had  been  defied. 

We  find  another  cause  in  circumstances.  Want  and  un- 
just exclusion  precipitated  David  and  his  men  into  this  re- 
bellion. It  is  common  enough  to  lay  too  much  weight  on 
circumstances.  Nothing  can  be  more  false  than  the  popular 
theory  that  ameliorated  outward  condition  is  the  panacea  for 
the  evils  of  society.  The  Gospel  principle  begins  from  with 
in,  and  works  outward. 

The  world's  principle  begins  with  the  outward  condition, 
and  expects  to  influence  inwardly.  To  expect  that  by  chang- 
ing the  world  without,  in  order  to  suit  the  world  within,  by 
taking  away  all  difficulties  and  removing  all  temptations,  in- 
stead of  hardening  the  man  within  against  the  force  of  out- 
ward temptation — to  adapt  the  lot  to  the  man,  instead  of 
moulding  the  spirit  to  the  lot,  is  to  reverse  the  Gospel  method 
of  procedure.  Nevertheless,  even  that  favorite  speculation 
of  theorists,  that  perfect  circumstances  will  produce  perfect 
character,  contains  a  truth.  Circumstances  of  outward  con- 
dition are  not  the  sole  efficients  in  the  production  of  charac- 
ter, but  they  are  efficients  which  must  not  be  ignored.  Fa- 
vorable condition  will  not  produce  excellence,  but  the  want 
of  it  often  hinders  excellence,  It  is  true  that  vice  leads  to 


192  The  Message  of  the  Church 

poverty :  all  the  moralizers  tell  us  that,  but  it  is  also  true 
that  poverty  leads  to  vice. 

There  are  some  in  this  world  to  whom,  speaking  humanly 
social  injustice  and  social  inequalities  have  made  goodness 
impossible.  Take,  for  instance,  the  case  of  these  bandits  or 
Mount  Carmel.  Some  of  them  were  outlawed  by  their  own 
crimes,  but  others  doubtless  by  debts  not  willfully  contracted 
— one  at  least,  David,  by  a  most  unjust  and  unrighteous  per- 
secution. And  these  men,  excluded,  needy,  exasperated  by  a 
sense  of  wrong,  untaught  outcasts,  could  you  gravely  expect 
from  them  obedience,  patience,  meekness,  religious  resigna- 
tion ?  Yes,  my  brethren,  that  is  exactly  the  marvellous  im- 
possibility people  do  most  inconsistently  expect;  and  there 
are  no  bounds  to  their  astonishment  if  they  do  not  get  what 
they  expect :  Superhuman  honesty  from  starving  men,  to 
whom  life  by  hopelessness  has  become  a  gambler's  desperate 
chance !  chivalrous  loyalty  and  high  forbearance  from  crea- 
tures to  whom  the  order  of  society  has  presented  itself  only 
as  an  unjust  system  of  partiality  !  We  forget  that  forbearance 
and  obedience  are  the  very  last  and  highest  lessons  learned  by 
the  spirit  in  its  most  careful  training.  By  those  unhallowed 
conventionalisms  through  which  we,  like  heathens,  and  not 
like  Christians,  crush  the  small  offender  and  court  the  great 
one — that  damnable  cowardice  by  which  we  banish  the  se- 
duced and  half  admire  the  seducer — by  which,  in  defiance  of 
all  manliness  and  all  generosity,  we  'punish  the  weak  and 
tempted,  and  let  the  tempter  go  free : — by  all  these  we  make 
men  and  women  outcasts,  and  then  expect  from  them  the 
sublimest  graces  of  reverence  and  resignation  ! 

II.  The  message  of  the  Church  to  the  man  of  wealth. 

The  message  of  the  Church  contains  those  principles  of 
life  which,  carried  out,  would,  and  hereafter  will,  realize  the 
Divine  Order  of  Society.  The  revealed  Message  does  not 
create  the  facts  of  our  humanity — it  simply  makes  them 
known.  The  Gospel  did  not  make  God  our  Father,  it  au- 
thoritatively reveals  that  He  is  so.  It  did  not  create  a  new 
duty  of  loving  one  another,  it  revealed  the  old  duty  which 
existed  from  eternity,  and  must  exist  as  long  as  humanity  is 
humanity.  It  was  no  "  new  commandment,"  but  an  old  com- 
mandment which  had  been  heard  from  the  beginning. 

The  Church  of  God  is  that  living  body  of  men  who  are 
called  by  Him  out  of  the  world,  not  to  be  the  inventors  of  a 
new  social  system,  but  to  exhibit  in  the  world  by  word  and 
life,  chiefly  by  life,  what  Humanity  is,  was,  and  will  be,  in 
Ihe  Idea  of  God.  Now  so  far  as  the  social  economy  is  con- 


To  Men  of  Wealth.  193 

eerned,  the  revelations  of  the  Church  will  coincide  with  the 
discoveries  of  a  Scientific  Political  Economy.  Political 
Economy  discovers  slowly  the  facts  of  the  immutable  laws 
of  social  well-being.  But  the  living  principles  of  those  laws, 
which  cause  them  to  be  obeyed,  Christianity  has  revealed  to 
living  hearts  long  before.  The  Spirit  discovers  them  to  the 
spirit.  For  instance,  Political  Economy,  gazing  on  such  a 
fact,  as  this  of  civil  war,,  would  arrive  at  the  same  principles 
which  the  Church  arrives  at.  She  too  would  say,  Not  self- 
ishness, but  love.  Only  that  she  arrives  at  these  principles 
by  experience,  not  intuition — by  terrible  lessons,  not  revela- 
tion— by  revolutions,  wars,  and  famines,  not  by  spiritual  im- 
pulses of  charity. 

And  so  because  these  principles  were  eternally  true  in  hu- 
manity, we  find  in  the  conduct  of  Abigail  towards  David  in 
this  early  age,  not  explicitly,  but  implicity,  the  very  princi- 
ples which  the  Church  of  Christ  has  given  to  the  world ;  and* 
more — the  very  principles  which  a  sound  political  economy 
would  sanction.  In  her  reply  to  David  we  have  the  antici- 
pation by  a  loving  heart  of  those  duties  which  selfish  pru- 
dence must  have  taught  at  last. 

1.  The  spiritual  dignity  of  man  as  man.  Recollect  David 
"was  the  poor  man,  but  Abigail,  the  high-born  lady,  admits 
his  worth :  "  The  Lord  will  certainly  make  my  lord  a  sure 
house ;  because  my  lord  fighteth  the  battles  of  the  Lord,  and 
evil  hath  not  been  found  in  thee  all  thy  days."  Here  is  a 
truth  revealed  to  that  age.  Nabal's  day,  and  the  day  of  such 
as  Nabal,  is  past ;  another  power  is  rising  above  the  horizon. 
David's  cause  is  God's  cause.  Worth  does  not  mean  what  a 
man  is  worth — you  must  find  some  better  definition  than 
that. 

Now  this  is  the  very  truth  revealed  in  the  Incarnation. 
David,  Israel's  model  king,  the  king  by  the  grace  of  God,  not 
by  the  conventional  rules  of  human  choice — is  a  shepherd's 
son.  Christ,  the  King  who  is  to  reign  over  our  regenerated 
humanity,  is  humbly  born — the  poor  woman's  Son.  That  is 
the  Church's  message  to  the  man  of  wealth,  and  a  message 
which  it  seems  has  to  be  learned  afresh  in  every  age.  It  was 
new  to  Nabal.  It  was  new  to  the  men  of  the  age  of  Christ. 
In  His  day  they  were  oifended  in  Him,  because  He  was  hum- 
bly  born.  "Is  not  this  the  carpenter's  son?"  It  is  the  of- 
fense now.  They  who  retain  those  superstitious  ideas  of  the 
eternal  superiority  of  rank  and  wealth  have  the  first  princi- 
ples of  the  Gospel  yet  to  team.  How  can  they  believe  in  the 
Son  of  Mary  ?  They  may  honor  Him  with  the  lip,  they  deny 
him  in  Hia  brethren.  Whoever  helps  to  keep  alive  that  an- 

9 


1 94  The  Message  of  the  Church 

cient  lie  of  upper  and  lower,  resting  the  distinction  not  on 
official  authority  or  personal  worth,  but  on  wealth  and  title, 
is  doing  his  part  to  hinder  the  establishment  of  the  Redeem- 
er's kingdom. 

Now  the  Church  of  Christ  proclaims  that  truth  in  baptism. 
She  speaks  of  a  kingdom  here  in  which  all  are,  as  spirits, 
equal.  She  reveals  a  fact.  She  does  not  affect  to  create  the 
fact.  She  says — not  hypotheticallyruThis  child  may  be  the 
child  of  God  if  prevenient  grace  has  taken  place,  or  if  here- 
after he  shall  have  certain  feelings  and  experiences ;"  nor, 
"  Hereby  I  create  this  child  magically  by  supernatural  power 
in  one  moment  what  it  was  not  a  moment  before :"  but  she 
says,  authoritatively,  "  I  pronounce  this  child  the  child  of 
God  :  the  brother  of  Christ  the  First-born — the  Son  of  Him 
who  has  taught  us  by  His  Son  to  call  Him  our  Father,  not 
my  Father.  Whatever  that  child  may  become  hereafter  in 
'fact,  he  is  now,  by  right  of  creation  and  redemption,  the  child 
*f  God.  Rich  or  poor,  titled  or  untitled,  he  shares  the  spirit- 
ual nature  of  the  second  Adam — the  Lord  from  heaven." 

2.  The  second  truth  expressed  by  Abigail  was  the  law  of 
Sacrifice.  She  did  not  heal  the  grievance  with  smooth  words. 
Starving  men  are  not  to  be  paciiied  by  professions  of  good- 
will. She  brought  her  two  hundred  loaves,  and  her  two 
skins  of  wine,  her  five  sheep  ready  dressed,  etc.  A  princely 
provision  ! 

You  might  have  said  this  was  waste  —  half  would  have 
been  enough.  But  the  truth  is,  liberality  is  a  most  real  econ- 
omy. She  could  not  stand  there  calculating  the  smallest  pos- 
sible expense  at  which  the  affront  might  be  wiped  out.  True 
economy  is  to  pay  liberally  and  fairly  for  faithful  service. 
The  largest  charity  is  the  be«t  economy.  Nabal  had  had  a 
faithful  servant.  He  should  have  counted  no  expense  too 
great  to  retain  his  services,  instead  of  cheapening  and  de- 
preciating them.  But  we  wrong  Abigail  if  we  call  this  econ- 
omy or  calculation.  In  fact,  had  it  been  done  on  economical 
principles,  it  would  have  failed.  Ten  times  this  sum  from 
Nabal  would  not  have  arrested  revenge.  For  Nabal  it  was 
too  late.  Concessions  extracted  by  fear  only  provoke  ex- 
action further.  The  poor  know  well  what  is  given  because 
it  must  be  given,  and  what  is  conceded  froih  a  sense  of  jus- 
tice. They  feel  only  what  is  real.  David's  men  and  David 
felt  that  these  were  not  the  gifts  of  a  sordid  calculation,  but 
the  offerings  of  a  generous  heart.  And  it  won  them — their 
gratitude — their  enthusiasm — their  unfeigned  homage. 

This  is  the  attractive  power  of  that  great  law,  whose  high- 
est expression  was  the  Cross.  "  I,  if  I  be  lifted  up,  will  draw 


To  Men  of  Wealth.  195 

all  men  unto  Me."  Say  what  you  will,  it  is  not  interest,  but 
the  sight  of  noble  qualities  and  true  sacrifice,  which  com- 
mands the  devotion  of  the  world.  Yea,.even  the  bandit  and 
the  outcast  will  bend  before  that  as  before  a  Divine  thing.  In 
one  form  or  another,  it  draws  all  men,  it  commands  all  men. 

Now  this  the  Church  proclaims  as  part  of  its  special  mes- 
sage to  the  rich.  It  says  that  the  Divine  Death  was  a  Sac- 
rifice. It  declares  that  death  to  be  the  law  of  every  life 
which  is  to  be  like  His.  It  says  that  the  law,  which  alone 
can  interpret  the  mystery  of  life,  is  the  self-sacrifice  of  Christ. 
It  proclaims  the  law  of  His  life  to  have  been  this :  "For  their 
sakes  I  devote  (sanctify)  Myself,  that  they  also  may  be  de- 
voted through  the  truth." 

In  other  words,  the  self-sacrifice  of  the  Redeemer -was  to 
be  the  living  principle  and  law  of  the  self-devotion  of  His 
people.  It  asserts  that  to  be  the  principle  which  alone  can 
make  any  human  life  a  true  life.  "  I  fill  up  that  which  is  be- 
hind of  the  afflictions  of  Christ  in  my  flesh,  for  His  body's 
sake,  which  is  the  Church."  We  have  petrified  that  sacrifice 
into  a  dead  theological  dogma,  about  the  exact  efficacy  of 
which  we  dispute  metaphysically,  and  charge  each  other  with 
heresy.  That  Atonement  will  become  a  living  fact  only 
when  we  humbly  recognize  in  it  the  eternal  fact  that  sacri- 
fice is  the  law  of  life.  The  very  mockers  at  the  crucifixion 
unwittingly  declared  the  principle:  "He  saved  others:  him- 
self He  can  not  save."  Of  course — how  could  He  save  him- 
self who  had  to  save  others?  You  can  only  save  others 
when  you  have  ceased  to  think  of  saving  your  own  soul ; 
you  can  only  truly  bless  when  you  have  done  with  the  pur- 
suit of  personal  happiness.  Did  you  ever  hear  of  a  soldier 
who  saved  his  country  by  making  it  his  chief  work  to  secure 
himself?  And  was  the  Captain  of  our  salvation  to  become 
the  Saviour  by  contravening  that  universal  law  of  sacrifice, 
or  by  obeying  it  ? 

Brother, men,  the  early  Church  gave  expression  to  that 
principle  of  sacrifice  in  a  very  touching  way.  They  had  all 
things  in  common.  "Neither  said  any  of  them  that  aught 
of  the  things  which  he  possessed  was  his  own."  They  failed, 
not  because  they  declared  that,  but  because  men  began  to 
think  that  the  duty  of  sharing  was  compulsory.  They  pro- 
claimed principles  which  were  unnatural,  inasmuch  as  they 
set  aside  all  personal  feelings,  which  are  part  of  our  nature 
too.  They  virtually  compelled  private  property  to  cease, 
because  he  who  retained  private  property  when  all  were 
giving  up  was  degraded,  and  hence  became  a  hypocrite  and 
liar,,  like  Ananias. 


1 96  The  Message  of  the  Church 

But  let  us  not  lose  the  truth  which  they  expressed  in  an 
exaggerated  way :  "  Neither  said  any  of  them  that  aught  of 
the  things  which  he  possessed  was  his  own."  Property  is 
sacred.  It  is  private  property ;  if  it  were  not,  it  could  not 
be  sacrificed.  If  it  were  to  be  shared  equally  by  the  idle 
and  the  industrious,  there  could  be  no  love  in  giving.  Prop- 
erty is  the  rich  man's  own.  Nabal  is  right  in  saying,  My 
bread — my  water — my  flesh.  But  there  is  a  higher  riuht 
which  says,  It  is  not  yours.  And  that  voice  speaks  to  every 
rich  man  in  one  way  or  another,  according  as  he  is  selfish  or 
unselfish :  coming  as  a  voice  of  terror  or  a  voice  of  blessing. 
It  came  to  Nabal  with  a  double  curse,  turning  his  heart  into 
stone  with  the  vision  of  the  danger  and  the  armed  ranks  of 
David's  avengers,  and  laying  on  David's  soul  the  sin  of  in- 
tended murder.  It  came  to  the  heart  of  Abigail  with  a 
double  blessing :  blessing  her  who  gave  and  him  who  took. 

To  the  spirit  of  the  Cross  alone  we  look  as  the  remedy  for 
social  evils.  When  the  people  of  this  great  country,  espe- 
cially the  rich,  shall  have  been  touched  with  the  spirit  of 
the  Cross  to  a  largeness  of  sacrifice  of  which  they  have  not 
dreamed  as  yet,  there  will  be  an  atonement  between  the 
Rights  of  Labor  and  the  Rights  of  Property. 

3.  The  last  part  of  the  Church's  message  to  the  man  of 
wealth  touches  the  matter  of  rightful  influence. 

Very  remarkable  is  the  demeanor  of  David  towards  Nabal, 
as  contrasted  with  his  demeanor  towards.  Abigail.  In  the 
one  case,  defiance,  and  a  haughty  self-assertion  of  equality ;  in 
the  other,  deference,  respect,  and  the  most  eloquent  bene- 
diction. It  was  not  therefore  against  the  wealthy  class,  but 
against  individuals  of  the  class,  that  the  wrath  of  these  men 
burned. 

See,  then,  the  folly  and  the  falsehood  of  the  sentimental 
regret  that  there  is  no  longer  any  reverence  felt  towards 
superiors.  There  is  reverence  to  superiors,  if  only  it  can  be 
shown  that  they  are  superiors.  Reverence  is  deeply  rooted 
in  the  heart  of  humanity — you  can  not  tear  it  out.  Civiliza- 
tion— science — progress — only  change  its  direction :  they  do 
not  weaken  its  force.  If  it  no  longer  bows  before  crucifixes 
and  candles,  priests  and  relics,  it  is  not  extinguished  towards 
what  is  truly  sacred  and  what  is  priestly  in  man.  The 
fiercest  revolt  against  false  authority  is  only  a  step  towards 
submission  to  rightful  authority.  Emancipation  from  false 
lords  only  sets  the  heart  free  to  honor  true  ones.  The  free- 
born  David  will  not  do  homage  to  Nabal.  Well,  now  go 
and  mourn  over  the  degenerate  age  which  no  longer  feels 
respect  -for  that  which  is  above  it.  But  behold — David  has 


To  Men  of  Wealth.  197 

found  a  something  nobler  than  himself.  Feminine  charity — 
sacrifice  and  justice  —  and  in  gratitude  and  profoundest 
respect  he  bows  to  that.  The  state  of  society  which  is 
coming  is  not  one  of  protection  and  dependence,  nor  one 
of  mysterious  authority,  and  blind  obedience  to  it,  nor  one 
in  which  any  class  shall  be  privileged  by  Divine  right,  and 
another  remain  in  perpetual  tutelage ;  but  it  is  one  in  which 
unselfish  services  and  personal  qualities  will  command,  by 
Diyine  right,  gratitude  and  admiration,  and  secure  a  true 
and  spiritual  leadership. 

Oh,  let  not  the  rich  misread  the  signs  of  the  times,  or  mis- 
take their  brethren :  they  have  less  and  less  respect  for  ti- 
tles and  riches,  for  vestments  and  ecclesiastical  pretensions, 
but  they  have  a  real  respect  lor  superior  knowledge  and  su- 
perior goodness:  they  listen  like  children  to  those  whom 
they  believe  to  know  a  subject  better  than  themselves.  Let 
those  who  know  it  say  whether  there  is  not  something  inex- 
pressibly touching  and  even  humbling  in  the  large,  hearty, 
manly,  English  reverence  and  love  which  the  working-men 
show  towards  those  who  love  and  serve  them  truly,  and 
save  them  from  themselves  and  from  doing  wrong.  See  how 
David's  feelings  gush  forth  :  "  Blessed  be  the  Lord  God  of 
Israel  which  sent  thee  this  day  to  meet  me :  and  blessed  be 
thy  advice,  and  blessed  be  thou  which  hast  kept  me  this  day 
from  coming  to  shed  blood,  and  from  avenging  myself  with 
mine  own  hand." 

The  rich  and  the  great  may  have  that  love  if  they  will. 

To  conclude.  Doubtless  David  was  wrong :  he  had  no 
right  even  to  redress  wrongs  thus  ;  patience  was  his  divinely 
appointed  duty;  and  doubtless  in  such  circumstances  we 
should  be  very  ready  to  preach  submission  and  to  blame 
David.  Alas  !  we,  the  clergy  of  the  Church  of  England, 
have  been  only  too  ready  to  do  this :  for  three  long  centu- 
ries we  have  taught  submission  to  the  powers  that  be,  as  if 
that  were  the  only  text  in  Scripture  bearing  on  the  relations 
between  the  ruler  and  the  ruled.  Rarely  have  we  dared  to 
demand  of  the  powers  that  be,  justice  ;  of  the  wealthy  man 
and  the  titled,  duties.  We  have  produced  folios  of  slavish 
flattery  upon  the  Divine  Right  of  Power.  Shame  on  us ! 
we  have  not  denounced  the  wrongs  done  to  weakness :  and 
yet  for  one  text  in  the  Bible  which  requires  submission  and 
patience  from  the  poor,  you  will  find  a  hundred  which  de- 
nounce the  vices  of  the  rich — in  the  writings  of  the  noble 
old  Jewish  prophets,  that,  and  almost  that  only — that,  in  the 
Old  Testament,  with  a  deep  roll  of  words  that  sound  like  Si- 
nai thunders  :  and  that  in  the  New  Testament  in  words  less 


ig8    Christ's  Judgment  Respecting  Inheritance. 

impassioned  and  more  calmly  terrible  from  the  apostles  anq 
their  Master  :  and  woe  to  us  in  the  great  day  of  God,  if  we 
have  been  the  sycophants  of  the  rich  instead  of  the  redressera 
of  the  poor  man's  wrongs — woe  to  us  if  we.  have  been  tutor- 
ing David  into  respect  to  his  superior,  Nabal,  and  forgotten 
that  David's  cause,  not  Nabal's,  is  the  cause  of  God. 


XVIII. 

CHRIST'S  JUDGMENT  RESPECTING  INHERIT- 
ANCE.* 

•'  And  one  of  the  company  said  unto  him,  Master,  speak  to  my  brother, 
that  he  divide  the  inheritance  with  me.  And  he  said  unto  him,  Man,  who 
made  me  a  judge  or  a  divider  over  you?  And  he  said  unto  them,  Take 
heed,  and  beware  of  covetousness :  for  a  man's  life  consisted!  not  in  the 
abundance  of  the  things  which  he  possesseth." — Luke  xii.  13-15. 

THE  Son  of  God  was  misunderstood  and  misinterpreted  in 
His  day.  With  this  fact  we  are  familiar ;  but  we  are  not  at 
all  familiar  with  the  consideration  that  it  was  very  natural 
Uiat  He  should  be  so  mistaken. 

He  went  about  Galilee  and  Judea  proclaiming  the  down- 
fall of  every  injustice,  the  exposure  and  confutation  of  every 
lie.  He  denounced  the  lawyers  who  refused  education  to 
the  people,  in  order  that  they  might  retain  the  key  of  knowl- 
edge in  their  own  hands.  He  reiterated  Woe !  woe  !  woe ! 
to  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  who  revered  the  past,  while 
systematically  persecuting  every  new  prophet  and  every 
brave  man  who  rose  up  to  vindicate  the  spirit  of  the  past 
against  the  institutions  of  the  past.  He  spoke  parables 
which  bore  hard  on  the  men  of  wealth :  that,  for  instance, 
of  the  rich  man  who  was  clothed  in  purple  and  fine  linen, 
and  fared  sumptuously  every  day,  who  died,  and  in  hell  lift 
up  his  eyes,  being  in  torments — that  of  the  wealthy  proprie- 
tor who  prospered  in  the  world  ;  who  pulled  down  his  barns 
to  build  greater ;  who  all  the  while  was  in  the  sight  of  God 
a  fool ;  who  in  front  of  judgment  and  eternity  was  found  un- 
ready. He  stripped  the  so-called  religious  party  of  that  day 
of  their  respectability,  convicted  them,  to  their  own  astonish- 
ment, of  hypocrisy,  and  called  them  "  whited  sepulchres." 

*  This  Sermon  was  preached  the  Sunday  after  that  on  which  "The  Mes- 
sage of  the  Church  to  Men  of  Wealth  "  was  preached,  and  it  was  intended  af 
a  further  illustration  of  that  subject. 


Chrises  Judgment  Respecting  Inheritance.     199 

He  said  God  was  against  them ;  that  Jerusalem's  day  was 
come,  and  that  she  must  fall. 

And  now  consider  candidly : — suppose  that  all  this  had 
taken  place  in  this  country ;  that  an  unknown  stranger, 
with  no  ordination,  with  no  visible  authority,  basing  his  au- 
thority upon  his  truth,  and  his  agreement  with  the  mind  of 
God  the  Father,  had  appeared  in  this  England,  uttering  halt 
the  severe  things  He  spoke  against  the  selfishness  of  wealth, 
against  ecclesiastical  authorities,  against  the  clergy,  against 
the  popular  religious  party — suppose  that  such  an  one  should 
say  that  our  whole  social  life  is  corrupt  and  false — suppose 
that  instead  of  "  thou  blind  Pharisee,"  the  word  had  been 
"  thou  blind  Churchman  !" 

Should  we  have  fallen  at  the  feet  of  such  an  one  and  said, 
Lo  !  this  is  a  message  from  Almighty  God,  and  He  who 
brings  it  is  a  Son  of  God  ;  perhaps  what  He  says  Himself, 
His  only  Son — God — of  God  ?  Or  should  we  not  have  rath' 
er  said,  This  is  dangerous  teaching,  and  revolutionary  in  its 
tendencies,  and  He  who  teaches  it  is  an  incendiary — a  mad, 
democratical,  dangerous  fanatic  ? 

That  was  exactly  what  they  did  say  of  your  Redeemer  in 
His  day ;  nor  does  it  seem  at  all  wonderful  that  they  did. 

The  sober,  respectable  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem,  very 
comfortable  themselves,  and  utterly  unable  to  conceive 
why  things  should  not  go  on  as  they  had  been  going  on 
for  a  hundred  years — not  smarting  from  the  misery  and  the 
moral  degradation  of  the  lazars  with  whom  He  associated, 
and  under  whose  burdens  his  loving  spirit  groaned — thought 
it  excessively  dangerous  to  risk  the  subversion,  of  their  quiet 
enjoyment  by  such  outcries.  They  said,  prudent  men  !  "  If 
He  is  permitted  to  go  on  this  way,  the  Romans  will  come 
and  take  away  our  place  and  nation."  The  priests  and  Phar- 
isees, against  whom  He  had  specially  spoken,  were  fiercer 
still,  they  felt  there  was  no  time  to  be  lost. 

But  still  more,  His  own  friends  and  followers  misunder- 
stood Him. 

They  heard  him  speak  of  a  kingdom  of  justice  and  right- 
eousness in  which  every  man  should  receive  the  due  reward 
of  his  deeds.  They  heard  Him  say  that  this  kingdom  was 
not  far  off,  but  actually  among  them,  hindered  only  by  their 
sins  and  dullness  from  immediate  appearance.  Men's  souls 
were  stirred  and  agitated.  They  were  ripe  for  any  thing, 
and  any  spark  would  have  produced  explosion.  They 
thought  the  next  call  would  be  to  take  the  matter  into  their 
own  hands. 

Accordingly,  on  one  occasion,  St.  John  and  St.  James  asked 


2OO    Christ's  Judgment  Respecting  Inheritance. 

permission  to  call  down  fire  from  heaven  upon  a  village  of 
the  Samaritans  which  would  not  receive  their  message. 
On  another  occasion,  on  a  single  figurative  mention  of  a 
sword,  they  began  to  gird  themselves  for  the  struggle : 
"  Lord,"  said  one,  "  behold  here  are  two  swords."  Again,  as 
soon  as  He  entered  Jerusalem  for  the  last  time,  the  populace 
heralded  His  way  with  shouts,  thinking  that  the  long-delay- 
ed hour  of  retribution  was  come  at  last.  They  saw  the  Con* 
queror  before  them  who  wras  to  vindicate  their  wrongs.  In 
imagination  they  already  felt  their  feet  upon  the  necks  of 
their  enemies. 

And  because  their  hopes  were  disappointed,  and  He  wraa 
not  the  demagogue  they  wanted,  therefore  they  turned 
against  Him.  Not  the  Pharisees  only,  but  the  people  whom 
He  had  come  to  save — the  outcast,  and  the  publican,  and  the 
slave,  and  the  maid-servant;  they  whose  cause  Pie  had  so 
often  pleaded,  and  whose  emancipation  He  had  prepared. 
It  was  I[\Q  people  who  cried,  "  Crucify  Him,  crucJfy  Him  !" 

This  will  become  intelligible  to  us  if  we  can  get  at  the 
spirit  of  this  passage. 

Among  those  who  heard  Him  lay  down  the  laws  of  the 
kingdom  of  God — justice,  fairness,  charity — there  was  one 
who  had  been  defrauded,  as  it  seems,  by  his  brother  of  his 
just  share  of  the  patrimony.  He  thought  that  the  One  who 
stood  before  him  was  exactly  wyhat  he  wanted :  a  redresser 
of  wrongs — a  champion  of  the  oppressed — a  divider  and  ar- 
biter between  factions — a  referee  of  lawsuits — one  who 
would  spend  His  life  in  the  unerring  decision  of  all  misun- 
derstandings. 

To  his  astonishment,  the  Son  of  Man  refused  to  interfere  in 
his  quarrel,  or  take  part  in  it  at  all.  "  Man,  who  made  me  a 
judge  or  a  divider  between  you  ?" 

We  ask  attention  to  two  things. 

I.  The  Saviour's  refusal  to  interfere. 

H.  The  source  to  which  He  traced  the  appeal  for  interfer- 
ence. 

I.  The  Saviour's  refusal  to  interfere. 

1.  He  implied  that  it  was  not  TH\$  jxirt  to  interfere.  "Who 
made  me  a  judge  or  a  divider?" 

It  is  a  common  saying  that  religion  has  nothing  to  do  with 
politics,  and  particularly  there  is  a  strong  feeling  current 
against  all  interference  with  politics  by  the  ministers  of  re- 
ligion. This  notion  rests  on  a  basis  which  is  partly  wrong, 
partly  right. 

To  say  that  religion  has  nothing  to  do  with  politics  is  to 


Christ's  Judgment  Respecting  Inheritance.    201 

assert  that  which  is"  simply  false.  It  were  as  wise  to  say 
that  the  atmosphere  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  principles  of 
architecture.  Directly,  nothing — indirectly,  much.  Some 
kinds  of  stone  are  so  friable,  that  though  they  will  last  for 
centuries  in  a  dry  climate,  they  will  crumble  away  in  a  few 
years  in  a  damp  one.  There  are  some  temperatures  in  which 
a  form  of  building  is  indispensable  which  in  another  would 
be  unbearable.  The  shape  of  doors,  windows,  apartments, 
all  depend  upon  the  air  that  is  to  be  admitted  or  excluded. 
Nay,  it  is  for  the  very  sake  of  procuring  a  habitable  atmos- 
phere within  certain  limits  that  architecture  exists  at  all. 
The  atmospheric  laws  are  distinct  from  the  laws  of  architect- 
ure; but  there  is  not  an  architectural  question  into  which 
atmospheric  considerations  do  not  enter  as  conditions  of  the 
question. 

That  which  the  air  is  to  architecture,  religion  is  to  politics, 
It  is  the  vital  air  of  every  question.  Directly,  it  determines 
nothing — indirectly,  it  conditions  every  problem  that  can 
arise.  The  kingdoms  of  this  world  must  become  the  king- 
doms of  our  Lord  and  of  His  Christ.  How,  if  His  Spirit  i& 
not  to  mingle  with  political  and  social  truths  ? 

Nevertheless,  in  the  popular  idea  that  ivligion  as  such 
must  not  be  mixed  with  politics,  there  is  a  profound  truth. 
Here,  for  instance,  the  Saviour  will  not  meddle  with  the 
question.  He  stands  aloof,  sublime  and  dignified.  It  was 
no  part  of  His  to  take  from  the  oppressor  and  give  to  the 
oppressed,  much  less  to  encourage  the  oppressed  to  take 
from  the  oppressor  himself.  It  was  His  part  to  forbid  op- 
pression. It  was  a  judge's  part  to  decide  what  oppression  was. 
It  was  not  His  office  to  determine  the  boundaries  of  civil 
right,  nor  to  lay  down  the  rules  of  the  descent  of  property. 
Of  course  there  was  a  spiritual  and  moral  principle  involved 
in  this  question.  But  He  would  not  suffer  His  sublime  mis- 
sion to  degenerate  into  the  mere  task  of  deciding  casuistry. 

He  asserted  principles  of  love,  unselfishness,  order,  which 
would  decide  all  questions  ;  but  the  questions  themselves 
He  would  not  decide.  He  would  lay  down  the  great  politic- 
al principle,  "  Render  unto  Caesar  the  things  that  be  Caesar's, 
and  unto  God  the  things  which  are  God's;"  but  He  would 
not  determine  whether  this  particular  tax  was  due  to  Caesar 
or  not. 

So,  too,  He  would  say,  justice,  like  mercy  and  truth,  is  one 
of  the  weightier  matters  of  the  law  ;  but  he  would  not  decide 
whether  in  this  definite  case  this  or  that  brother  had  justice 
on  his  side.  It  was  for  themselves  to  determine  that,  and  in 
that  determination  lay  their  responsibility. 

9* 


2  o  2     Christ ''  s  Judg  men  t  Respecting  Inherita nee. 

And  thus  religion  deals  with  men,  not  cases :  with  human 
hearts,  not  casuistry. 

Christianity  determines  general  principles,  out  of  which, 
no  doubt,  the  best  government  would  surely  spring :  but 
what  the  best  government  is  it  does  not  determine — whether 
monarchy  or  a  republic,  an  aristocracy  or  a  democracy. 

It  lays  down  a  great  social  law  :  "  Masters,  give  unto  your 
servants  that  which  is  just  and  equal."  But  it" is  not  its  part 
to  declare  how  much  is  just  and  equal.  It  has  no  fixed 
scale  of  wages  according  to  which  masters  must  give.  That 
it  leaves  to  each  master  and  each  age  of  society. 

It  binds  up  men  in  a  holy  brotherhood.  But  what  are  the 
best  institutions  and  surest  means  for  arriving  at  this  broth- 
erhood it  has  not  said.  In  particular,  it  has  not  pronounced 
whether  competition  or  co-operation  will  secure  it. 

And  hence  it  comes  to  pass  that  Christianity  is  the  eternal 
religion,  which  can  never  become  obsolete.  If  it  sets  itself 
to  determine  the  temporary  and  the  local,  the  justice  of  this 
tax,  or  the  exact  wrongs  of  that  conventional  maxim,  it 
would  soon  become  obsolete :  it  would  be  the  religion  of  one 
century,  not  of  ail.  As  it  is,  it  commits  itself  to  nothing  ex- 
cept eternal  principles. 

It  is  not  sent  into  this  world  to  establish  monarchy,  or  se- 
cure the  franchise — to  establish  socialism,  or  to  frown  it  into 
annihilation — but  to  establish  a  charity,  and  a  moderation, 
and  a  sense  of  duty,  and  a  love  of  right,  which  will  modify 
human  life  according  to  any  circumstances  that  can  possibly 
arise. 

2.  In  this  refusal,  again,  it  was  implied  that  His  kingdom 
was  one  founded  on  spiritual  disposition,  not  one  of  outward 
law  and  jurisprudence. 

That  this  lawsuit  should  have  been  decided  by  the  broth- 
ers themselves,  in  love,  with  mutual  fairness,  would  have 
been  much — that  it  should  be  determined  by  authoritative 
arbitration,  was,  spiritually  speaking,  nothing.  The  right 
disposition  of  their  hearts,  and  the  right  division  of  their 
property  thence  resulting,  was  Christ's  kingdom.  The  ap- 
portionment of  their  property  by  another's  division  had 
nothing  to  do  with  His  kingdom. 

Suppose  that  both  were  wrong :  one  oppressive,  the  other 
covetous.  Then,  that  the  oppressor  should  become  gener- 
ous, and  the  covetous  liberal,  were  a  great  gain.  But  to 
take  from  one  selfish  brother  in  order  to  give  to  another  self- 
ish brother,  what  spiritual  gain  would  there  have  been  in 
this  ? 

Suppose,  again,  that  the  retainer  of  the  inheritance  was  in 


Christ's  Judgment  Respecting  Inheritance.    203 

the  wrong,  and  that  the  petitioner  had  justice  on  his  side — 
that  he  was  a  humble,  meek  man,  and  his  petitio.n  only  one 
of  right.  Well,  to  take  the  property  from  the  unjust  and 
give  it  to  Christ's  servant,  might  be,  and  was,  the  duty  of  a 
judge;  but  it  was  not  Christ's  part,  nor  any  gain  to  the 
cause  of  Christ.  He  does  not  reward  His  servants  with  in- 
heritances, with  lands,  houses,  gold.  The  kingdom  of  God  is 
not  meat  and  drink,  but  righteousness,  and  peace,  and  joy  in 
the  Holy  Ghost.  Christ  triumphs  by  wrongs  meekly  borne, 
even  more  than  by  wrongs  legally  righted.  What  we  call 
poetical  justice  is  not  His  kingdom. 

To  apply  this  to  the  question  of  the  day.  The  great  prob- 
lem which  lies  before  Europe  for  solution  is,  or  will  be,  this : 
Whether  the  present  possessors  of  the  soil  have  an  exclusive 
right  to  do  what  they  will  with  their  own,  or  whether  a 
larger  claim  may  be  put  in  by  the  workman  for  a  share  of 
the  profits  ?  Whether  Capital  has  hitherto  given  to  Labor 
its  just  part,  or  not  ?  Labor  is  at  present  making  an  appeal, 
like  that  of  this  petitioner,  to  the  Church,  to  the  Bible,  to 
God.  "Master,  speak  unto  my  brother,  that  he  divide  the 
inheritance  with  me." 

Now  in  the  mere  setting  of  that  question  to  rest,  Chris- 
tianity is  not  interested.  That  landlords  should  become 
more  liberal,  and  employers  more  merciful :  that  tenants 
should  be  more  honorable,  and  workmen  more  -unselfish  ; 
that  would  be  indeed  a  glorious  thing — a  triumph  of  Christ's 
cause  ;  and  any  arrangement  of  the  inheritance  thence  result- 
ing would  be  a  real  coming  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  But 
whether  the  soil  of  the  country  and  its  capital  shall  remain 
the  property  of  the  rich,  or  become  more  available  for  the 
poor,  the  rich  and  the  poor  remaining  as  selfish  as  before — 
whether  the  selfish  rich  shall  be  able  to  keep,  or  the  selfish 
poor  to  take,  is  a  matter,  religiously  speaking,  of  profound 
indifference.  Which  of  the  brothers  shall  have  the  inherit- 
ance, the  monopolist  or  the  covetous  ?  Either — neither — 
who  cares  ?  Fifty  years  hence  what  will  it  matter  ?  But 
a  hundred  thousand  years  hence  it  will  matter  whether 
they  settled  the  question  by  mutual  generosity  and  forbear- 
ance. 

3.  I  remark  a  third  thing.  He  refused  to  be  the  friend  of 
one,  because  He  was  the  friend  of  both.  He  never  was  the 
champion  of  a  class^  because  He  was  the  champion  of  hu- 
manity. We  may  take  for  granted  that  the  petitioner  was 
an  injured  man — one,  at  all  events,  who  thought  himself  in- 
jured ;  and  Christ  had  often  taught  the  spirit  which  would 
have  made  his  brother  right  him,  but  He  refused  to  take  his 


2O4     Christ's  Jiidg ment  Respecting  Inheritance. 

part  against  his  brother,  just  because  he  was  his  brother  -* 
Christ's  servant,  and  one  of  God's  family,  as  well  as  he. 

And  this  was  His  spirit  always.  The  Pharisees  thought 
to  commit  Him  to  a  side  when  they  asked  whether  it  was 
lawful  to  give  tribute  to  Caesar  or  not.  But  He  would  take 
no  side  as  the  Christ :  neither  the  part  of  the  Government 
against  the  tax-payers,  nor  the  part  of  the  tax-payers  against 
>the  Government. 

Now  it  is  a  common  thing  to  hear  of  the  rights  of  man— 
a  glorious  and  a  true  saying,  but,  as  commonly  used,  the  ex- 
pression only  means  the  rights  of  a  section  or  class  of  men. 
And  it  is  very  worthy  of  remark,  that  in  these  social  quar- 
rels both  sides  appeal  to  Christ  and  to  the  Bible  as  the 
champions  of  their  rights,  precisely  in  the  same  way  in 
which  this  man  appealed  to  Him.  One  class  appeal  to  the 
Bible,  as  if  it  were  the  great  Arbiter  which  decrees  that  the 
poor  shall  be  humble  and  the  subject  submissive ;  and  the 
other  class  appeal  to  the  same  book  triumphantly,  as  if  it 
were  exclusively  on  their  side,  its  peculiar  blessedness  con- 
sisting in  this,  that  it  commands  the  rich  to  divide  the  inher- 
itance, and  the  ruler  to  impose  nothing  that  is  unjust. 

In  either  of  these  cases  Christianity  is  degraded,  and  the 
Bible  misused.  They  are  not,  as  they  have'been  made,  oh, 
shame  !  for  centuries,  the  servile  defenders  of  rank  and 
wealth,  nor  are  they  the  pliant  advocates  of  discontent  and 
rebellion.  The  Bible  takes  neither  the  part  of  the  poor 
against  the  rich  exclusively,  Dor  that  of  the  rich  against  the 
poor ;  and  this  because  it  proclaims  a  real,  deep,  true,  and 
not  a  revolutionary  brotherhood. 

The  brotherhood  of  which  we  hear  so  much  is  often  only  a 
one-sided  brotherhood.  It  demands  that  the  rich  shall  treat 
the  poor  as  brothers.  It  has  a  right  to  do  so.  It  is  a  brave 
and  a  just  demand  ;  but  it  forgets  that  the  obligation  is  mu- 
tual ;  that  in  spite  of  his  many  faults,  the  rich  man  is  the 
poor  man's  brother,  and  that  the  poor  man  is  bound  to  rec- 
ognize him  and  feel  for  him  as  a  brother. 

It  requires  that  every  candid  allowance  shall  be  made  for 
the  vices  of  the  poorer  classes,  in  virtue  of  the  circumstances 
which,  so  to  speak,  seem  to  make  such  vices  inevitable  :  for 
their  harlotry,  their  drunkenness,  their  uncleanness,  their  in- 
subordination. Let  it  enforce  that  demand;  it  may  and 
must  do  it  in  the  name  of  Christ.  He  was  mercifully  and 
mournfully  gentle  to  those  who  through  terrible  temptation 
and  social  injustice  had  sunk,  and  sunk  into  misery  at  least 
as  much  as  into  sin.  But  then,  let  it  not  be  forgotten  that 
Borne  sympathy  must  be  also  due  on  the  saive  score  of  cu« 


Christ's  Judgment  Respecting  Inheritance.    205 

curastances  to  the  rich  man.  Wealth  has  its  temptations,  so 
has  power.  The  vices  of  the  rich  are  his  forgetfulness  of  re- 
sponsibility, his  indolence,  his  extravagance,  his  ignorance  of 
wretchedness.  These  must  be  looked  upon,  no£  certainly 
with  weak  excuses,  but  with  a  brother's  eye  by  the  poor 
man,  if  he  will  assert  a  brotherhood.  It  is  not  just  to  attrib- 
ute all  to  circumstances  in  the  one  case,  and  nothing  in  the 
other.  It  is  not  brotherhood  to  say  that  the  laborer  does 
wrong  because  he  is  tempted,  and  the  man  of  wealth  because 
he  is  intrinsically  bad. 

II.  The  source  to  which  he  traced  this  appeal  for  a  dt 
vision. 

Now  it  is  almost  certain  that  the  reflection  which  aros 
to  the  lips  of  Christ  is  not  the  one  which  would  have  pre- 
sented itself  to  us  under  similar  circumstances.  We  should 
probably  have  sneered  at  the  state  of  the  law  in  which  a 
lawsuit  could  obtain  no  prompt  decision,  and  injury  get  no 
redress :  or  we  should  have  remarked  upon  the  evils  of  the 
system  of  primogeniture,  and  asked  whether  it  were  just 
that  one  brother  should  have  all,  and  the  others  none :  or 
we  might,  perhaps,  have  denounced  the  injustice  of  permit- 
ting privileged  classes  at  all. 

He  did  nothing  of  this  kind.  He  did  not  sneer  at  the  law, 
nor  inveigh  against  the  system,  nor  denounce  the  privileged 
classes.  He  went  deeper :  to  the  very  root  of  the  matter. 
"Take  heed  and  beware  of  covetousness."  It  was  covet- 
ousness  which  caused  the  unjust  brother  to  withhold:  it 
was  covetousness  which  made  the  defrauded  brother  indig- 
nantly complain  to  a  stranger.  It  is  covetousness  which  is 
at  the  bottom  of  all  lawrsuits,  all  social  grievances,  all  polit- 
ical factions.  So  St.  James  traces  the  genealogy.  "From 
whence  come  wars  and  fightings  among  you  ?  Come  they 
not  hence,  even  from  your  lusts  which  reign  in  your  flesh  ?" 

Covetousness — the  covetousness  of  all :  of  the  oppressed 
as  well  as  of  the  oppressor ;  for  the  cry  "  Divide  "  has  its 
root  in  covetousness  just  as  truly  as  "I  will  not."  There 
are  no  innocent  classes:  no  devils  who  oppress,  and  angels 
who  are  oppressed.  The  guilt  of  a  false  social  state  must 
be  equally  divided. 

We  will  consider  somewhat  more  deeply  this  covetousness. 
In  the  original  the  word  is  a  very  expressive  one.  It  means 
the  desire  of  having  more  —  not  of  having  more  because 
there  is  not  enough,  but  simply  a  craving  after  more.  More, 
when  a  man  has  not  enough.  More  when  he  has.  More, 
more,  ever  more.  Give,  give.  Divide,  divide. 


206     Christ 's  Judgment  Respecting  Inheritance. 

This  craving  is  not  universal.  Individuals  and  whole 
nations  are  without  it.  There  are  some  nations,  the  con- 
dition of  whose  further  civilization  is,  that  the  desire  of 
accumulation  be  increased.  They  are  too  indolent  or  too 
unambitious  to  be  covetous.  Energy  is  awakened  when 
wants  are  immediate,  pressing,  present ;  but  ceases  with  the 
gratification. 

There  are  other  nations  in  which  the  craving  is  excessive, 
even  to  disease.  Pre-eminent  among  these  is  England.  This 
desire  of  accumulation  is  the  source  of  all  our  greatness,  and 
all  our  baseness.  It  is  at  once  our  glory  and  our  shame.  It 
is  the  cause  of  our  commerce,  of  our  navy,  of  our  military 
triumphs,  of  our  enormous  wealth,  and  our  marvellous  inven- 
tions. And  it  is  the  cause  of  our  factions  and  animosities, 
of  our  squalid  pauperism,  and  the  worse  than  heathen  deg- 
radation of  the  masses  of  our  population. 

That  which  makes  this  the  more  marvellous  is,  that  of  all 
the  nations  on  the  earth,  none  are  so  incapable  of  enjoyment 
as  «we.  God  has  not  given  to  us  that  delicate  development 
which  He  has  given  to  other  races.  Our  sense  of  harmony 
is  dull  and  rare,  our  perception  of  beauty  is  not  keen.  An 
English  holiday  is  rude  and  boisterous  :  if  protracted,  it 
ends  in  ennui  and  self-dissatisfaction.  We  can  not  enjoy. 
Work,  the  law  of  human  nature,  is  the  very  need  of  an  Eng- 
lish nature.  That  cold  shade  of  Puritanism  which  passed 
over  us,  sullenly  eclipsing  all  grace  and  enjoyment,  was  but 
the  shadow  of  our  own  melancholy,  unenjoying,  national 
character. 

And  yet  we  go  on  accumulating  as  if  we  could  enjoy  more 
by  having  more.  To  quit  the  class  in  which  they  are  and 
rise  into  that  above,  is  the  yearly,  daily,  hourly  effort  of 
millions  in  this  land.  And  this  were  well  if  this  word 
"above"  implied  a  reality:  if  it  meant  higher  intellectually, 
morally,  or  even  physically.  But  the  truth  is,  it  is  only 
higher  fictitiously.  The  middle  classes  already  have  every 
real  enjoyment  which  the  wealthiest  can  have.  The  only 
thing  they  have  not  is  the  ostentation  of  the  means  of  enjoy- 
ment. More  .would  enable  them  to  multiply  equipages, 
houses,  books.  It  could  not  enable  them  to  enjoy  them  more. 

Thus,  then,  we  have  reached  the  root  of  the  matter.  Our 
national  craving  is,  in  the  proper  meaning  of  the  term,  cov- 
etousness.  Not  the  desire  of  enjoying  more,  but  the  desire 
of  having  more.  And  if  there  be  a  country,  a  society,  a 
people  to  whom  this  warning  is  specially  applicable,  that 
country  is  England,  that  society  our  own,  that  people  are 
we.  "  Take  heed  and  beware  of  covetousness." 


Christ's  Judgment  Respecting  Inheritance.    207 

The  true  remedy  for  this  covetousness  He  then  proceeds 
to  give.  "  A  man's  life  consisteth  not  in  the  abundance  of 
the  things  which  he  possesseth." 

Now  observe  the  distinction  between  His  view  and  the 
world's  view  of  humanity.  To  the  question,  What  is  a  man 
worth  ?  the  world  replies  by  enumerating  what  he  has.  In 
reply  to  the  same  question,  the  Son  of  Man  replies  by  esti- 
mating what  he  is.  Not  what  he  has,  but  what  he  is,  that, 
through  time  and  through  eternity,  is  his  real  and  proper 
life.  He  declared  the  presence  of  the  soul :  He  announced 
the  dignity  of  the  spiritual  man  ;  He  revealed  the  being  that 
we  are.  Not  that  which  is  supported  by  meat  and  drink, 
but  that  whose  very  life  is  in  truth,  integrity,  honor,  purity. 
"Skin  for  skin"  was  the  satanic  version  of  this  matter;  "All 
that  a  man  hath  will  he  give  for  his  life."  "  What  shall  it 
profit  a  man,"  was  the  Saviour's  announcement,  "if  he  shall 
gain  the  whole  world  and  lose  his  own  soul?" 

For  the  oppressed  and  the  defrauded  this  was  the  true 
consolation  and  compensation — the  true  consolation.  This 
man  had  lost  so  much  loss.  Well,  how  is  he  consoled  ?  By 
the  thought  of  retaliation — by  the  promise  of  revenge — by 
the  assurance  that  he  shall  have  what  he  ought  by  right  to 
have?  Nay,  but  thus — as  it  were:  Thou  hast  lost  so  much, 
but  thyself  remains.  "A  man's  life  consisteth  not  in  the 
abundance  of  the  things  which  he  possesseth." 

Most  assuredly  Christianity  proclaims  laws  which  will 
eventually  give  to  each  man  his  rights.  I  do  not  deny  this. 
But  I  say  that  the  hope  of  these  rights  is  not  the  message, 
nor  the  pVomise,  nor  the  consolation  of  Christianity.  Rather 
they  consist  in  the  assertion  of  the  true  life,  instead  of  all 
other  hopes :  of  the  substitution  of  blessedness  which  is  in- 
ward character,  for  happiness  which  is  outward  satisfaction 
of  desire  ;  for  the  broken-hearted,  the  peace  which  the  world 
can  not  give ;  for  the  poor,  the  life  which  destitution  can  not 
take  away  ;  for  the  persecuted,  the  thought  that  they  are  the 
children  of  their  Father  which  is  in  heaven. 

A  very  striking  instance  of  this  is  found  in  the  consolation 
offered  by  St.  Paul  to  slaves.  How  did  he  reconcile  them  to 
their  lot?  By  promising  that  Christianity  would  produce 
the  abolition  of  the  slave-trade  ?  No ;  though  this  was  to  be 
effected  by  Christianity:  but  by  assuring  them  that,  though 
slaves,  they  might  be  inly  free — Christ's  freedmen.  "Art 
thou  called,  being  a  slave  ?  Care  not  for  it." 

T^is,  too,  was  the  real  compensation  offered  by  Christiani- 
ty for  injuries. 

The  other  brother  had  the  inheritance ;  and  to  win  the  in- 


208     Christ's  Judgment  Respecting  Inheritance. 

heritance  lie  had  laid  upon  his  soul  the  guilt  of  injustice 
His  advantage  was  the  property :  the  price  he  paid  for  that 
advantage  was  a  hard  heart.  The  injured  brother  had  no 
inheritance,  but  instead  he  had,  or  might  have  had,  innocence, 
and  the  conscious  joy  of  knowing  that  he  was  not  the  injurer. 
Herein  lay  the  balance. 

Now  there  is  great  inconsistency  between  the  complaints 
and  claims  that  are  commonly  made  on  these  subjects. 
There  are  outcries  against  the  insolence  of  power  and  the 
hard-hearted  selfishness  of  wealth.  Only  too  often  these  cries 
have  a  foundation  of  justice.  But  be  it  remembered  that 
these  are  precisely  the  cost  at  which  the  advantages,  such  as 
they  are,  are  purchased.  The  price  which  the  man  in  au- 
thority has  paid  for  power  is  the  temptation  to  be  insolent. 
He  has  yielded  to  the  temptation,  and  bought  his  advantage 
dear.  The  price  which  the  rich  man  pays  for  his  wealth  is 
the  temptation  to  be*  selfish.  They  have  paid  in  spirituals  for 
what  they  have  gained  in  temporals. 

Now,  if  you  are  crying  for  a  share  in  that  wealth",  and  a 
participation  in  that  power,  you  mjust  be  content  to  run  the 
risk  of  becoming  as  hard  and  selfish  and  overbearing  as  the 
man  whom  you  denounce.  Blame  their  sins  if  you  will,  or 
despise  their  advantages ;  but  do  not  think  that  you  can 
covet  their  advantages,  and  keep  clear  of  their  temptations. 
God  is  on  the  side  of  the  poor,  and  the  persecuted,  and  the 
mourners — a  light  in  darkness,  and  a  life  in  death ;  but  the 
poverty,  and  the  persecution,  and  the  darkness  are  the  con- 
dition on  which  they  feel  God's  presence.  They  must  not 
expect  to  have  the  enjoyment  of  wealth  and  the  spiritual 
blessings  annexed  to  poverty  at  the  same  time. 

If  you  will  be  rich,  you  must  be  content  to  pay  the  price 
of  falling  into  temptation,  and  a  snare,  and  many  foolish  and 
hurtful  lusts,  which  drown  men  in  perdition ;  and  if  that 
price  be  too  high  to  pay,  then  you  must  be  content  with  the 
quiet  valleys  of  existence,  where  alone  it  is  well  with  us : 
kept  out  of  the  inheritance,  but  having  instead  God  for  your 
portion — your  all-sufficient  and  everlasting  portion — peace, 
and  quietness,  and  rest  with  Christ. 


Freedom  by  the  Truth*  209 


XIX. 
FREEDOM  BY  THE  TRUTH. 

"And  ye  shall  know  the  truth,  and  the  truth  shall  make  you  frea**--' 
John  viii.  32. 

IF  these  words  were  the  only  record  we  possessed  of  the 
Saviour's  teaching,  it  may  be  that  they  would  be  insufficient 
to  prove  His  personal  Deity,  but  they  would  be  enough  to 
demonstrate  the  Divine  character  of  His  mission. 

Observe  the  greatness  of  the  aim,  and  the  wisdom  of  the 
means. 

The  aim  was  to  make  all  men  free.  He  saw  around  Him 
servitude  in  every  form — man  in  slavery  to  man,  and  race  to 
race:  His  own  countrymen  in  bondage  to  the  Romans — 
slaves  both  of  Jewish  and  Roman  masters,  frightfully  op- 
pressed :  men  trembling  before  priestcraft :  arid  those  who 
were  politically  and  ecclesiastically  free,  in  worse  bondage 
still — the  rich  and  rulers  slaves  to  their  own  passions. 

Conscious  of  His  inward  Deity  and  of  His  Father's  inten- 
tions, He,  without  hurry,"  without  the  excitement  which 
would  mark  the  mere  earthly  liberator,  calmly  said,  "  Ye 
shall  be  free." 

See,  next,  the  peculiar  wisdom  of  the  means. 

The  craving  for  liberty  was  not  new — it  lies  deep  in  human 
nature.  Nor  was  the  promise  of  satisfying  it  new.  Em- 
pirics, charlatans,  demagogues,  'and  men  who  were  not  char- 
latans nor  demagogues,  had  promised  in  vain. 

1.  First,  they  had  tried  by  force.  Wherever  force  has 
been  used  on  the  side  of  freedom,  we  honor  it ;  the  names 
which  we  pronounce  in  boyhood  with  enthusiasm  are  those 
of  the  liberators  of  nations  and  the  vindicators  of  liberty. 
Israel  had  had  such :  Joshua — the  Judges — Judas  Macca- 
baeus.  Had  the  Son  of  God  willed  so  to  come,  even  on  hu- 
man data  the  success  was  certain.  I  wafve  the  truth  of  His 
inward  Deity,  of  His  miraculous  power,  of  His  power  to  sum- 
mon to  His  will  more  than  twelve  legions  of  angels.  I  only 
notice  now  that  men's  hearts  were  full  of  Him :  ripe  for  re- 
volt :  and  that  at  a  single  word  of  His,  thrice  three  hundred 
thousand  swords  would  have  started  from  their  scabbards. 
But  had  He  so  come,  one  nation  might  have  gained  liberty— 


2 1  o  Freedom  by  tJie  Truth. 

not  the  race  of  man :  moreover,  the  liberty  would  only  have 
been  independence  of  a  foreign  conqueror.  Therefore  as  a 
conquering  king  He  did  not  come. 

2.  Again,  it  might  have  been  attempted  by  legislative  en- 
actment.    Perhaps  only  once  has  this  been  done  successfully, 
and  by  a  single  effort.     When  the  names  of  conquerors  shall 
have  been  forgotten,  and  modern  civilization  shall  have  be- 
come obsolete — when  England's  shall  be  ancient  history,  one 
act  of  hers  will  be  remembered  as  a  record  of  her  greatness, 
that  Act  by  which  in  costly  sacrifice  she  emancipated  her 
slaves. 

But  one  thing  England  could  not  do.  She  could  give  free- 
dom— she  could  not  fit  for  freedom — she  could  not  make  it 
lasting.  The  stroke  of  a  monarch's  pen  will  do  the  one,  the 
discipline  of  ages  is  needed  for  the  other.  Give  to-morrow  a 
constitution  to  some  feeble  Eastern  nation,  or  a  horde  of  sav- 
ages, and  in  half  a  century  they  will  be  subjected  again. 
Therefore  the  Son  of  Man  did  not  come  to  free  the  world  by 
legislation. 

3.  It  might  be  done  by  civilization.     Civilization  does  free 
— intellect  equalizes.     Every  step  of  civilization  is  a  victory 
over  some  lower  instinct.     But  civilization  contains  within 
itself  the  elements  of  a  fresh  servitude.     Man  conquers  the 
powers  of  nature,  and  becomes   in   turn   their  slave.     The 
workman  is  in  bondage  to   the    machinery  which  does  his 
will :  his  hours,  his  wages,  his  personal  habits  determined  by 
k.     The  rich  man  fills  his  house  with  luxuries,  and  can  not  do 
without   them.     A  highly  civilized   community   is   a   very 
spectacle  of  servitude.     Man   is   there  a  slave  to   dress,  to 
hours,  to  manners,  to  conventions,  to  etiquette.     Things  con- 
trived to  make  his  life  more  easy  become  his  masters. 

Therefore  Jesus  did  not  talk  of  the  progress  of  the  species 
nor  the  growth  of  civilization,  He  did  not  trust  the  world's 
hope  of  liberty  to  a  right  division  of  property.  But  he  freed 
the  inner  man,  that  so  the  outer  might  become  free  too. 
"  Ye  shall  know  the  truth,  and  the  truth  shall  make  yon 
free." 

I.  The  truth  that  liberates. 
II.  The  liberty  which  truth  gives. 

The  truth  which  Christ  taught  was  chiefly  on  these  three 
points  :  God — man — immortality. 

First,  God.  Blot  out  the  thought  of  God,  a  living  person, 
and  life  becomes  mean,  existence  unmeaning,  the  universe 
dark,  and  resolve  is  left  without  a  stay,  aspiration  and  duty 
without  a  support. 


Freedom  by  the  Truth.  211 

The  Son  exhibited  God  as  love :  and  so  that  fearful  .bond, 
age  of  the  mind  to  the  necessity  of  fate  was  broken.  A  liv- 
ing Lord  had  made  the  world,  and  its  dark  and  unintelligible 
mystery  meant  good,  not  evil.  He  manifested  Him  as  a 
Spirit ;  and  if  so,  the  only  worship  that  could  please  Him 
must  be  a  spirit's  worship.  Not  by  sacrifices  is  God  pleased, 
nor  by  droned  litanies  and  liturgies,  nor  by  fawning  and  flat- 
tery, nor  is  his  wrath  bought  off  by  blood.  Thus  was  the 
chain  of  superstition  rent  asunder ;  for  superstition  is  wrong 
views  of  God,  exaggerated  or  inadequate,  and  wrong  concep- 
tions of  the  way  to  please  Him. 

And  so  when  the  woman  of  Samaria  brought  the  conver- 
sation to  that  old  ecclesiastical  question  about  consecrated 
buildings,  whether  on  Mount  Gerizim  or  on  Mount  Moriah 
God  was  the  more  acceptably  adored,  He  cut  the  whole 
conversation  short  by  the  enunciation  of  a  single  truth: 
"  God  is  a  Spirit,  and  they  that  worship  Him  must  worship 
Him  in  spirit  and  in  truth." 

2.  Truth  respecting  man. 

We  are  a  mystery  to  ourselves.  Go  to  any  place  where 
nations  have  brought  together  their  wealth  and  their  inven- 
tions, and  before  the  victories  of  mind  you  stand  in  rever- 
ence. Then  stop  to  look  at  the  passing  crowds  who  have 
attained  that  civilization.  Think  of  their  low  aims,  their 
mean  lives,  their  conformation  only  a  little  higher  than  that 
of  brute  creatures,  and  a  painful  sense  of  degradation  steals 
upon  you.  So  great,  and  yet  so  mean  !  And  so  of  individu- 
als. There  is  not  one  here  whose  feelings  have  not  been 
deeper  than  we  can  fathom,  nor  one  who  "would  venture  to 
tell  out  to  his  brother  man  the  me-an,  base  thoughts  that  have 
crossed  his  heart  during  the  last  hour.  Now  this  riddle  He 
solved — He  looked  on  man  as  fallen,  but  magnificent  in  his 
ruin.  We,  catching  that  thought  from  Him,  speak  as  He 
spoke.  But  none  that  were  born  of  woman  ever  felt  this  or 
lived  this  like  Him.  Beneath  the  vilest  outside  He  saw  this : 
a  human  soul,  capable  of  endless  growth ;  and  thence  He 
treated  with  what  for  want  of  a  better  term  we  may  call 
respect,  all  who  approached  Him ;  not  because  they  were 
titled  Rabbis  or  rich  Pharisees,  but  because  they  were  men. 

Here  was  a  germ  for  freedom.  It  is  not  the  shackle  on 
the  wrist  that  constitutes  the  slave,  but  the  /oss  of  self-re- 
spect— to  be  treated  as  degraded  till  he  feels  degraded — to 
be  subjected  to  the  lash  till  he  believes  that  he  deserves  the 
lash :  and  liberty  is  to  suspect  and  yet  reverence  self — to 
suspect  the  tendency  which  leaves  us  ever  on  the  brink  of 
fall — to  reverence  that  within  ur  which  is  allied  to  God,  re* 


212  Freedom  by  the  Truth. 

deemed  by  God  the  Son,  and  made  a  temple  of  the  Holy 
Ghost. 

Perhaps  we  have  jseen  an  insect  or  reptile  imprisoned  in 
wood  or  stone.  How  it  got  there  is  unknown — how  the 
particles  of  wood  in  years,  or  of  stone  in  ages,  grew  round 
it,  is  a  mystery,  but  not  a  greater  mystery  than  the  question 
of  how  man  became  incarcerated  in  evil.  At  last  the  day  of 
emancipation  came.  The  axe-stroke  was  given:  and  the 
light  came  in,  and  the  warmth ;  and  the  gauze  wings  ex- 
panded, and  the  eye  looked  bright ;  and  the  living  thing 
stepped  forth,  and  you  saw  that  there  was  not  its  home.  Its 
home  was  the  free  air  of  heaven. 

Christ  taught  that  truth  of  the  human  soul.  It  is  not  in 
its  right  place.  It  never  is  in  its  right  place  in  the  dark 
prison-house  of  sin.  Its  home  is  freedom  and  the  breath  of 
God's  life. 

3.  Truth  respecting  immortality. 

He  taught  that  this  life  is  not  all :  that  it  is  only  a  miser- 
able state  of  human  infancy.  He  taught  that  in  words :  by 
His  life,  and  by  His  resurrection. 

This,  again,  was  freedom.  If  there  be  a  faith  that  cramps 
and  enslaves  the  soul,  it  is  the  idea  that  this  life  is  all.  If 
there  be  one  that  expands  and  elevates,  it  is  the  thought  of 
immortality :  and  this,  observe,  is  something  quite  distinct 
from  the  selfish  desire  of  happiness.  It  is  not  to  enjoy,  but 
to  be,  that  we  long  for.  To  enter  into  more  and  higher  life : 
a  craving  which  we  can  only  part  with  when  we  sink  below 
humanity,  and  forfeit  it. 

This  was  the  martyrs'  strength.  They  were  tortured,  not 
accepting  deliverance,  that  they  might  attain  a  better  resur- 
rection. In  that  hope,  and  the  knowledge  of  that  truth,  they 
were  free  from  the  fear  of  pain  and  death. 

II.  The  nature  of  the  liberty  which  truth  gives. 

1.  Political  freedom. 

It  was  our  work  last  Sunday  to  show  that  Christianity 
does  not  directly  interfere  with  political  questions.  But  we 
should  have  only  half  done  our  work  if  we  had  not  also 
learned  that,  mediately  and  indirectly,  it  must  influence 
them.  Christ's  Gospel  did  not  promise  political  freedom,,  yet 
it  gave  it :  more  surely  than  conqueror,  reformer,  or  patriot, 
that  Gospel  will  bring  about  a  true  liberty  at  last. 

And  this,  not  by  theories  nor  by  schemes  of  constitutions, 
but  by  the  revelation  of  truths.  God  a  Spirit :  man  His 
child,  redeemed  and  sanctified.  Before  that  spiritual  equali- 
ty, all  distinctions  between  peer  and  peasant,  monarch  and 


Freedom  by  the  Truth.  2  \  3 

laborer,  privileged  and  unprivileged,  vanish.  A  better  man, 
or  a  wiser  man  than  I,  is  in  my  presence,  and  I  feel  it  a  mock- 
ery to  be  reminded  that  I  am  his  superior  in  rank. 

Let  us  hold  that  truth  ;  let  us  never  weary  of  proclaiming 
it ;  and  the  truth  shall  make  us  free  at  last. 

2.  Mental  independence. 

Slavery  is  that  which  cramps  powers.  The  worst  slavery 
is  that  which  cramps  the  noblest  powers.  Worse,  therefore, 
than  he  who  manacles  the  hands  and  feet,  is  he  who  puts 
fetters  on  the  mind,  and  pretends  to  demand  that  men  shall 
think,  and  believe,  and  feel  thus  arid  thus,  because  others  so 
believed,  and  thought,  and  felt  before. 

In  Judea  life  was  become  a  set  of  forms,  and  religion  a 
congeries  of  traditions.  One  living  word  from  the  lips  of 
Christ,  and  the  mind  of  the  world  was  free. 

Later,  a  mountain  mass  of  superstition  had  gathered 
round  the  Church,  atom  by  atom,  and  grain  by  grain.  Men 
said  that  the  soul  was  saved  only  by  doing  and  believing 
what  the  priesthood  taught.  Then  the  heroes  of  the  Refor- 
mation spoke.  They  said  the  soul  of  man  is  saved  by  the 
grace  of  God :  a  much  more  credible  hypothesis.  Once 
more' the  mind  of  the  world  was  made  free,  and  made  free 
by  truth. 

There  is  a  tendency  in  the  masses  always  to  think — not 
what  is  true,  but — what  is  respectable,  correct,  orthodox  : 
we  ask,  is  that  authorized  ?  It  comes  partly  from  cowardice, 
partly  from  indolence,  from  habit,  from  imitation,  from  the 
uncertainty  and  darkness  of  all  moral  truths,  and  the  dread 
of  timid  minds  to  plunge  into  the  investigation  of  them. 
Now,  truth  known  and  believed  respecting  God  and  man 
frees  from  this,  by  warning  of  individual  responsibility. 
But  responsibility  is  personal.  It  can  not  be  delegated  to 
another,  and  thrown  off  upon  a  church.  Before  God,  face 
to  face,  each  soul  must  stand  to  give  account. 

Do  not,  however,  confound  mental  independence  with  men- 
tal pride.  It  may,  it  ought  to  coexist  with  the  deepest  hu- 
mility. For  that  mind  "alone  is  free  which,  conscious  ever 
of  its  own  feebleness,  feeling  hourly  its  own  liability  to  err, 
turning  thankfully  to  light  from  whatever  side  it  may  come, 
does  yet  refuse  to  give  up  that  right  with  which  God  has  in- 
vested it  of  judging,  or  to  abrogate  its  own  responsibility, 
and  so  humbly,  and  even  awfully,  resolves  to  have  an  opin- 
ion, a  judgment,  a  decision  of  its  own. 

3.  Superiority  to  temptation. 

It  is  not  enough  to  define  the  liberty  which  Christ  prom- 
ises as  freedom  from  sin.  Many  circumstances  will  exempt 


214  Freedom  by  the  Truth. 

from  sin  which  do  not  yet  confer  that  liberty  "where  the 
Spirit  of  the  Lord  is."  Childhood,  paralysis,  ill  health,  the 
impotence  of  old  age  may  remove  the  capacity  and  even  the 
desire  of  transgression ;  but  the  child,  the  paralytic,  the  old 
man,  are  not  free  through  the  truth. 

Therefore,  to  this  definition  we  must  add,  that  one  whom 
Christ  liberates  is  free  by  his  own  will.  It  is  not  that  he 
would  and  can  not ;  but  that  he  can,  and  will  not.  Christian 
liberty  is  right  will,  sustained  by  love,  and  made  firm  by 
faith  in  Christ. 

This  may  be  seen  by  considering  the  opposite  of  liberty — 
moral  bondage.  Go  to  the  intemperate  man  in  the  morn- 
ing, when  his  head  aches,  his  hand  trembles,  his  throat  burns, 
and  his  whole  frame  is  relaxed  and  unstrung :  he  is  ashamed, 
he  hates  his  sin,  and  would  not  do  it.  Go  to  him  at  night, 
when  the  power  of  habit  is  on  him  like  a  spell,  and  he  obeys 
the  mastery  of  his  craving.  He  can  use  the  language  of 
Romans  vii. :  "  That  which  he  would,  he  does  not  •"  but  the 
evil  thatvhe  hates,  that  does  he."  Observe,  he  is  not  in  pos- 
session of  a  true  self.  It  is  not  he,  but  sin  which  dwelleth  in 
him,  that  does  it.  A  power  which  is  not  himself,  which  is  not 
he,  commands  him  against  himself.  And  that  is  slavery. 

This  is  a  gross  case,  but  in  every  more  refined  instance  the 
slavery  is  just  as  real.  Wherever  a  man  would  and  can  not, 
there  is  servitude.  He  may  be  unable  to  control  his  expend- 
iture, to  rouse  his  indolence,  to  check  his  imagination. 
Well,  he  is  not  free.  He  may  boast,  as  the  Jews  did,  that 
he  is  Abraham's  son,  or  any  other  great  man's  son — that  he 
belongs  to  a  free  country — that  he  never  was  in  bondage  to 
any  man,  but  free  in  the  freedom  of  the  Son  he  is  not. 

4.  Superiority  to  fear. 

Fear  enslaves,  courage  liberates — and  that  always.  What- 
ever a  man  intensely  dreads,  that  brings  him  into  bondage, 
if  it  be  above  the  fear  of  God  and  the  reverence  of  duty. 
The  apprehension  of  pain,  the  fear  of  death,  the  dread  of  the 
world's  laugh,  of  poverty,  or  the  loss  of  reputation,  enslave 
alike. 

From  such  fear  Christ  frees,  and  through  the  power  of 
the  truths  I  have  spoken  of.  He  who  lives  in  the  habitual 
contemplation  of  immortality  can  not  be  in  boodage  to  time, 
or  enslaved  by  transitory  temptations.  I  do  not.  say  he  will 
not ;  "  he  can  not  sin,"  saith  the  Scripture,  while  that  faitb  is 
living.  He  who  feels  his  soul's  dignity,  knowing  what  he  is 
and  who,  redeemed  by  God  the  Son,  and  freed  by  God  the 
Spirit,  can  not  cringe,  nor  pollute  himself,  nor  be  mean.  He 
who  aspires  to  gaze  undazzled  on  the  intolerable  brightness 


f  UNIVERSITY  j 
Freedom  by  the  7>^&  '2  1  5 


of  that  One  before  whom  Israel  veiled  their  faces,  will 
scarcely  quail  before  any  earthly  fear. 

This  is  not  picture-painting.  This  is  not  declamation. 
These  are  things  that  have  been.  There  have  been  men  on 
this  earth  of  God's,  of  whom  it  was  simply  true  that  it  was 
easier  to  turn  the  sun  from  its  course  than  them  from  the 
paths  of  honor.  There  have  been  men  like  John  the  Baptist, 
who  could  speak  the  truth  which  had  made  their  own  spirits 
free,  with  the  axe  above  their  neck.  There  have  been  men, 
redeemed  in  their  inmost  being  by  Christ,  on  whom  tyrants 
and  mobs  have  done  their  worst,  and  when,  like  Stephen,  the 
stones  crashed  in  upon  their  brain,  or  when  their  flesh  hissed 
and  crackled  in  the  flames,  were  calmly  superior  "to  it  all. 
The  power  of  evil  had  laid  its  shackles  on  the  flesh,  but  the 
mind,  and  the  soul,  and  the  heart  were  free. 

We  conclude  with  two  inferences  : 

1.  To  cultivate  the  love  of  truth.    I  do  not  mean  veracity  : 
that  is  another  thing.     Veracity  is  the  correspondence  be- 
tween a  proposition  and  a  man's  belief.     Truth  is  the  corre- 
spondence of  the  proposition  with  fact.     The  love  of  truth  is 
the  love  of  realities  —  the  determination  to  rest  upon  facts, 
and  not  upon  semblances.     Take  an  illustration  of  the  way 
in  which  the  habit  of  cultivating  truth  is  got.     Two  boys  see 
a  misshapen,  hideous  object  in  the  dark.     One  goes  up  to  the 
cause  of  his  terror,  examines  it,  learns  what  it  is  ;  he  knows 
the  truth,  and  the  truth  has  made  him  free.     The  other  leaves 
it  in  mystery  and  unexplained  vagueness,  and  is  a  slave  for 
life  to  superstitions  and  indefinite  terrors.     Romance,  pretti- 
ness,  "  dim  religious  light,"  awe  and  mystery  —  these  are  not 
the  atmosphere  of  Christ's  gospel  of  liberty.     Base  the  heart 
on  facts.     The  truth  alone  can  make  you  free. 

2.  See  what  a  Christian  is.     Our  society  is  divided  into 
two  classes  —  those  who  are  daring,  inquisitive,  but  restrain- 
ed by  no  reverence,  and  kept  back  by  little  religion  ;  those 
who  may  be  called  religious  :  but,  with  all  their  excellences, 
we  can  not  help  feeling  that  the  elements  of  their  character 
are  feminine  rather  than  masculine,  and  that  they  have  no 
grasp  or  manly  breadth,  that  their  hold  is  on  feeling  rather 
than  on  truth. 

Now  see  what  a  Christian  is,  drawn  by  the  hand  of  Christ. 
He  is  a  man  on  whose  clear  and  open  brow  God  has  set  the 
stamp  of  truth  :  one  whose  very  eye  beams  bright  with  hon- 
or; in  whose  very  look  and  bearing  you  may  see  freedom, 
manliness,  veracity  ;  a  brave  man  —  a  noble  man  —  frank,  gen- 
erous, true,  with,  it  may  be,  many  faults;  whose  freedom 
may  take  the  form  of  impetuosity  or  rashness,  but  the  form 


2 1 6  The  Kingdom  of  the  Truth. 

of  meanness  never.  Young  men,  if  you  have  been  deterred 
from  religion  by  its  apparent  feebleness  and  narrowness,  re- 
member, it  is  a  manly  thing  to  be  a  Christian. 


XX. 
THE  KINGDOM  OF  THE  TRUTH. 

"  Pilate  therefore  said  unto  him,  Art  thou  a  king  then  ?  Jesus  answered, 
Thou  sayest  that  I  am  a  king.  To  this  end  was  I  born,  and  for  this  cause 
came  I  into  the  world,  that  I  should  bear  witness  unto  the  truth.  Every  one 
that  is  of  the  tuith  heareth  my  voice." — John  xviii.  37. 

THE  Church  is  the  kingdom  of  God  on  earth,  and  the  whole 
fabric  of  the  Christian  religion  rests  on  the  monarchy  of 
Christ.  The  Hebrew  prisoner  who  stood  before  the  Roman 
judge  claimed  to  be  the  King  of  men,  and  eighteen  centuries 
have  only  verified  His  claim.  There  is  not  a  man  bearing 
the  Christian  name  who  does  not,  in  one  form  or  another,  ac- 
knowledge Him  to  be  the  Sovereign  of  his  soul.  The  ques- 
tion therefore  at  once  suggests  itself — On  what  title  does  this 
claim  rest  ? 

Besides  the  title  on  which  the  Messiah  grounded  His  pre- 
tensions to  be  the  Ruler  of  a  kingdom,  three  are  conceivable : 
the  title  of  force,  the  title  of  prescriptive  authority,  or  the  ti- 
tle of  incontrovertible  reasoning. 

Had  the  Messiah  founded  His  kingdom  upon  the  basis  of 
force,  he  would  simply  have  been  a  rival  of  the  Caesars.  The 
imperial  power  of  Rome  rested  on  that  principle.  This  was  all 
that  Pilate  meant  at  first  by  the  question,  "Art  thou  a  king  ?" 
As  a  Roman,  he  had  no  other  conception  of  rule.  Right 
well  had  Rome  fulfilled  her  mission  as  the  iron  kingdom 
which  was  to  command  by  strength,  and  give  to  the  world 
the  principles  of  law.  But  that  kingdom  was  wasting  when 
these  words  were  spoken.  For  seven  hundred  years  had  the 
empire  been  building  itself  up.  It  gave  way  at  last,  and  was 
crumbled  into  fragments  by  its  own  ponderous  massiveness. 
To  use  the  language  of  the  prophet  Daniel,  miry  clay  had  mix- 
ed with  the  kingdom  of  iron,  and  the  softer  nations  which  had 
been  absorbed  into  it  broke  down  its  once  invincible  strength 
by  corrupting  and  enervating  its  citizens ;  the  conquerors  of 
the  world  dropped  the  sword  from  a  grasp  grown  nerveless. 
The  empire  of  strength  was  passing  away ;  for  no  kingdom 
founded  on  force  is  destined  to  permanence.  "They  that 
take  the  sword  shall  perish  with  the  sword." 


The  Kingdom  of  the  Truth.  2 1 7 

Before  Pontius  Pilate  Christ  distinctly  disclaimed  this  right 
of  force  as*  the  foundation  of  his  sovereignty.  "If  my  king- 
dom were  of  this  world,  then  would  my  servants  fight :  but 
now  is  .my  kingdom  not  from  hence." 

The  next  conceivable  basis  of  a  universal  kingdom  is  pre- 
scriptive authority.  The  scribes  and  priests  who  waited  out- 
side for  their  victim  conceived  of  such  a  kingdom.  They 
had  indeed  already  an  ecclesiastical'  kingdom  which  dated 
back  far  beyond  the  origin  of  Rome.  They  claimed  to  rule 
on  a  title  such  as  this  :  "  It  is  written."  But  neither  on  this 
title  did  the  Saviour  found  His  claim.  He  spoke  lightly  of 
institutions  which  were  venerable  from  age.  He  contravened 
opinions  which  were  gray  with  the  hoar  of  ages.  It  may  be 
that  at  times  He  defended  Himself  on  the  authority  of  Moses, 
by  showing  that  what  He  taught  was  not  in  opposition  to 
Moses;  but  it  is  observable  that  He  never  rested  His  claims 
as  a  teacher,  or  as  the  Messiah,  on  that  foundation.  The 
scribes  fell  back  on  this :  "  It  has  been  said  ;"  or, "  It  is  writ- 
ten." Christ  taught,  as  the  men  of  His  day  remarked,  on  an 
authority  very  diiferent  from  that  of  the  scribes.  Not  even 
on  His  own  authority :  He  did  not  claim  that  His  words 
should  be  recognized  because  He  said  them,  but  because  they 
were  true.  "  If  I  say  the  truth,  why  do  ye  not  believe  me  ?" 
Prescription — personal  authority — these  were  not  the  basis 
of  His  kingdom. 

One  more  possible  title  remains.  He  might  have  claimed 
to  rule  over  men  on  the  ground  of  incontrovertible  demon- 
stration of  His  principles.  This  was  the  ground  taken  by  ev- 
ery philosopher  who  was  the  founder  of  a  sect.  Apparently, 
after  the  failure  of  his  first  guess,  Pilate  thought  in  the  sec- 
ond surmise  that  this  was  what  Jesus  meant  by  calling  Him- 
self a  king.  When  fie  heard  of  a  kingdom,  he  thought  he 
had  before  him  a  rival  of  Caasap ;  but  when  truth  was  named, 
he  seems  to  have  fancied  that  he  was  called  to  try  a  rival  of 
the  philosophers — some  new  candidate  for  a  system — some 
new  pretender  of  a  truth  which  was  to  dethrone  its  rival  sys-_ 
tern. 

This  seems  to  be  implied  in  the  bitter  question,  "  What  is 
truth  ?"  For  the  history  of  opinion  in  those  days  was  like 
the  history  of  opinion  in  our  own — religions  against  religions, 
philosophies  against  philosophies — religion  and  philosophy 
opposed  to  one  another — the  opinion  of  to-day  dethroned  by 
the  opinion  of  to-morrow — the  heterodoxy  of  this  age  reckon- 
ed the  orthodoxy  of  the  succeeding  one.  And  Pilate,  feeling 
the  vainness  and  the  presumption  of  these  pretensions,  having 
lived  to  see  failure  after  failure  of  systems  which  pretended  tft 

10 


2 1 8  The  Kingdom  of  the  Truth. 

teach  that  which  is,  smiled  bitterly  at  the  enthusiast  who 
again  asserted  confidently  His  claims  to  have  discovered  the 
undiscoverable.  There  broke  from  his  lips  a  bitter,  half-sar- 
castic, half-sad  exclamation  of  hopeless  skepticism,  "What  is 
truth?" 

And  indeed  had  the  Redeemer  claimed  this — to  overthrow 
the  doctrine  of  the  Porch  and  of  the  Academy,  and  to  en- 
throne Christianity  as  a  philosophy  of  life  upon  their  ruins, 
by  mere  argument,  that  skeptical  cry  would  have  been  not 
ill-timeql. 

In  these  three  ways  have  men  attempted  the  propagation 
of  the  Gospel.  By  force,  when  the  Church  ruled  by  persecu- 
tion— by  prescriptive  authority,  when  she  claimed  infallibili- 
ty, or  any  modification  of  infallibility  in  the  Popery  of  Rome 
or  the  Popery  of  the  pulpit — by  reasoning,  in  the  age  of 
"  evidences,"  when  she  only  asked  to  have  her  proofs  brought 
forward  and  calmly  heard,  pledged  herself  to  rule  the  world 
by  the  conviction  of  the  understanding,  and  laid  deep  and 
broad  the  foundations  of  rationalism.  Let  us  hear  the  claim 
of  the  King  Himself.  He  rested  His  royal  rights  on  His  tes- 
timony to  the  truth.  "  Thou  sayest,  for  I  am  a  King  (a  more 
correct  translation) ;  to  this  end  was  I  born,  to  bear  witness 
to  the  truth."  The  mode  in  which  the  subjects  of  the  king- 
dom were  brought  beneath  His  sway  was  by  assimilation. 
"  Every  one  that  is  of  the  truth,  heareth  My  voice."  These, 
then,  are  our  points: 

I.  The  basis  of  the  kingly  rule  of  Christ. 
II.  The  qualifications  of  the  subjects  of  the  kingdom. 

I.  The  basis  of  the  kingly  rule  of  Christ. 

Christ  is  a  king  in  virtue  of  His  being  a  witness  to  the 
truth.  "Thou  sayest  right,  To  this  end  was  I  born,  and  for 
this  cause  came  I  into  the  world,  that  I  should  bear  witness 
unto  the  truth." 

Truth  is  used  here  in  a  sense  equivalent  to  reality:  for 
-•l  truth  "  substitute  reality,  and  it  will  become  more  intelligi- 
ble. For  "  the  truth  "  is  an  ambiguous  expression,  limited  in 
its  application,  meaning  often  nothing  more  than  a  theologi- 
cal creed,  or  a  few  dogmas  of  a  creed  which  this  or  that  par- 
ty  have  agreed  to  call  "the  truth."  It  would  indeed  fritter 
down  the  majesty  of  the  Redeemer's  life  to  say  that  He  was 
a  witness  for  the  truth  of  any  number  of  theological  dogmas. 
Himself — His  life — were  a  witness  to  truth  in  the  sense  of  re- 
ality. The  realities  of  life — the  realities  of  the  universe — to 
these  His  every  act  and  word  bore  testimony.  He  was  as 
much  a  witness  to  the  truth  of  tlie  purity  of  domestic  life  aa 


The  Kingdom  of  the  Truth.  2 1 9 

to  the  truth  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation  :  to  the  truth 
of  goodness  being  identical  with  greatness  as  much  as  to  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity — and  more  :  His  mind  corresponded 
with  reality  as  the  dial  with  the  sun. 

Again,  in  being  a  witness  to  reality,  we  are  to  understand 
something  very  much  deeper  than  the  statement  that  He 
spoke  truly.  There  is  a  wide  difference  between  truthfulness 
and  mere  veracity.  Veracity  implies  a  correspondence  be- 
tween words  and  thoughts :  truthfulness,  a  correspondence 
between  thoughts  and  realities.  To  be  veracious,  it  is  only 
necessary  that  a  man  give  utterance  to  his  convictions;  to  be 
true,  it  is  needful  that  his  convictions  have  affinity  with  fact. 

Let  us  take  some  illustrations  of  this  distinction.  The 
prophet  tells  of  men  who  put  sweet  for  bitter,  and  bitter  for 
sweet :  who  call  good  evil,  and  evil  good.  Yet  these  were 
veracious  men ;  for  to  them  evil  was  good,  and  bitter  was 
sweet.  There  was  a  correspondence  between  their  opinions 
and  their  words :  this  was  veracity.  But  there  was  no  cor- 
respondence between  their  opinions  and  eternal  fact :  this 
was  untruthfulness.  They  spoke  their  opinions  truly,  but 
their  opinions  were  not  true.  The  Pharisees  in  the  time  of 
Christ  were  men  of  veracity.  What  they  thought  they  said. 
They  thought  that  Christ  was  an  impostor.  They  believed 
that  to  tithe  mint,  anise,  and  cummin  was  as  acceptable  to 
God  as  to  be  just,  and  merciful,  and  true.  It  was  their  con 
viction  that  they  were  immeasurably  better  than  publicans 
and  profligates  :  yet  veracious  as  they  were,  the  title  perpet- 
ually affixed  to  them  is,  "  Ye  hypocrites."  The  life  they  led 
being  a  false  life,  is  called,  in  the  phraseology  of  the  Apostle 
John,  a  lie. 

If  a  man  speak  a  careless  slander  against  another,  believ- 
ing it,  he  has  not  sinned  against  veracity ;  but  the  careless- 
ness which  has  led  him  into  so  grave  an  error  effectually 
bars  his  claim  to  clear  truthfulness.  He  is  a  veracious  wit- 
ness, but  not  a  true  one.  Or  a  man  may  have  taken  up  sec- 
ond-hand, indolently,  religious  views  :  may  believe  them,  de- 
fend them  vehemently,  is  he  a  man  of  truth  ?  Has  he  bowed 
before  the  majesty  of  truth  with  that  patient,  reverential 
humbleness  which  is  the  mark  of  those  who  love  her? 

Imagination  has  pictured  to  itself  a  domain  in  which  every 
one  who  enters  should  be  compelled  to  speak  only  what  he 
thought,  and  pleased  itself  by  calling  such  domain  the  pal- 
ace of  truth.  A  palace  of  veracity,  if  you  will,  but  no  tem- 
ple of  the  truth  :  a  place  where  every  one  would  be  at  liberty 
to  utter  his  own  crude  unrealities — to  bring  forth  his  delu- 
sions, mistakes,  half-formed  hasty  judgments  :  where  the  de« 


22O  The  Kingdom  of  the  Truth. 

praved  ear  would  reckon  discord  harmony,  and  the  depraved 
eye  mistake  color — the  depraved  moral  taste  take  Herod  or 
Tiberius  for  a  king,  and  shout  beneath  the  Redeemer's  Cross, 
"Himself  He  can  not  save."  A  temple  of  the  truth  ?  Nay, 
only  a  palace  echoing  with  veracious  falsehoods  :  a  Babel 
of  confused  sounds,  in  which  egotism  would  rival  egotism, 
and  truth  would  be  each  man's  own  lie.  Far,  far  more  is 
implied  here  than  that  the  Son  of  Man  spoke  veraciously,  in 
saying  that  He  was  a  witness  to  the  truth. 

Again,  when  it  is  said  that  He  was  a  witness  to  the  truth, 
it  is  implied  that  His  very  being,  here,  manifested  to  the 
world  Divine  realities.  Human  nature  is  but  meant  to  be  a 
witness  to  the  Divine ;  the  true  humanity  is  a  manifestation 
or  reflection  of  God.  And  that  is  Divine  humanity  in 
which  the  humanity  is  a  perfect  representation  of  the  Divine. 
"We  behold,"  says  the  Apostle  Paul,  in  Christ,  "as  in  a 
glass,  the  glory  of  the  Lord."  And,  to  borrow  and  carry  on 
the  metaphor,  the  difference  between  Christ  and  other  men 
is  this ;  they  are  imperfect  reflections,  He  a  perfect  one,  of 
God. 

There  are  mirrors  which  are  concave,  which  magnify  the 
thing  that  they  reflect :  there  are  mirrors  convex,  which  di- 
minish it.  And  we  in  like  manner  represent  the  Divine  in  a 
false,  distorted  way.  Fragments  of  truth  torn  out  of  connec- 
tion, snatches  of  harmony  joined  without  unity.  We  exag- 
gerate and  diminish  till  all  becomes  untrue.  We  bring  forth 
our  own  fancies,  our  own  idiosyncrasies,  our  own  imagina- 
tions, and  the  image  of  God  can  be  no  longer  recognized. 

In  One  alone  has  the  Divine  been  so  blended  with  the 
human,  that,  as  the  ocean  mirrors  every  star  and  every  tint 
of  blue  upon  the  sky,  so  was  the  earthly  life  of  Christ  the 
life  of  God  on  earth. 

Now,  observe,  that  the  perfection  of  humanity  consists  in 
faithful  imitation  of,  or  witness  borne  to,  the  mind  and  life  of 
God.  Whoever  has  studied  and  understood  the  life  of  Christ 
will  have  remarked,  not  without  surprise,  that  the  whole 
principle  of  His  existence  was  the  habit  of  unceasing  imita- 
tion. Listen  to  a  few  instances  of  this. 

"  The  Son  can  do  nothing  of  Himself,  but  that  which  He 
geeth  the  Father  do."  "  The  words  which  I  speak  I  speak 
not  of  myself,  but  the  Father  which  is  with  me,  He  doeth 
the  works."  Do  we  remember  the  strange  and  startling 
principle  on  which  He  defends  His  infraction  of  the  literal, 
legal  Sabbath  ?  "  My  Father  worketh  hitherto,  and  I  work." 
God  the  Father  works  all  the  sabbath-day.  So  may  man, 
His  son.  Do  we  recollect  the  ground  on  which  He  enforces 


The  Kingdom  of  the  Truth.         ,     221 

forgiveness  of  injuries  ?  A  strange  ground,  surely,  which 
would  never  have  occurred  except  to  One  whose  life  was 
habitual  imitation.  "  Love  your  enemies ;  do  good  to  them 
that  hate  you,  and  pray  for  them  which  despitefully  use  you 
and  persecute  you  :  that  ye  may  be  the  children  of  (that  is, 
resemble)  your  Father ;  .  .  .  for  He  sendeth  His  rain  upon  the 
just  and  upon  the  unjust." 

This,  then,  is  man's — this  was  the  Son  of  Man's  relation  to 
the  truth.  Man  is  but  a  learner — a  devout  recipient  of  a 
revelation — here  to  listen  with  open  ear  devoutly  for  that* 
which  he  shall  hear ;  to  gaze  and  watch  for  that  which  He 
shall  see.  Man  can  do  no  more.  He  can  not  create  truth, 
he  can  only  bear  witness  to  it ;  he  has  no  proud  right  of 
private  judgment,  he  can  only  listen  and  report  that  which 
is  in  the  universe.  If  he  does  not  repeat  and  witness  to 
that,  he  speaketh  of  his  own,  and  forthwith  ceaseth  to  be 
true.  He  is  a  liar,  and  the  father  of  it,  because  he  creates  it. 
Each  man  in  his 'vocation  is  in  the  world  to  do  this:  as 
truly  as  it  was  said  by  Christ  rnay  it  be  said  by  each  of  us, 
even  by  those  from  whose  trades  and  professions  it  seems 
most  alien,  "  To  this  end  was  I  born,  and  for  this  cause 
came  I  into  the  world,  to  bear  witness  to  the  truth." 

The  architect  is  here  to  be  a  witness.  He  succeeds  only 
so  far  as  he  is  a  witness,  and  a  true  one.  The  lines  and 
curves,  the  acanthus  on  his  column,  the  proportions,  all  are 
successful  and  beautiful  only  so  far  as  they  are  true — the 
report  of  an  eye  which  has  lain  open  to  God's  world.  If  he 
build  his  light-house  to  resist  the  storm,  the  law  of  imitation 
bids  him  build  it  after  the  shape  of  the  spreading  oak  which 
has  defied  the  tempest.  If  man  construct  the  ship  which  is 
to  cleave  the  waters,  calculation  or  imitation  builds  it  on  the 
model  upon  which  the  Eternal  Wisdom  has  already  con- 
structed the  fish's  form. 

The  artist  is  a  witness  to  the  truth,  or  he  will  never  attain 
the  beautiful.  So  is  the  agriculturist,  or  he  will  never  reap 
a  harvest.  So  is  the  statesman,  building  up  a  nation's  polity 
ou  the  principles  which  time  has  proved  true,  or  else  all  his 
work  crumbles  down  in  revolution  :  for  national  revolution 
is  only  the  Divine  rejection  stamped  on  the  social  falsehood 
— which  can  not  stand.  In  every  department  of  life,  man 
must  work  truly — as  a  witness.  He  is  born  for  that,  noth- 
ing else :  and  nothing  else  can  he  do.  Man  the  Son  can  do 
nothing  of  Himself,  but  that  which  He  seeth  God  the  Father 
do. 

This  was  the  Saviour's  title  to  be  a  king,  and  His  king- 
dom formed  itself  upon  this  law  :  "  Every  one  that  is  of  the 


222  The  Kingdom  of  the  Truth. 

truth  heareth  iny  voice :"  that  eternal  law  which  makes 
truth  assimilate  all  that  is  congenial  to  itself.  Truth  is  like 
life :  whatever  lives  absorbs  into  itself  all  that  is  congenial. 
The  leaf  that  trembles  in  the  wind  assimilates  the  light  of 
heaven  to  make  its  color,  and  the  sap  of  the  parent  stem, 
innumerable  influences  from  heaven,  and  earth,  and  air,  to 
make  up  its  beautiful  being. 

So  grew  the  Church  of  Christ  —  round  Him,  as  a  centre, 
attracted  by  the  truth :  all  that  had  in  it  harmony  with  His 
Divine  life  and  words  grew  to  Him  (by  gradual  accretions)  ; 
clung  to  Him  as  the  iron  to  the  magnet.  All  that  were  of 
His  Spirit  believed :  all  that  had  in  them  the  Spirit  of  Sacri- 
fice were  attracted  to  His  Cross.  "  I,  if  I  be  lifted  up,  will 
draw  all  men  unto  me." 

He  taught  not  by  elaborate  trains  of  argument,  like  a 
scribe  or  a  philosopher :  He  uttered  His  truths  rather  as 
detached  intuitions,  recognized  by  intuition,  to  be  judged 
only  by  being  felt.  For  instance,  "  Blessed  are  the  pure  in 
heart :  for  they  shall  see  God."  "  It  is  more  blessed  to  give 
than  to  receive."  "  Blessed  are  ye  when  men  shall  revile 
you,  and  persecute  you."  Prove  that — by  force — by  au- 
thority— by  argument — you  can  not.  It  suffices  that  a  man 
reply,  "  It  is  not  so  to  me  :  it  is  more  blessed  to  receive  than 
it  is  to  give."  You  have  no  reply :  if  he  be  not  of  the 
truth,  you  can  not  make  him  hear  Christ's  voice.  The  truth 
of  Christ  is  true  to  the  unselfish  ;  a  falsehood  to  the  selfish. 
They  that  are  of  the  truth,  like  Him,  hear  His  voice  :  and  if 
you  ask  the  Christian's  proof  of  the  truth  of  such  things,  he 
has  no  other  than  this :  It  is  true  to  me,  as  any  other  intui- 
tive truth  is  true ;  equals  are  equal,  because  my  mind  is  so 
constituted  that  they  seem  so  perforce.  Purity  is  good,  be- 
cause my  heart  is  so  made  that  it  feels  it  to  be  good. 

Brother  men,  the  truer  you  are,  the  humbler,  the  nobler, 
the  more  will  you  feel  Christ  to  be  your  king.  You  may  be 
very  little  able  to  prove  the  king's  Divine  genealogy,  or  to 
appreciate  those  claims  to  your  allegiance  which  arise  out 
of  His  eternal  generation :  but  He  will  be  your  Sovereign 
and  your  Lord  by  that  affinity  of  character  which  compels 
you  to  acknowledge  His  words  and  life  to  be  Divine.  "  He 
that  receiveth  His  testimony  hath  set  to  his  seal  that  God  is 
true." 

II.  We  pass  to  the  consideration  of  the  qualification  of  the 
subjects  .of  the  empire  of  the  truth.  Who  are  they  that  are 
of  the  truth. 

1.  The  first  qualification  is  to  be  true  :  "  He  that  is  of  the 


The  Kingdom  of  Ike  Truth.  223 

truth  heareth  My  voice."  Truth  lies  in  character.  Christ 
did  not  simply  speak  truth :  He  was  truth  :  true  through 
and  through ;  for  truth  is  a  thing,  not  of  words,  but  of  life 
and  being.  None  but  a  Spirit  can  be  true. 

For  example.  The  friends  of  Job  spoke  words  of  truth. 
Scarcely  a  maxim  which  they  uttered  could  be  impugned : 
cold,  hai'4,  theological  verities  :  but  verities  out  of  place,  in 
that  place  cruel  and  untrue.  Job  spoke  many  words  not 
strictly  accurate — hasty,  impetuous, blundering,  wrong;  but 
the  whirlwind  came,  and,  before  the  voice  of  God,  the  vera- 
cious falsehoods  were  swept  into  endless  nothingness:  the 
true  man,  wrong,  perplexed  in  verbal  error,  stood  firm :  he 
was  true  though  his  sentences  were  not :  turned  to  the  truth 
as  the  sunflower  to  the  sun :  as  the  darkened  plant  impris- 
oned in  the  vault  turns  towards  the  light,  struggling  to 
solve  the  fearful  enigma  of  his  existence.  Job  was  a  servant 
of  the  truth,  being  true  in  character. 

2.  The  next  qualification  is  integrity.  But  by  integrity  I 
do  not  mean  simply  sincerity  or  honesty;  integrity  rather 
according-  to  the  meaning  of  the  word  as  its  derivation  inter- 
prets it  —  entireness  —  wholeness  —  soundness:  that  which 
Christ  means  when  He  says,  "  If  thine  eye  be  single  [or 
sound],  thy  whole  body  shall  be  full  of  light." 

This  integrity  extends  through  the  entireness  or  whole- 
ness of  the  character.  It  is  found  in  small  matters  as  well 
as  great ;  for  the  allegiance  of  the  soul  to  truth  is  tested  by 
small  things  rather  than  by  those  which  are  more  important. 
There  is  many  a  man  who  would  lose  his  life  rather  than 
perjure  himself  in  a  court  of  justice,  whose  life  is  ye*t  a  tis- 
sue of  small  insincerities.  We  think  that  we  hate  falsehood 
when  we  are  only  hating  the  consequences  of  falsehood. 
We  resent  hypocrisy  and  treachery  and  calumny,  not  be- 
cause they  are  untrue,  but  because  they  harm  us.  We  hate 
the  false  calumny,  but  we  are  half  pleased  with  the  false 
praise.  It  is  evidently  not  the  element  of  untruth  here  that 
is  displeasing,  but  the  element  of  harmfulness.  Now  he  is  a 
man  of  integrity  who  hates  untruth  as  untruth  :  who  resents 
the  smooth  and  polished  falsehood  of  society  which  does  no 
harm :  who  turns  in  indignation  from  the  glittering  whiten 
ed  lie  of  sepulchral  Pharisaism  which  injures  no  one.  Integ- 
rity recoils  from  deceptions  which  men  would  almost  smile 
to  hear  called  deception.  To  a  moral,  pure  mind,  the  arti- 
fices in  every  department  of  life  are  painful :  the  stained 
wood  which  passes  for  a  more  firm  and  costly  material  in  a 
building,  and  deceives  the  eye  by  seeming  what  it  is  not, 
marble  :  the  painting  which  is  intended  to  be  taken  for  a  re 


224  The  Kingdom  of  the  Truth. 

ality :  the  gilding  which  is  meant  to  pass  for  gold :  and  the 
glass  which  is  worn  to  look  like  jewels  ;  for  there  is  a  moral 
feeling  and  a  truthfulness  in  architecture,  in  painting,  and  in 
dress,  as  well  as  in  the  market-place,  and  in  the  senate,  and 
in  the  judgment-hall. 

"  These  are  trifles."  Yes,  these  are  trifles— but  it  is  just 
these  trifles  which  go  to  the  formation  of  character.  He 
that  is  habituated  to  deceptions  and  artificialities  in  trifles, 
Hvill  try  in  vain  to  be  true  in  matters  of  importance :  foi 
truth  is  a  thing  of  habit  rather  than  of  will.  You  can  not  in 
any  given  case,  by  any  sudden  and  single  effort,  will  to  be 
true,  if  the  habit  of  your  life  has  been  insincerity.  And  it  is 
a  fearful  question  and  a  difficult  one,  how  all  these  things, 
the  atmosphere  which  we  breathe  of  our  daily  life,  may  sap 
the  very  foundations  of  the  power  of  becoming  a  servant  of 
the  truth.  Life  becomes  fictitious :  and  it  passes  into  religion, 
till  our  very  religion  bases  itself  upon  a  figment  too.  We 
are  not  righteous,  but  we  expect  God  to  make  believe  that 
we  are  righteous,  in  virtue  of  some  peculiar  doctrines  which 
we  hold ;  and  so  our  very  righteousness  becomes  the  ficti* 
tious  righteousness  of  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  instead  of 
the  righteousness  which  is  by  faith,  the  righteousness  of 
those  who  are  the  children  of  the  kingdom  of  the  truth. 

3.  Once  more.  He  alone  is  qualified  to  be  the  subject  of 
the  King  who  does  the  truth.  Christianity  joins  two  things 
inseparably  together:  acting  truly,  and  perceiving  truly. 
Every  day  the  eternal  nature  of  that  principle  becomes 
more  certain.  If  any  man  will  do  His  will,  he  shall  know  of 
the  doctrine  whether  it  be  of  God. 

It  is  a  perilous  thing  to  separate  feeling  from  acting ;  to 
have  learnt  to  feel  rightly  without  acting  rightly.  It  is  a 
danger  to  which  in  a  refined  and  polished  age,  we  are  pecul- 
iarly exposed.  The  romance,  the  poem,  and  the  sermon, 
teach  us  how  to  feel.  Our  feelings  are  delicately  correct. 
But  the  danger  is  this  :  feeling  is  given  to  lead  to  action  ; 
if  feeling  be  suffered  to  awake  without  passing  into  duty, 
the  character  becomes  untrue.  When  the  emergency  for 
real  action  comes,  the  feeling  is  as  usual  produced :  but  ac- 
customed as  it  is  to  rise  in  fictitious  circumstances"  without 
action,  neither  will  it  lead  on  to  action  in  the  real  ones. 
"  We  pity  wretchedness  and  shun  the  wretched."  We  utter 
sentiments,  just,  honorable,  refined,  lofty  —  but  somehow, 
when  a  truth  presents  itself  in  the  shape  of  a  duty,  we  are 
unable  to  perform  it.  And  so  such  characters  become  by 
degrees  like  the  artificial  pleasure-grounds  of  bad  taste,  in 
which  the  waterfall  does  not  fall,  and  the  grotto  offers  only 


The  Kingdom  of  the  Truth.  225 

the  refreshment  of  an  imaginary  shade,  and  the  green  hill 
does  not  strike  the  skies,  and  the  tree  does  not  grow.  Their 
lives  are  a  sugared  crust  of  sweetness  trembling  over  black 
depths  of  hollowness  :  more  truly  still,  "  whited  sepulchres" 
— fair  without  to  look  upon,  "  within  full  of  all  uncleanness." 

It  is  perilous,  again,  to  separate  thinking  rightly  from  act- 
,ing  rightly.  He  is  already  half  false  who  speculates  on  truth 
and  does  not  do  it.  Truth  is  given,  not  to  be  contemplated, 
but  to  be  done.  Life  is  an  action — not  a  thought.  And  the 
penalty  paid  by  him  who  speculates  on  truth,  is  that  by  de- 
grees the  very  truth  he  holds  becomes  to  him  a  falsehood. 

There  is  no  truthfulness,  therefore,  except  in  the  witness 
borne  to  God  by  doing  His  will — to  live  the  truths  we  hold, 
or  else  they  will  be  no  truths  at  all  It  was  thus  that  He 
witnessed  to  the  truth.  He  lived  it.  He  spoke  no  touching 
truths  for  sentiment  to  dwell  on,  or  thought  to  speculate  upon. 
Truth  with  Him  was  a  matter  of  life  and  death.  He  periled 
His  life  upon  the  words  He  said.  If  He  were  true,  the  life 
of  men  was  a  painted  life,  and  the  woes  He  denounced  un- 
flinchingly would  fall  upon  the  Pharisees.  But  \fthey  were 
true,  or  even  strong,  His  portion  in  this  life  was  the  Cross. 

Who  is  a  true  man  ?  He  who  does  the  truth ;  and  never 
holds  a  principle  on  which  he  is  not  prepared  in  any  hour  to 
act,  and  in  any  hour  to  risk  the  consequences  of  holding  it. 

I  make  in  conclusion  one  remark.  The  kingly  character 
of  truth  is  exhibited  strikingly  in  the  calmness  of  the  bearing 
of  the  Son  of  Man  before  His  judge.  Veracity  is  not  neces- 
sarily dignified.  There  is  a  vulgar  effrontery — a  spirit  of 
defiance  which  .taunts,  and  braves,  and  challenges  coriderrfna- 
tion.  It  marks  the  man  who  is  conscious  of  sincerity,  but  of 
nothing  higher — whose  confidence  is  in  himself  and  his  own 
honesty,  and  who  is  absorbed  in  the  feeling,  "  I  speak  the 
truth  and  am  a  martyr."  Again,  the  man  of  mere  veracity 
is  often  violent,  for  what  he  says  rests  upon  his  own  asser- 
tion :  and  vehemence  of  assertion  is  the  only  addition  he  can 
make  to  it.  Such  was  the  violence  of  Paul  before  Ananias. 
He  was  indignant  at  the  injustice  of  being  smitten  contrary 
to  the  law  ;  and  the  powerlessness  of  his  position,  the  hope- 
lessness of  redress,  joined  to  a  conviction  of  the  truth  of  what 
he  said,  produced  that  vehemence. 

It  has  been  often  remarked  that  there  is  a  great  difference 
between  theological  and  scientific  controversy.  Theologians 
are  proverbially  vituperative :  because  it  is  a  question  of  ve- 
racity:  the  truth  of  their  views,  their  moral  perceptions, 
their  intellectual  acumen.  There  exists  no  test  but  argu- 
ment on  which  they  can  fall  back.  If  argument  fails,  all  fails, 

10* 


226  *Tke  Skepticism  of  Pilate. 

But  the  man  of  science  stands  calmly  on  the  facts  of  the  uni 
verse.  He  is  based  upon  reality.  All  the  opposition  and 
controversy  in  the  world  can  not  alter  facts,  nor  prevent  the 
facts  being  manifest  at  last.  He  can  be  calm,  because  he  is 
a  witness  for  the  Truth. 

In  the  same  way,  but  in  a  sense  far  deeper  and  more  sa- 
cred, the  Son  of  Man  stood  calm,  rooted  in  the  Truth.  There 
•was  none  of  the  egotism  of  self-conscious  veracity  in  those 
placid,  confident,  dignified  replies.  This  was  not  the  feeling 
— "I  hold  the  truth," — but  "I  am  witness  to  the  truth." 
They  might  spit  upon  Him — kill  Him — crucify  Him — give 
His  ashes  to  the  winds — they  could  not  alter  the  Truth  by 
which  He  stood.  Was  not  that  His  own  feeling  ?  "  Heaven 
and  earth  shall  pass  away,  but  My  word  shall  not  pass 
away." 

There  was  the  kingly  dignity  of  One  who,  in  life  and 
death,  stood  firm  on  truth  as  on  a  rock. 

In  the  name  of  Christ,  I  respectfully  commend  these 
thoughts  for  the  special  consideration  of  the  present  week, 
to  those  who  will  be  pledged  by  oath  to  witness  to  the 
whole  truth  they  know,  and  nothing  but  the  truth  :  to  those 
who — permitted  by  the  merciful  spirit  of  English  jurispru- 
dence, to  watch  that  their  client,  if  condemned,  shall  be  con- 
demned only  according  to  the  law — are  yet  not  justified  by 
the  spirit  of  the  life  of  Christ  in  falsifying  or  obscuring  facts; 
and  who,  owing  a  high  duty  to  a  client,  owe  one  higher  to 
the  Truth :  and  lastly,  to  those  whom  the  severe  intellectual, 
and,  much  more,  moral  training  of  the  English  bar  has  quali- 
fied for  the  high  office  of  disentangling  truth  from  the  mazes 
of  conflicting  testimony. 

From  the  trial-hour  of  Christ — from  the  Cross  of  the  Son 
of  God — there  arises  the  principle  to  which  all  His  life  bore 
witness,  that  the  first  lesson  of  Christian  life  is  this,  Be  true 
—and  the  second  this,  Be  true — and  the  third  this,  Be  true. 


XXI. 
THE  SKEPTICISM  OF  PILATE. 

"Pilate  saith  unto  him,  What  is  truth  ?" — John  xviii.  38. 

THE  lesson  which  we  are  to  draw  from  this  verse  must 
depend  upon  the  view  we  take  of  the  spirit  in  which  the 
words  were  spoken.  Some  of  the  best  commentators  con- 


The  Skepticism  of  Pilate.  227 

ceive  them  to  have  been  words  of  mockery :  and  such  is  the 
great  Lord  Bacon's  view.  "  '  What  is  truth  ?'  said  jesting 
Pilate,  and  would  not  wait  for  a  reply." 

In  all  deference  to  such  authority,  we  can  not  believe  that 
this  sentence  was  spoken  in  jest.  In  Pilate's  whole  conduct 
there  is  no  trace  of  such  a  tone.  It  betrays  throughout 
much  of  uncertainty,  nothing  of  lightness.  He  was  cruelly 
tormented  with  the  perplexity  of  efforts  to  save  his  prisoner. 
He  risked  his  own  reputation.  He  pronounced  Him,  almost 
with  vehemence,  to  be  innocent.  He  even  felt  awe,  and  was 
afraid  of  Him.  In  such  a  frame  of  mind,  mockery  was  im- 
possible. 

Let  us  try  to  comprehend  the  character  of  the  man  who 
asked  this  question.  His  character  will  help  us  to  judge  the 
tone  in  which  he  asked.  And  his  character,  the  character  of 
his  mind  and  life,  are  clear  enough  from  the  few  things  re- 
corded of  him.  He  first  hears  what  the  people  have  to  say; 
then  asks  the  opinion  of  the  priests — then  comes  back  to  Je- 
sus— goes  again  to  the  priests  and  people — lends  his  ear — 
listens  to  the  ferocity  on  the  one  hand,  and  feels  the  beau- 
ty on  the  other,  balancing  between  them ;  and  then  he  be- 
comes bewildered,  as  a  man  of  the  world  is  apt  to  do  who 
has  had  no  groundwork  of  religious  education,  and  hears  su- 
perficial discussions  on  religious  matters,  and  superficial 
charges,  and  superficial  slanders,  till  he  knows  not  what  to 
think.  What  co?/&/come  out  of  such  procedure?  Nothing 
but  that  cheerlessness  of  soul  to  which  certainty  respecting 
any  thing  and  every  thing  here  on  earth  seems  unattainable. 
This  is  the  exact  m»ental  state  which  we  call  skepticism. 

Out  of  that  mood,  when  he  heard  the  enthusiast  before  him 
speak  of  a  kingdom  of  the  truth,  there  broke  a  sad,  bitter, 
sarcastic  sigh,  "  What  is  truth?"  Who  knows  any  thing 
about  it  ?  Another  discoverer  of  the  undiscoverable  !  Jest- 
ing Pilate  !  with  Pilate  the  matter  was  beyond  a  jest.  It 
was  not  a  question  put  for  the  sake  of  information :  for  he 
went  immediately  out,  and  did  not  stay  for  information.  It 
was  not  put  for  the  sake  of  ridicule,  for  he  went  out  to  say, 
"I  find  no  fault  in  Him."  Sarcasm  there  was  perhaps:  but 
it  was  that  mournful,  bitter  sarcasm  which  hides  inward  un- 
rest in  sneering  words:  that  sad  irony  whose  very  laugh 
rings  of  inward  wretchedness.  We  shall  pursue,  from  this 
question  of  Pilate,  two  lines  of  thought. 

I.  The  causes  of  Pilate's  skepticism. 
II.  The  way  appointed  for  discovering  what  is  truth. 

I.  The  causes — and  among  these  I  name  first,  indecision  of 


228  The  Skepticism  of  Pilate. 

character.  Pilate's  whole  behavior  was  a  melancholy  exhi« 
bition.  He  was  a  thing  set  up  for  the  world's  pity.  See  how 
lie  acts :  he  first  throws  the  blame  on  the  priests — and  then 
acknowledges  that  all  responsibility  is  his  own :  washes  his 
hands  before  the  multitude,  saying,  "  I  am  innocent  of  the 
blood  of  this  just  person.  See  ye  to  it."  And  then — "  Know- 
est  thou  not  that  /have  power  to  crucify  thee,  and  power  to 
release  thee?"  He  pronounces  Jesus  innocent;  and  then,  with 
wondrous  inconsistency,  delivers  Him  to  be  scourged:  yields 
Him  up  to  be  crucified,  and  then  tries  every  underhand  ex- 
pedient to  save  Him. 

What  is  there  in  all  this  but  vacillation  of  character  lying 
at  the  root  of  unsettledness  of  opinion  ?  Here  is  a  man 
knowing  the  right  and  doing  the  wrong — not  willing  to  do 
an  act  of  manifest  injustice  if  he  can  avoid  it,  but  hesitating 
to  prevent  it,  for  fear  of  a  charge  against  himself — pitiably 
vacillating  because  his  hands  were  tied  by  the  consciousness 
of  past  guilt  and  personal  danger.  How  could  such  a  man 
be  certain  about  any  thing  ?  What  could  a  mind,  wavering, 
unstable,  like  a  feather  on  the  wind,  know  or  believe  of  solid, 
stable  truth,  which  altereth  not,  but  remaineth  like  a  rock 
amidst  the  vicissitudes  of  the  ages  and  the  changeful  fash- 
ions of  the  minds  of  men  ?  "A  double-minded  man  is  un- 
stable in  all  his  ways."  "  He  that  is  of  the  truth,  heareth 
the  voice  of  truth."  To  the  untrue  man  all  things  are  untrue. 
To  the  vacillating  man,  who  can  not  know  his  own  mind,  all 
things  seem  alterable,  changeful,  unfixed ;  just  as  to  the  man 
tossed  at  sea,  all  things  motionless  in  themselves  seem  to 
move  round,  upward,  downward,  or  around,  according  to  his 
own  movements. 

2d.  Falseness  to  his  own  convictions. 

Pilate  had'a  conviction  that  Jesus  was  innocent.  Instead 
of  acting  at  once  on  that,  he  went  and  parleyed.  He  argued 
and  debated  till  the  practical  force  of  the  conviction  was  un- 
settled. 

Now  let  us  distinguish :  I  do  not  say  that  a  man  is  never 
to  re-examine  a  question  once  settled.  A  great  Christian 
writer,  whose  works  are  very  popular,  has  advised  that  when 
a  view  has  once  been  arrived  at  as  true,  it  should  be,  as  it 
were,  laid  on  the  shelf,  and  never  again  looked  on  as  an  open 
question  :  but  surely  this  is  false.  A  young  man  of  twenty- 
three,  with  such  light  as  he  has,  forms  his  views :  is  he  never 
to  have  more  light?  Is  he  never  to  open  again  the  questions 
which  his  immature  mind  has  decided  on  once  ?  Is  he  never 
in  manhood,  with  manhood's  data  and  manhood's  experience, 
to  modify,  or  even  reverse,  what  once  seemed  the  very  truth 


The  Skepticism  of  Pilate.  229 

itself?  Nay,  my  brethren — the  weak  pride  of  consistency, 
the  cowardice  which  dares  not  say  I  have  been  wrong  all  my 
life,  the  false  anxiety  which  is  fostered  to  be  true  to  our  prin- 
ciples rather  than  to  make  sure  that  our  principles  aie  true, 
all  this  would  leave  in  Romanism  the  man  who  is  born  a  Ro- 
manist. It  is  not  so :  the  best  and  bravest  have  struggled 
from  error  into  truth  :  they  listened  to  their  honest  doubts, 
and  tore  up  their  old  beliefs  by  the  very  roots. 

Distinguish,  however.  A  man  may  unsettle  the  verdict  of 
his  intellect :  it  is  at  his  peril  that  he  tampers  with  the  con- 
victions of  his  conscience.  Every  opinion  and  view  must  re* 
main  an  open  question,  freely  to  be  tried  with  fresh  light. 
But  there  are  eternal  truths  of  right  and  wrong,  such  as  the 
plain  moralities  and  instinctive  decencies  of  social  life,  upon 
which  it  is  perilous  to  argue.  There  are  plain  cases  of  im- 
mediate duty  where  it  is  only  safe  to  act  at  once. 

Now  Pilate  was  false  to  his  conscience.  His  conviction  was 
that  Jesus  was  innocent.  It  was  not  a  matter  of  speculation 
or  probability  at  all,  nor  a  matter  in  which  fresh  evidence 
was  even  expected,  but  a  case  sifted  and  examined  thorough- 
ly. The  Pharisees  are  persecuting  a  guiltless  man.  His 
claims  to  royalty  are  not  the  civil  crime  which  they  would 
make  out.  Every  charge  has  fallen  to  the  ground.  The 
clear  mind  of  the  Roman  procurator  saw  that,  as  in  sunlight, 
and  he  did  not  try  to  invalidate  that  judicial  conviction.  He 
tried  to  get  rid  of  the  clear  duty  which  resulted  from  it. 
Now  it  is  a  habit  such  as  this  which  creates  the  temper  of 
skepticism. 

I  address  men  of  a  speculative  turn  of  mind.  There  is 
boundless  danger  in  all  inquiry  which  is  merely  curious. 
When  a  man  brings  a  clear  and  practised  intellect  to  try 
questions,  by  the  answer  to  which  he  does  not  mean  to  rule 
his  conduct,  let  him  not  marvel  if  he  feels,  as  life  goes  on,  a 
sense  of  desolation ;  existence  a  burden,  and  all  uncertain. 
It  is  the  law  of  his  human  nature  which  binds  him  ;  for  truth 
is  for  the  heart  rather  than  the  intellect.  If  it  is  not  done  it 
becomes  unreal — as  gloomily  unreal  and  as  dreamily  impal- 
pable as  it  was  to  Pilate. 

3d.  The  third  cause  of  Pilate's  skepticism  was  the  taint  of 
the  worldly  temper  of  his  day.  Pilate  had  been  a  public 
man.  He  knew  life  :  had  mixed  much  with  the  world's  busi- 
ness,*and  the  world's  politics:  had  come  across  a  multiplicity 
of  opinions,  and  gained  a  smattering  of  them  all.  He  knew 
how  many  philosophies  and  religions  pretended  to  an  exclu- 
sive possession  of  truth,  and  how  the  pretensions  of  each  were 
overthrown  by  another.  And  his  incredulity  was  but  a  spec- 


230  The  Skepticism  of  Pilate. 

imen  of  the  skepticism  fashionable  in  his  day.  The  polished 
skepticism  of  a  polished,  educated  Roman,  a  sagacious  man 
of  the  world,  too  much  behind  the  scenes  of  public  life  to 
trust  professions  of  goodness  or  disinterestedness,  or  to  be- 
lieve in  enthusiasm  and  a  sublime  life.  And  his  merciful  lan- 
guage, and  his  desire  to  save  Jesus,  was  precisely  the  liberal- 
ism current  in  our  days  as  in  his — an  utter  disbelief  in  the 
truths  of  a  world  unseen,  but  at  the  same  time  an  easy,  care- 
less toleration,  a  half-benevolent,  half-indolent  unwillingness 
to  molest  the  poor  dreamers  who  chose  to  believe  in  such  su- 
perstitions. 

This  is  the  superficial  liberalism  which  is  contracted,  in 
public  life.  Public  men  contract  a  rapid  way  of  discussing 
and  dismissing  the  deepest  questions — never  going  deep — 
satisfied  with  the  brilliant  flippancy  which  treats  religious 
beliefs  as  phases  of  human  delusion,  seeing  the  hollowness  of 
the  characters  around  them,  and  believing  that  all  is  hollow ; 
and  yet  not  without  their  moments  of  superstition,  as  when 
Pilate  was  afraid,  hearing  of  a  Son  of  God,  and  connecting  ijb 
doubtless  with  the  heathen  tales  of  gods  who  had  walked 
this  earth  in  visible  flesh  and  blood  which  he  had  laughed  at, 
and  wrhich  he  now  for  one  moment  suspected  might  be  true ; 
not  without  their  moments  of  horrible  insecurity,  when  the 
question,  "  What  is  truth  ?"  is  not  a  brilliant  sarcasm,  but  a 
sarcasm  on  themselves,  on  human  life,  on  human  nature, 
wrung  out  of  the  loneliest  and  darkest  bewilderment  that  can 
agonize  a  human  soul. 

To  such  a  character  Jesus  would  not  explain  His  truth. 
He  gave  no  reply :  He  held  His  peace.  God's  truth  is  too 
sacred  to  be  expounded  to  superficial  worldliness  in  its  tran- 
sient fit  of  earnestness. 

4th.  Lastly,  I  assign,  as  a  cause  of  skepticism,  that  priestly 
bigotry  which  forbids  inquiry  and  makes  doubt  a  crime. 

^The  priests  of  that  day  had  much  to  answer  for.  Consider 
for  a  moment  the  state  of  things.  One — of  whom  they  only 
knew  that  He  was  a  man  of  unblemished  life — came  forward 
to  proclaim  the  truth.  But  it  was  new;  they  had  never 
heard  such  views  before;  they  were  quite  sure  they  had  never 
taught  such,  nor  sanctioned  such;  and  so  they  settled  that 
the  thing  was  heresy.  He  had  no  accredited  ordination. 
"We  know  that  God  spake  to  Moses:  as  for  this  fellow  we  * 
know  not  whence  He  is."  Then  they  proceeded  to  bind  that 
decision  upon  others.  A  man  was  heard  to  say,  "  Why,  what 
evil  hath  he  done?"  Small  offense  enough,  but  it  savored 
of  a  dangerous  candor  towards  a  suspected  man  ;  and  in  tha 
priestly  estimate,  candor  is  the  next  step  to  heresy.  "Thou 


The  Skepticism  of  Pilate.  2  3 1 

wast  altogether  born  in  sin,  and  dost  Thou  teach  us  ?  and 
they  cast  him  out  of  the  synagogue."  And  so  again  with 
Pilate:  they  stifled  his  soul's  rising  convictions  with  threats 
and  penalties — "  If  thou  let  this  man  go,  thou  art  not  Cesar's 
friend." 

This  was  what  they  were  always  doing :  they  forbade  all 
inquiry,  and  made  doubt  of  their  decision  a  crime. 

Now  the  results  of  this  priestcraft  were  twofold.  The  first 
result  was  seen  in  the  fanaticism  of  the  people  who  cried  for 
blood :  the  second,  in  the  skepticism  of  Pilate.  And  these 
are  the  two  results  which  come  from  all  claims  to  infallibility, 
and  all  prohibition  of  inquiry.  They  make  bigots  of  the  fee- 
ble-minded who  can  not  think :  cowardly  bigots,  who  at  the 
bidding  of  their  priests  or  ministers  swell  the  ferocious  cry 
which  forces  a  government,  or  a  judge,  or  a  bishop,  to  perse- 
cute some  opinion  which  they  fear  and  hate  ;  turning  private 
opinion  into  civil  crime  :  and  they  make  skeptics  of  the  acute 
intellects  which,  like  Pilate,  see  through  their  fallacies,  and 
like  Pilate  too,  dare  not  publish  their  misgivings. 

And  it  matters  not  in  what  form  that  claim  to  infallibility 
is  made :  whether  in  the  clear,  consistent  way  in  which  Rome 
asserts  it,  or  whether  in  the  inconsistent  way  in  which  church- 
men make  it  for  their  church,  or  religious  bodies  for  their 
favorite  opinions:  wherever  penalties  attach  to  a  conscien- 
tious conviction,  be  they  the  penalties  of  the  rack  and  flame, 
or  the  penalties  of  being  suspected,  and  avoided,  and  slan- 
dered, and  the  slur  of  heresy  affixed  to  the  name,  till  all  men 
count  him  dangerous  lest  they  too  should  be  put  out  of  the 
synagogue ;  and  let  every  man  who  is  engaged  in  persecuting 
any  opinion  ponder  it — these  two  things  must  follow — you 
make  fanatics,  and  you  make  skeptics ;  believers  you  can  not 
make. 

Therefore  do  we  stand  by  the  central  protest  and  truth  of 
Protestantism.  There  is  infallibility  nowhere  on  this  earth  : 
not  in  Rome ;  not  in  councils  or  convocations  ;  not  in  the 
Church  of  England  ;  not  in  priests ;  not  in  ourselves.  The 
soul  is  thrown  in  the  grandeur  of  a  sublime  solitariness  on 
God.  Woe  to  the  spirit  that  stifles  its  convictions  when 
priests  threaten,  and  the  mob  which  they  have  maddened 
cries  heresy,  and  insinuates  disloyalty — "  Thou  art  not  Ce- 
sar's friend." 

II.  The  mode  appointed  for  discovering  the  reply  to  the 
question,  "  What  is  truth  ?" 

Observe — I  do  not  make  our  second  division  that  which 
might  seem  the  natural  one — what  truth  is.  I  am  not  about 


232  The  Skepticism  of  Pilate. 

to  be  guilty  of  the  presumption  of  answering  the  question 
which  Jesus  did  not  answer.  Some  persons  hearing  the  text 
might  think  it  the  duty  of  any  man  who  took  it  as  a  text 
to  preach  upon,  to  lay  down  what  truth  is :  and  if  a  minister 
were  so  to  treat  it,  he  might  give  you  the  fragment  of  truth 
which  his  own  poor  mind  could  grasp  :  and  he  might  call  it, 
as  the  phrase  is,  The  Truth,  or  The  Gospel :  and  he  might  re- 
quire his  hearers  to  receive  it  on  peril  of  salvation.  And 
then  he  would  have  done  as  the  priests  did ;  and  they  who 
lean  on  other  minds  would  have  gone  away  bigoted ;  and 
they  who  think  would  have  smiled  sadly,  bitterly,  or  sarcas- 
tically, and  gone  home  to  doubt  still  more,  "  What  is  truth, 
and  is  it  to  be  found  ?" 

No,  my  brethren!  The  truth  can  not  be  compressed  into 
a  sermon.  The  reply  to  Pilate's  question  can  not  be  con- 
tained in  any  verbal  form.  Think  you  that  if  Christ  Himself 
could  have  answered  that  question  in  a  certain  number  of 
sentences,  He  would  have  spent  thirty  years  of  life  in  wit- 
nessing to  it  ?  Some  men  would  compress  into  the  limits  of 
one  reply  or  one  discourse  the  truth  which  it  took  Christ 
thirty  years  to  teach,  and  which  He  left  unfinished  for  the 
Spirit  to  complete. 

One  word  more.  The  truth  is  infinite  as  the  firmament 
above  you.  In  childhood,  both  seem  near  and  measurable ; 
but  with  years  they  grow  and  grow,  and  seem  farther  off, 
and  farther  and  grander,  and  deeper  and  vaster,  as  God  Him- 
self; till  you  smile  to  remember  how  you  thought  you  could 
touch  the  sky,  and  blush  to  recollect  the  proud  and  self-suf- 
ficient way  in  which  you  used  to  talk  of  knowing  or  preach- 
ing "  the  truth." 

And  once  again :  the  truth  is  made  up  of  principles :  an  in- 
ward life,  not  any  mere  formula  of  word?.  God's  character 
— spiritual  worship — the  Divine  life  in  the  soul.  How  shall 
I  put  that  into  sentences  ten  or  ten  thousand  ?  "  The  words 
which  I  speak  unto  you,  they  are  truth,  and  they  are  life" 
How  could  Pilate's  question  be  answered  except  by  a  Life  ? 
The  truth,  then,  which  Pilate  wanted — which  you  want,  and 
I  want — is  not  the  boundless  verities,  but  truth  of  inward 
life.  Truth  for  me  :  Truth  enough  to  guide  me  in  this  dark- 
ling world :  enough  to  teach  me  how  to  live  and  how  to  die. 

Now — the  appointed  ways  to  teach  this  Truth.  They  are 
three :  independence — humbleness — action. 

First,  Independence.  Let  no  man  start  as  if  independence 
savored  of  presumption.  Protestant  independence,  they  tell 
us,  is  pride  and  self-reliance,  but  in  truth  it  is  nothing  more 
than  a  deep  sense  of  personal  responsibility  ;  a  determination 


The  Skepticism  of  Pilate.  233 

to  trust  in  God  rather  than  in  man  to  teach  :  in  God  and 
God's  light  in  the  soul.  You  choose  a  guide  among  preci- 
pices and  glaciers,  but  you  walk  for  yourself;  you  judge  his 
opinion,  though  more  experienced  than  your  own ;  you  over 
rule  it  if  needs  be;  you  use  your  own  strength,  you  rely  on 
your  own  nerves.  That  is  independence. 

You  select  your  own  physician,  deciding  upon  the  respect- 
ive claims  of  men,  the  most  ignorant  of  whom  knows  more 
of  the  matter  than  you.  You  prudently  hesitate  at  times  to 
follow  the  advice  of  the  one  you  trust  most,  yet  that  is  only 
independence  without  a  particle  of  presumption. 

And  so  precisely  in  matters  of  religious  truth.  No  man 
cares  for  your  health  as  you  do ;  therefore  you  rely  blindly 
upon  none.  No  man  has  the  keeping  of  your  own  soul,  or 
cares  for  it  as  you  do.  For  yourself,  therefore,  you  inquire 
and  think,  and  you  refuse  to  delegate  that  work  to  bishop, 
priest,  or  church.  Call  they  that  presumption?  Oh,  the 
man  who  knows  the  awful  feeling  of  being  alone,  and  strug- 
gling for  truth  as  for  life  and  death,  he  knows  the  difference 
between  independence  and  presumption. 

Second,  Humbleness.  There  is  no  infallibility  in  man  ;  if 
so,  none  in  us.  We  may  err :  that  one  thought  is  enough  to 
keep  a  man  humble.  There  are  two  kinds  of  temper  contrary 
to  this  spirit.  The  first  is  a  disputing,  captious  temper. 
Disagreement  is  refreshing  when  two  men  lovingly  desire  to 
compare  their  views  to  find  out  the  truth.  Controversy  is 
wretched  when  it  is  an  attempt  to  prove  one  another  wrong. 
Therefore  Christ  would  not  argue  with  Pilate.  Religious 
controversy  does  only  harm.  It  destroys  the  humble  inquiry 
after  truth:  it  throws  all  the  energies  into  an  attempt  to 
prove  ourselves  right.  The  next  temper  contrary  is  a  hope- 
less spirit.  Pilate's  question  breathed  of  hopelessness.  He 
felt  that  Jesus  was  unjustly  condemned,  but  he  thought  Him 
in  views  as  hopelessly  wrong  as  the  rest:  all  were  wrong. 
What  was  truth?  Who  knew  any  thing  about  it?  He 
spoke  too  bitterly,  too  hopelessly,  too  disappointedly  to  get 
an  answer.  In  that  despairing  spirit  no  man  gets  at  truth  : 
"The  meek  will  He  guide  in  judgment.  .  .  ." 

Lastly,  Action.  This  was  Christ's  rule — "  If  any  man  will 
do  His  will.  ..."  A  blessed  rule  :  a  plain  and  simple  rule. 
Here  we  are  in  a  world  of  mystery,  where  all  is  difficult,  and 
very  much  dark — where  a  hundred  jarring  creeds  declare 
themselves  to  be  the  truth,  and  all  are  plausible.  How  shall 
a  man  decide  ?  Let  him  do  the  right  that  lies  before  him : 
much  is  uncertain — some  things  at  least  are  clear.  What- 
ever else  may  be  wrong,  it  must  be  right  to  be  pure-  -to  be 


234  7^  Skepticism  of  Pilate. 

just  and  tender,  and  merciful  and  honest.  It  must  be  right 
to  love,  and  to  deny  one's  self.  Let  him  do  the  will  of  God, 
and  he  shall  know.  Observe — men  begin  the  other  way. 
They  say,  If  I  could  but  believe,  then  I  would  make  my  life 
true  :  if  I  could  but  be  sure  what  is  truth,  then  I  would  set 
to  work  to  live  in  earnest.  No :  God  says,  Act ;  make  the 
life  true,  and  then  you  will  be  able  to  believe.  Live  in  ear- 
nest, and  you  will  know  the  answer  to  "  What  is  truth  ?" 

Infer  the  blessedness  of  belief.  Young  men  are  prone  to 
consider  skepticism  a  proof  of  strong-mindedness — a  some- 
thing to  be  proud  of.  Let  Pilate  be  a  specimen — and  a 
wretched  one  he  is.  He  had  clear-mindedness  enough  to  be 
dissatisfied  with  all  the  views  he  knew :  enough  to  see 
through  and  scorn  the  squabbles  and  superstitions  of  priests 
and  bigots.  All  well,  if  from  doubt  of  falsehood  he  had  gone 
on  to  a  belief  in  a  higher  truth.  But  doubt,  when  it  left  him 
doubting — why,  he  missed  the  noblest  opportunity  man  ever 
had — that  of  saving  the  Saviour  :  he  became  a  thing  for  the 
people  to  despise,  and  after  ages  to  pity.  And  that  is  skep- 
ticism. Call  you  that  a  manly  thing  ? 

To  believe  is  to  be  happy;  to  doubt  is  to  be  wretched. 
But  I  will  not  urge  that.  Seventy  years — and  the  most  fe- 
vered brain  will  be  still  enough.  We  will  not  say  much  of 
the  wretchedness  of  doubt.  To  believe  is  to-  be  strong. 
Doubt  cramps  energy.  Belief  is  power.  Only  so  far  as  a 
man  believes  strongly,  mightily,  can  he  act  cheerfully,  or  do 
any  thing  that  is  worth  the  doing. 

I  speak  to  those  who  have  learned  to  hold  cheap  the 
threats  wherewith  priests  and  people  would  terrify  into  ac- 
quiescence— to  those  who  are  beyond  the  appeal  of  fear,  and 
can  only  yield,  if  at  all,  to  higher  motives.  Young  men,  the 
only  manly  thing,  the  only  strong  thing,  is  faith.  It  is  riot 
so  far  as  a  man  doubts,  but  so  far  as  he  believes,  that  he  can 
achieve  or  perfect  any  thing.  "All  things  are  possible  to 
him  that  believeth." 


The  Israelites  Grave.  235 


"XXII. 
THE  ISRAELITE'S  GRAVE  IN  A  FOREIGN  LAND.* 

"  And  Joseph  said  unto  his  brethren,  I  die ;  and  God  will  surely  visit*  you^ 
and  bring  you  out  of  this  land  unto  the  land  which  he  sware  to  Abraham,  to 
Isaac,  and  to  Jacob.  And  Joseph  took  an  oath  of  the  children  of  Israel, 
saying,  God  will  surely  visit  you,  and  ye  shall  carry  up  my  bones  from  hence. 
So  Joseph  died,  being  a  hundred  and  ten  years  old :  and  they  embalmed 
him,  and  he  was  put  in  a  coffin  in  Egypt."— Gen.  1.  24-26. 

THERE  is  a  moment  when  a  man's  life  is  re-lived  on  earth. 
It  is  in  that  hour  in  which  the  coffin-lid  is  shut  down,  just 
before  the  funeral,  when  earth  has  seen  the  last  of  him  for- 
ever. Then  the  whole  life  is,  as  it  were,  lived  over  again  in 
the  conversation  which  turns  upon  the  memory  of  the  de- 
parted. The  history  of  threescore  years  and  ten  is  soon  re- 
capitulated :  not,  of  course,  the  innumerable  incidents  and 
acts  which  they  contained,  but  the  central  governing  princi- 
ple of  the  whole.  Feverish  curiosity  sometimes  spends  itself 
upon  the  last  hours :  and  a  few  correct  sentences,  implying 
faith  after  the  orthodox  phraseology,  would  convey  to  some 
greater  hope  than  a  whole  life  breathing  the  Spirit  of  Christ 

*  \This  sermon  was  formerly  published  by  the  Author  in  a  separate  form, 
and  the  following  Preface  to  that  publication  explains  so  well  the  circumstances 
under  which  all  the  other  sermons  have  been  preserved,  that  it  has  been  thought 
best  to  reprint  the  Preface  herej\ 

"For  the  publication  of  the  commonplace  observations  contained  in  the 
following  pages,  the  commonplace  excuse  may,  perhaps,  suffice,  that  printing 
was  the  simplest  way  of  multiplying  copies  for  a  few  friends  who  desired 
them.  Perhaps,  too,  the  uncommonness  of  the  occasion  may  justify  the 
writer  in  giving  to  an  ephemeral  discourse  an  existence  somewhat  less  tran- 
sient than  the  minutes  spent  in  listening  to  it. 

"The  sermon  is  published  as  nearly  as  possible  as  it  was  spoken.  It  was 
written  out  concisely  for  a  friend  on  the  day  of  its  delivery,  with  no  intention 
of  publication.  Afterwards,  it  seemed  better  to  leave  it  in  that  state,  with 
only  a  few  corrections,  and  the  addition  of  a  few  sentences,  than  to  attempt 
to  re-write  it  after  an  interval  too  great  to  recall  what  had  been  said.  This 
will  account  for  the  abruptness  and  want  of  finish  which  pervades  the  com- 
position. 

"The  writer  takes  this  opportunity  of  disowning  certain  sermons  which 
have  been  published  in  his  name.  They  would  not  have  been  worth  notice, 
had  not  the  innumerable  blunders  of  thought  and  expression  which  they 
contain  been  read  and  accepted  by  several  as  his.  For  this  reason  he  feele 
it  due  to  himself  to  state  that  they  are  published  without  his  sanction,  and 
against  his  request,  and  that  he  is'not  responsible  for  either  the  language  or 
the  ideas." 


236  The  Israelite's  Grave. 

separate  from  such  sentences.  But  it  is  not  thus  the  Bible 
speaks.  It  tells  us  very  little  of  the  closing  scene,  but  a 
great  deal  of  the  general  tenor  of  a  life.  In  truth,  the  clos- 
ing scene  is  worth  very  little.  The  felon,  who,  up  to  the  last 
fortnight,  has  shown  his  impenitence  by  the  plea  of  not 
guilty,  in  the  short  compass  of  that  fortnight  makes  a  con- 
fession, as  a  matter  of  course  exhibits  the  externals  of  peni 
tence,  and  receives  the  Last  Supper.  But  it  would  be  ere 
dulity,  indeed,  to  be  easily  persuaded  that  the  eternal  state 
of  such  an  one  is  affected  by  it.  A  life  of  .holiness  sometimes 
mysteriously  terminates  in  darkness ;  but  it  is  not  the  bitter- 
est cries  of  forsakenness — so  often  the  result  of  physical  ex- 
haustion— nor  even  blank  despair,  that  shall  shake  our  deep 
conviction  that  he  whose  faith  shone  brightly  through  life  is 
now  safe  in  the  everlasting  arms.  The  dying  scene  is  worth 
little— little,  at  least,  to  us — except  so  far  as  it  is  in  harmo- 
ny with  the  rest  of  life. 

It  is  for  this  reason  that  the  public  estimate  pronounced 
upon  the  departed  is  generally  a  fair  criterion  of  worth. 
There  are,  of  course,  exceptional  cases — cases  in  which  the 
sphere  of  action  has  been  too  limited  for  the  fair  development 
of  the  character,  and  nothing  but  the  light  of  the  judgment- 
day  can  reveal  it  in  its  true  aspect — cases  in  which  party 
spirit  has  defaced  a  name,  and  years  are  wanted  to  wash 
away  the  mask  of  false  color  which  has  concealed  the  genu- 
ine features — cases  in  which  the  champion  of  truth  expires 
amidst  the  execrations  of  his  contemporaries,  and  after  ages 
build  his  sepulchre.  These,  however,  are  exceptions.  For 
the  most  part,  when  all  is  over,  general  opinion  is  not  far 
from  truth.  Misrepresentation  and  envy  have  no  provoca- 
tives left  them.  What  the  departed  was  is  tolerably  well- 
known  in  the  circle  in  which  he  moved.  The  epitaph  may 
be  falsified  by  the  partiality  of  relations ;  but  the  broad  judg- 
ment of  society  reverses  that,  rectifies  it,  and  pronounces  with 
perhaps  a  rude,  but,  on  the  whole,  fair  approximation  to  the 
truth. 

These  remarks  apply  to  the  history  of  the  man  whose  final 
scene  is  recorded  in  the  text.  The  verdict  of  the  Egyptian 
world  was  worth  much.  Joseph  had  gone  to  Egypt,  some 
years  before,  a  foreigner ;  had  lived  there  in  obscurity ;  had 
been  exposed  to  calumny ;  by  his  quiet,  consistent  goodness, 
had  risen,  step  by  step,  "first  to  respect,  then  to  trust,  com- 
mand, and  veneration  :  was  embalmed  after  death  in  the  af- 
fections, as  well  as  with  the  burial  rights,  of  the  Egyptians ; 
and  his  honored  form  reposed  at  last  amidst  the  burial-place 
of  the  Pharaohs. 


The  Israelite's  Grave.  237 

In  this  respect  the  text  branches  into  a  twofold  division. 
The  life  of  Joseph,  and  the  death  which  was  in  accordance 
with  that  life. 

1.  The  history  of  Joseph,  as  of  every  man,  has  two  sides — 
its  outward  circumstances  and  its  inner  life. 

The  outward  circumstances  were  checkered  with  misfor- 
tune. Severed  from  his  home  in  very  early  years,  sold  into 
slavery,  cast  into  prison — at  first  grief  seemed  to  have 
marked  him  for  her  own.  And  this  is  human  life.  Part  of 
its  lot  is  misery.  There  are  two  inadequate  ways  of  ac- 
counting for  this  mystery  of  sorrow.  One,  originating  in  a 
zeal  for  God's  justice,  represents  it  as  invariably  the  chastise 
ment  of  sin,  or,  at  the  least,  as  correction  for  fault.  But, 
plainly,  it  is  not  always  such.  Joseph's  griefs  were  the  con- 
sequences, not  of  fault,  but  of  rectitude.  The  integrity 
which,  on  some  unknown  occasion,  made  it  his  duty  to  carry 
his  brethren's  "  evil  report  "  to  their  father,  was  the  occasion 
of  his  slavery.  The  purity  of  his  life  was  the  cause  of  his 
imprisonment.  Fault  is  only  a  part  of  the  history  of  this 
great  matter  of  sorrow.  Another  theory,  created  by  zeal  for 
God's  love,  represents  sorrow  as  the  exception,  and  happiness 
as  the  rule  of  life.  We  are  made  for  enjoyment,  it  is  said, 
and  on  the  whole  there  is  more  enjoyment  than  wretched- 
ness. The  common  idea  of  love  being  that  which  identifies 
it  with  a  simple  wish  to  confer  happiness,  no  wonder  that  a 
feeble  attempt  is  made  to  vindicate  God  by  a  reduction  of 
the  apparent  amount  of  pain.  Unquestionably,  however, 
love  is  very  different  from  a  desire  to  shield  from  pain. 
Eternal  love  gives  to  painlessness  a  very  subordinate  place 
in  comparison  of  excellence  of  character.  It  does  not  hesi- 
tate to  secure  man's  spiritual  dignity  at  the  expense  of  the 
sacrifice  of  his  well-being. 

The  solution  will  not  do.  Let  us  look  the  truth  in  the  face. 
You  can  not  hide  it  from  yourself.  "  Man  is  born  to  sorrow 
as  the  sparks  fly  upward."  Sorrow  is  not  an  accident,  oc- 
curring now  and  then,  it  is  the  very  woof  which  is  woven 
into  the  warp  of  life.  "  God  has  created  the  nerves  to  agonize, 
and  the  heart  to  bleed ;  and  before  a  man  dies,  almost  every 
nerve  has  thrilled  with  pain,  and  every  affection  has  been 
wounded.  The  account  of  life  which  represents  it  as  proba- 
tion is  inadequate :  so  is  that  which  regards  it  chiefly  as  a 
system  of  rewards  and  punishments.  The  truest  account  of 
this  mysterious  existence  seems  to  be  that  it  is  intended  for 
the  development  of  the  soul's  life,  for  which  sorrow  is  indis- 
pensable. Every  son  of  man  who  would  attain  the  true  end 
of  his  being  must  be  baptized  with  fire.  It  is  the  law  of  out 


238  The  Israelite's  Grave. 

humanity,  as  that  of  Christ,  that  we  must  be  perfected 
through  suffering.  And  he  who  has  not  discerned  the  divine 
sacredness  of  sorrow,  and  the  profound  meaning  which  is  con- 
cealed in  pain,  has  yet  to  learn  what  life  is.  The  Cross,  man- 
ifested as  the  necessity  of  the  highest  life,  alone  interprets  it. 

2.  Besides  this,  obloquy  was  part  of  Joseph's  portion. 
His  brethren,  even  his  father,  counted  him  a  vain  dreamer, 
full  of  proud  imaginings.  He  languished  long  in  a  dungeon 
with  a  stain  upon  his  character.  He  was  subjected  to  almost 
all  the  bitterness  which  changes  the  milk  of  kindly  feelings 
into  gall :  to  Potiphar's  fickleness,  to  slander,  to  fraternal 
envy,  to  the  ingratitude  of  friendship  in  the  neglect  of  the 
chief  butler,  who  left  his  prison  and  straightway  forgot  his 
benefactor.  Out  of  all  which  a  simple  lesson  arises,  "  Cease 
ye  from  man,  whose  breath  is  in  his  nostrils."  Yet  that  may 
be  overstated.  Nothing  chills  the  heart  like  universal  dis- 
trust. Nothing  freezes  the  genial  current  of  the  soul  so 
much  as  doubts  of  human  nature.  Human  goodness  is  no 
dream.  Surely  we  have  met  unselfishness,  and  love,  and 
honor  among  men.  Surely  we  have  seen,  and  not  in  dreams, 
pure  benevolence  beaming  from  human  countenances.  Sure- 
ly we  have  met  with  integrity  that  the  world's  wealth  could 
not  bribe ;  and  attachment  which  might  bear  the  test  of  any 
sacrifice.  It  is  not  so  much  the  depravity  as  the  frailty  of 
men,  that  makes  it  impossible  to  count  on  them.  Was  it  not 
excusable  in  Jacob,  and  even  natural,  if  he  attributed  to  van- 
ity his  son's  relation  of  the  dream  in  which  the  sun,  and  the 
moon,  and  the  eleven  stars  bowed  down  before  him  ?  Was 
it  not  excusable  if  Potiphar  distrusted  his  tried  servant's 
word,  when  his  guilt  appeared  so  indisputably  substantiated? 
Was  not  even  the  chief  butler's  forgetfulness  intelligible, 
when  you  remember  his  absorbing  interest  in  his  own  dan- 
ger, and  the  multiplied  duties  of  his  office  ?  The  world  is 
not  to  be  too  severely  blamed  if  it  misrepresents  us.  It  is 
hard  to  reach  the  truth — very  hard  to  sift  a  slander. 

Men  who  believe  Sucn  rumors.,  especially  in  courtly  life, 
may  be  ignorant,  hasty,  imperfect,  but  are  not  necessarily 
treacherous.  Yet  even  while  you  keep  this  in  mind,  that  the 
heart  may  not  be  soured,  remember  your  dearest  friend 
may  fail  you  in  the  crisis:  a  truth  of  experience  was 
wrapped  up  ir*  the  old  fable,  and  the  thing  you  have  fostered 
in  your  bohor^  may  wound  you  to  the  quick  ;  the  one  you 
have  trusted  may  become  your  accuser,  and  throw  his  own 
blame,  with  dastard  meanness,  upon  you.  That  was  the  ex- 
perience of  Joseph.  Was  not  that*  His  fate  who  trusted  Ju- 
das ?  There  is  One.  and  but  One,  whose  love  is  as  a  rock, 


The  Israelites  Grave.  239 

which  will  not  fail  you  when  you  cling.  It  is  a  fearful,  sol- 
itary feeling,  that  lonely  truth  of  life  ;  yet  not  without  a 
certain  strength  and  grandeur  in  it.  The  life  that  is  the 
deepest  and  tlie  truest  will  feel  most  vividly  both  its  desola- 
tion and  its  majesty.  We  live  and  die  alone.  God  and  our 
own  souls — we  fall  back  upon  them  at  last.  "  Behold,  the 
hour  cometh,  yea,  is'  now  come,  that  ye  shall  be  scattered, 
every  man  to  his  own,  and  shall  leave  Me  alone ;  and  yet  I 
am  not  alone,  because  the  Father  is  with  Me." 

3.  Success,  besides,  marked  the  career  of  Joseph.  Let  us 
not  take  half  views  of  men  and  things.  The  woof  of  life  is 
dark ;  that  we  granted :  but  it  is  shot  through  a  web  of 
brightness.  Accordingly,  in  Joseph's  case,  even  in  his  worst 
days,  you  find  a  kind  of  balance  to  be  weighed  against  his 
sorrows.  The  doctrine  of  compensation  is  found  through 
all.  Amidst  the  schemings  of  his  brothers'  envy  he  had  his 
father's  love.  In  his  slavery  he  had  some  recompense  in 
feeling  that  he  was  gradually  winning  his  master's  confi- 
dence. In  his  dungeon  he  possessed  the  consciousness  of  in- 
nocence, and  the  grateful  respect  of  his  fellow-prisoners. 

In  that  beautiful  hymn  which  some  of  you  read  last  Sun- 
day,* you  may  remember  that  a  parallel  is  drawn  between 
human  life  and  the  aspects  of  the  weather.  The  morning 
rainbow,  glittering  among  the  dangerous  vapors  of  the  west, 
predicts  that  the  day  will  not  unclouded  pass  away.  The 
evening  rainbow  declares  that  the  storms  are  past,  and  that 
serene  weather  is  setting  in.  Such  is  the  life  of  all  whom 
God  disciplines.  The  morning  or  the  evening  brightness  is 
the  portion  of  a  life,  the  rest  of  which  is  storm.  Rarely  are 
the  manful  struggles  of  principle  in  the  first  years  of  life  suf- 
fered to  be  in  vain.  Joseph  saw  the  early  clouds  which  dark- 
ened the  morning  of  his  existence  pass  away,  and  the  rain- 
bow of  heavenly  peace  arched  over  the  calmness  of  his  later 
years.  "  The  Lord  was  with  Joseph,  and  he  was  a  prosper- 
ous man."  And  it  is  for  this  special  purpose  it  is  written, 
"And  Joseph  saw  Ephraim's  children  of  the  third  genera- 
tion ;  the  children  also  of  Machir,  the  son  of  Manasseh,  were 
brought  up  on  Joseph's  knees."  Long  life,  and  honored  old 
age,  a  quiet  grave ;  these  were  the  blessings  reckoned  desir- 
able in  Jewish  modes  of  thought :  and  they  are  mentioned 
as  evidences  of  Joseph's  happiness. 

And  this,  too,  is  life.  The  sorrows  of  the  past  stand  out 
most  vividly  in  our  recollections,  because  they  are  the  keen- 
est of  our  sensations.  At  the  end  of  a  long  existence  we 

*  Keble's  Christian  Year.     Twenty-fifth  Sv.irciay  after  Trinity. 


240  7 he  Israelite  s  Grave. 

should  probably  describe  it  thus :  "  Few  and  evil  have  the 
days  of  the  years  of  thy  servant  been."  But  the  innumer- 
able infinitesimals  of  happiness  that  from  moment  to  moment 
made  life  sweet  and  pleasant  are  forgotten  ;  and  very  richly 
has  our  Father  mixed  the  materials  of  these  with  the  home- 
liest actions  and  domesticities  of  existence.  See  two  men 
meeting  together  in  the  streets — mere  acquaintances.  They 
will  not  be  five  minutes  together  before  a  smile  will  over- 
spread their  countenances,  or  a  merry  laugh  ring  of,  at  the 
lowest,  amusement.  This  has  God  done.  God  created  the 
smile  and  the  laugh,  as  well  as  the  sigh  and  the  tear.  The 
aspect  of  this  life  is  stern — very  stern.  It  is  a  very  super- 
ficial account  of  it  which  slurs  over  its  grave  mystery,  and 
refuses  to  hear  its  low,  deep  under-tone  of  anguish.  But 
there  is  enough,  from  hour  to  hour,  of  bright,  sunny  happi- 
ness, to  remind  us  that  its  Creator's  highest  name  is  love. 

Now  turn  to  the  spirit  of  Joseph's  inner  life.  First  of  all, 
that  life  was  forgiveness.  You  can  not  but  have  remarked 
that,  conversant  as  his  experience  was  with  human  treachery, 
no  expressions  of  bitterness  escape  from  him.  No  senti- 
mental wailing  over  the  cruelty  of  relations,  the  falseness  of 
friendship,  or  the  ingratitude  of  the  world ;  no  rancorous 
outburst  of  misanthropy ;  no  sarcastic  skepticism  of  man's 
integrity  or  woman's  honor.  He  meets  all  bravely,  with 
calm,  meek,  and  dignified  forbearance.  If  ever  man  had 
cause  for  such  doubts,  he  had ;  yet  his  heart  was  never 
soured.  At  last,  after  his  father's  death,  his  brothers,  appre- 
hending his  resentful  recollections  of  their  early  cruelty, 
come  to  deprecate  his  revenge.  Very  touching  is  his  reply. 
"  Fear  not :  for  am  I  in  the  place  of  God  ?  But  as  for  you, 
ye  thought  evil  against  me  :  but  God  meant  it  unto  good,  to 
bring  to  pass,  as  it  is  this  day,  to  save  much  people  alive. 
Now  therefore,  fear  ye  not :  I  will  nourish  you  and  your 
little  ones." 

This  is  the  Christian  spirit  before  the  Christian  times. 
Christ  was  in  Joseph's  heart,  though  not  definitely  in  Jo- 
seph's creed.  The  Eternal  Word  whispered  in  the  souls  of 
men  before  it  spoke  articulately  aloud  in  the  Incarnation. 
It  was  the  Divine  Thought  before  it  became  the  Divine  Ex- 
pression.* It  was  the  Light  that  lighteth  every  man  that 
cometh  into  the  world,  before  it  blazed  into  the  Day-spring 
from  on  high  which  visited  us.  -  The  mind  of  Christ,  the 
spirit  of  the  years  yet  future,  blended  itself  with  life  before 
He  came ;  for  His  words  were  the  eternal  verities  of  our  hu- 


The  Israelite  s  Grave.  241 

manity.  In  all  ages  love  is  the  truth  of  life  Men  can  not 
injure  us  except  so  far  as  they  exasperate  us  to  forget  our- 
selves. No  man  is  really  dishonored  except  by  his  own  act. 
Calumny,  injustice,  ingratitude — the  only  harm  these  can  do 
us  is  by  making  us  bitter,  or  rancorous,  or  gloomy  :  by  shut- 
ting our  hearts  or  souring  our  aifections.  We  rob  them  of 
their  power  if  they  only  leave  us  more  sweet  and  forgiving 
than  before.  And  this  is  the  only  true  victory.  We  win  by 
love.  Love  transmutes  all  curses,  and  forces  them  to  rain 
down  in  blessings.  Out  of  the  jealousy  of  his  brothers  Joseph 
extracted  the  spirit  of  forgiveness.  Out  of  Potiphar's  weak 
injustice,  and  out  of  the  machinations  of  disappointed  pas- 
sion, he  created  an  opportunity  of  learning  meekness.  Our 
enemies  become  unconsciously  our  best  friends  when  their 
slanders  deepen  in  us  heavenlier  graces.  Let  them  do  their 
worst ;  they  only  give  us  the  Godlike  victory  of  forgiving 
them. 

2.  Distinguished  from  the  outward  circumstances,  we  find 
simplicity  of  character :  partly  in  the  willingness  to  acknowl- 
edge his  shepherd-father  in  Egypt,  where  the  pastoral  life 
was  an  abomination  ;  partly  in  that  incidental  notice  which 
we  have  of  the  feast  at  which  he  entertained  his  brethren, 
where  the  Egyptians  sat  at  a  table  by  themselves,  and  Joseph 
by  himself.  So  that,  elevated  as  he  was,  his  heart  remained 
Hebrew  still.  He  had  contracted  a  splendid  alliance  by 
marrying  into  one  of  the  nooiest  families  in  Egypt,  that  of 
Potipherah,  the  priest  of  On.  And  yet  he  had  not  forgotten 
his  country,  nor  sought  to  be  naturalized  there.  His  heart 
was  in  that  far  land  where  he  had  fed  his  father's  flocks  in 
his  simple,  genial  boyhood  ;  the  divining-cup  of  Egyptian 
silver  was  on  his  table  ;  but  he  remembered  the  days  wheji 
the  only  splendor  he  knew  was  that  coat  of  many  colors 
which  was  made  for  him  by  his  father.  He  bore  a  simple, 
unsophisticated  heart  amidst  the  pomp  of  an  Egyptian  court. 

There  is  a  great  mistake  made  on  the  subject  of  simplicity. 
There  is  one  simplicity  of  circumstances,  another  simplicity 
of  heart.  These  two  must  not  be  confounded.  It  is  com- 
mon to  talk  of  the  humble  poor  man,  and  the  proud  rich 
man.  Let  not  these  ideas  be  inseparably  blended  together. 
There  is  many  a  man  who  sits  down  to  a  meal  of  bread  and 
milk  on  a  wooden  table,  whose  heart  is  as  proud  as  the  proud- 
est whose  birth  is  ro}7al.  There  is  many  a  one  whose  voice 
is  heard  in  the  public  meeting,  loudly  descanting  on  legal 
tyranny  and  aristocratic  insolence,  who  in  his  own  narrow 
circle  is  as  much  a  tyrant  as  any  oppressor  who  ever  dis- 
graced the  throne.  And  there  is  many  a  man  who  sits  down 

11 


242  The  Israelite  s  Grave. 

to  daily  pomp,  to  whom  gold  and  silver  are  but  as  brass  and 
tin,  and  who  bears  in  the  midst  of  it  all  a  meek,  simple  spirit, 
and  a  "  heart  refrained  as  a  weaned  child  :"  many  a  man 
who  lives  surrounded  with  homage,  and  hearing  the  ap- 
plause and  flattery  of  men  perpetually,  on  whose  heart  these 
things  fall  flat  and  dead,  without  raising  one  single  emotion 
of  fluttered  vanity. 

The  world  can  not  understand  this.  They  can  not  believe 
that  Joseph  can  be  humble  while  he  is  conscious  of  such  ele- 
vation above  the  crowd  of  men — not  even  dreaming  of  it. 
They  can  not  understand  how  carelessly  these  outsides  of 
life  can  be  worn,  and  how  they  fall  off  like  the  unregarded 
and  habitual  dress  of  daily  life.  They  can  not  know  how  the 
spirit  of  the  Cross  can  crucify  the  world,  make  grandeur 
painful,  and  calm  the  soul  with  a  vision  of  the  Eternal 
Beauty.  They  can  not  dream  how  His  life  and  death,  once 
felt  as  the  grandest,  write  mockery  on  all  else,  and  fill  the 
soul  with  an  ambition  which  is  above  the  world.  It  is  not 
the  unjewelled  finger,  nor  the  affectation  of  an  almost  Qua- 
kerish simplicity  of  attire,  nor  the  pedestrian  mode  of  travel- 
ling, nor  the  scanty  meal  that  constitute  humility.  It  is  that 
simple,  inner  life  of  real  greatness,  which  is  indifferent  to 
magnificence,  and  surrounded  by  it  all,  lives  far  away  in  the 
distant  country  of  a  father's  home,  with  the  Cross  borne  si- 
lently and  self-sacrificingly  in  the  heart  of  hearts. 

3.  One  characteristic  of  Joseph's  inner  life  remains — 
benevolence.  It  was  manifested  in  the  generosity  with 
which  he  entertained  his  brethren,  and  in  the  discriminating 
tenderness  with  which  he  provided  his  best  beloved  brother's 
feast  with  extraordinary  delicacies.  These^were  traits  of 
thoughtfulness.  But  further  still.  The  prophetic  insight 
of  Joseph  enabled  him  to  foresee  the  approach  of  famine. 
He  took  measures  accordingly ;  and  when  the  famine  came, 
the  royal  storehouses  were  opened,  and  every  man  in  Egypt 
owed  his  life  to  the  benevolent  providence  of  the  Hebrew 
stranger.  It  was  productive  of  a  great  social  revolution. 
It  brought,  by  degrees,  all  the  land  of  Egypt  into  the  power 
of  the  Crown,  so  that  a  kind  of  feudal  system  was  establish- 
ed, every  man  holding  in  direct  tenancy  from  the  Crown. 
Hence  the  nation  became  compacted  into  a  new  unity,  and 
power  was  concentrated  in  the  hands  of  government,  partly 
by  the  pecuniary  revenue  thus  added,  and  partly  by  the 
lustre  of  goodness  which  Joseph  had  thrown  round  the  royal 
acts.  For  acts  like  these  are  the  real  bulwarks  of  a  throne. 
One  such  man  as  Joseph  does  more  to  strengthen  the  Crown 
than  all  the  speculations,  solemn  or  trifling,  which  were  ever 


The  Israelite  s  Grave.  243 

trritten  on  the  "  Divine  right  of  kings."     There  is  a  right 
divine  which  requires  no  elaborate  theory  to  make  it  felt. 

II.  The  death  of  Joseph  was  in  accordance  with  his  life. 

1.  The  funeral  was  a  homage  paid  to  goodness.     Little  is 
said  in  the  text  of  Joseph's  funeral.     To  know  what  it  was, 
we  must  turn  to  the  earlier  part  of  the  chapter,  where  that 
of  Jacob  is  mentioned.     A   mourning  of  seventy   days — a 
funeral  whose  imposing  greatness  astonished  the  Canaanites. 
They  said,  "  This  is  a  grievous  mourning  to  the  Egyptians." 
Seventy  days  were  the  time,  or  nearly  so,  fixed  by  custom 
for  a  royal  funeral ;  and  Jacob  was  so  honored,  not  for  his 
own  sake,  but  because  he  was  Joseph's  father.     We  can  not 
suppose  that  Joseph's  own  obsequies  were  on  a  scale  less 
grand. 

Now  weigh  what  is  implied  in  this.  This  was  not  the 
homage  paid  to  talent,  nor  to  wealth,  nor  to  birth.  Joseph 
was  a  foreign  slave,  raised  to  eminence  by  the  simple  power 
of  goodness.  Every  man  in  Egypt  felt,  at  his  death,  that  he 
had  lost  a  friend.  There  were  thousands  whose  tears  would 
fall  when  they  recounted  the  preservation  of  lives  dear  to 
them  in, the  years  of  famine,  and  felt  that  they  owed  those 
lives  to  Joseph.  Grateful  Egypt  mourned  the  good  Foreign- 
er ;  and,  for  once,  the  honors  of  this  world  were  given  to  the 
graces  of  another. 

2.  We  collect  from  this,  besides,  a  hint  of  the  resurrection 
of  the  body.     The  Egyptian  mode  of  sepulture  was  embalm- 
ing ;  and  the  Hebrews,  too,  attached  much  importance  to  the 
body  after   death.     Joseph  commanded   his  countrymen  to 
preserve  his  bones  to  take  away  with  them.     In  this  we  de- 
tect that  unmistakable  human  craving,  not  only  for  immor- 
tality, but  immortality  associated  with  a  form.     No  doubt 
the  Egyptian  feeling  was  carried  out  absurdly.     They  tried 
to  redeem  from  the  worm  the   very  aspect   that  had  been 
worn,  the  very  features  they  had  loved ;    and  there  was    a 
kind  of  feeling,  that. while  that  mummy  lasted,  the  man  had 
not  yet  perished  from  earth.     They  expected  that,  in  process 
of  years,  it  would  again  be  animated  by  its  spirit. 

Now  Christianity  does  not  disappoint,  but  rather  meets 
that  feeling.  It  grants  all  that  the  materialist,  and  all  that 
the  spiritualist,  have  a  right  to  ask.  It  grants  to  the  mate- 
rialist, by  the  doctrine  of  the  resurrection  of  the  body,  that 
future  life  shall  be  associated  with  a  material  form.  Leaving 
untouched  all  the  questions  which  may  be  raised  about  the 
identity  of  the  atoms  that  have  been  buried,  it  simply  pro- 
nounces that  the  spirit  shall  have  a  body.  It  grants  to  the 


244  The  Israelite's  Grave. 

spiritualist  all  he  ought  to  wish — that  the  spirit  shall  be  free 
from  evil.  For  it  is  a  mistake  of  ultra-spiritualism,  to  con- 
nect degradation  with  the  thought  of  a  risen  body ;  or  to 
suppose  that  a  mind,  unbound  by  the  limitations  of  space,  is 
a  more  spiritual  idea  of  resurrection  than  the  other. 

The  opposite  to  spirituality  is  not  materialism,  but  sin. 
The  form  of  matter  does  not  degrade.  For  what  is  this 
world  itself  but  the  form  of  Deity,  whereby  the  manifoldness 
of  His  mind  and  beauty  manifests,  and  wherein  it  clothes 
itself?  It  is  idle  to  say  that  spirit  can  exist  apart  from  form. 
We  do  not  know  that  it  can.  Perhaps  even  the  Eternal  Him- 
self is  more  closely  bound  to  His  works  than  our  philosophi- 
cal systems  have  conceived.  Perhaps  matter  is  only  a  mode 
of  thought.  At  all  events,  all  that  we  know  or  can'know  of 
mind,  exists  in  union  with  form.  The  resurrection  of  the 
body  is  the  Christian  verity,  which  meets  and  satisfies  those 
cravings  of  the  ancient  Egyptian  mind  that  expressed  them- 
selves in  the  process  of  embalming,  and  the  religious  rev- 
erence felt  for  the  very  bones  of  the  departed  by  the  He- 
brews. 

Finally,  in  the  last  will  and  testament  of  Joseph  we  find 
faith.  He  commanded  his  brethren,  and  through  them,  his 
nation,  to  carry  his  bones  with  them  when  they  migrated  to 
Canaan.  In  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  that  is  reckoned  an 
evidence  of  faith.  "By  faith  Joseph  gave  commandment 
concerning  his  bones."  How  did  he  know  that  his  people 
would  ever  quit  Egypt  ?  We  reply,  by  faith.  Not  faith  in 
a  written  word,  for^Joseph  had  no  Bible  ;  rather,  faith  in  that 
conviction  of  his  own  heart  which  is  itself  the  substantial  evi- 
dence of  faith.  For  religious  faith  ever  dreams  of  something 
higher,  more  beautiful,  more  perfect,  than  the  state  of  things 
with  which  it  feels  itself  surrounded.  Ever,  a  day  future 
lies  before  it :  the  evidence  for  which  is  its  own  hope. 
Abraham,  by  that  creative  faith,  saw  the  day  of  Christ,  and 
was  glad.  Joseph  saw  his  family  in  prosperity,  even  in  af- 
fluence ;  but  he  felt  that  this  was  not  their  rest.  A  higher 
life  than  that  of  affluence — a  nobler  destiny  than  that  of 
stagnant  rest,  there  must  be  for  them  in  the  future ;  else  all 
the  anticipations  of  a  purer  earth,  and  a  holier  world,  which 
imagination  bodied  forth  within  his  soul,  were  empty  dreams, 
not  the  intuitions  of  God's  Spirit.  It  was  this  idea  of 
perfection,  which  was  "  the  substance  of  things  hoped  for," 
that  carried  him  far  beyond  the  period  of  his  own  death, 
and  made  him  feel  himself  a  partaker  of  his  nation's  blessed 
future. 

And   that   is   the   evidence   of  immortality.     When    the 


The  Israelite  s  Grave.  245 

coffin  is  lowered  into  the  grave,  and  the  duL,  heavy  sound  of 
earth  falling  on  it  is  heard,  there  are  some  to  whom  that 
sound  seems  but  an  echo  of  their  worst  anticipations ;  seems 
but  to  reverberate  the  idea  of  decay  forever,  in  the  words, 
"  Earth  to  earth,  ashes  to  ashes,  dust  to  dust."  There  are 
others  to  whom  it  sounds  pregnant  with  the  expectations  o£ 
immortality,  the  "  sure  and  certain  hope  of  a  resurrection  to 
eternal  life."  The  difference  between  these  two  feelings  is 
measured  by  the  difference  of  lives.  They  whose  life  is  low 
and  earthly,  how  can  they  believe  in  aught  beyond  the  grave, 
when  nothing  of  that  life  which  is  eternal  has  yet  stirred 
within  them?  They  who  have  lived  as  Joseph  lived, just  in 
proportion  to  their  purity  and  their  unselfishness,  must 
believe  it.  They  can  not  but  believe  it.  The  eternal  exist- 
ence is  already  pulsing  in  their  veins ;  the  life  of  trust  and 
high  hope,  and  sublime  longings  after  perfection,  with  which 
the  decay  of  the  frame  has  nothing  at  all  to  do.  That  is 
gone — yes — but  it  was  not  that  life  in  which  they  lived,  and 
when  it  finished,  what  had  that  ruin  to  do  with  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  immortal  ? 

For  what  is  our  proof  of  immortality  ?  "Not  the  analogies 
of  nature — the  resurrection  of  nature  from  a  winter  grave — 
or  the  emancipation  of  the  butterfly.  Not  even  the  testi- 
mony to  the  fact  of  risen  dead  ;  for  who  does  not  know  how 
shadowy  and  unsubstantial  these  intellectual  proofs  become 
in  unspiritual  frames  of  mind  ?  No;  the  life  of  the  spirit  is 
the  evidence.  Heaven  begun  is  the  living  proof  that  makes 
the  heaven  to  come  credible.  "  Christ  in  you  is  the  hope  of 
glory."  It  is  the  eagle  eye  of  faith  which  penetrates  the 
grave,  and  sees  far  into  the  tranquil  things  of  death.  He 
alone  can  believe  in  immortality  who  feels  the  resurrection  in 
him  already. 

There  is  a  special  application  to  be  made  of  this  subject  to 
our  hearts.  It  is  not  often  that  the  pulpit  can  be  used  for  a 
funeral  eulogium.  Where  Christ  is  to  be  exalted  in  solitary 
pre-eminence,  it  is  but  rarely  that  the  praise  of  men  may  be 
heard.  Rank,  royalty  itself,  could  not  command  from  the 
lips  of  a  minister  of  the  King  of  kings  one  syllable  of  adula- 
tory, undeserved,  or  unfelt  homage.  But  there  are  cases  in 
which  to  loftiness  of  birth  is  added  dignity  of  character; 
and  then  we  gladly  relax  the  rule,  to  pay  a  willing  tribute 
to  the  majesty  of  goodness. 

There  is  one  to  whom  your  thoughts  must  have  reverted 
often  during  the  history  which  we  have  been  going  through, 
suggesting  a  parallel,  all  the  more  delicately  felt  from  the 
absence  of  direct  allusion.  That  royal  la  dy,  for  whose  loss 


246  The  Israelite  s  Grave. 

the  marvellous  uniformity  of  the  unbroken  funeral  hue  which 
pervades  this  congregation  tells  eloquently  of  general  mourn' 
ing,  came  to  this  land  a  few  years  ago,  like  Joseph,  a  foreign- 
er — like  Joseph,  the  earlier  years  of  her  sojourn  were  spent 
in  comparative  obscurity— like  Joseph,  she  had  her  share  of 
calumny,  though  in  a  diiferent  form.  There  are  many  here 
who  can  remember  that  in  that  year  when  our  political  feuds 
had  attained  the  acme  of  rancor,  the  irreverent  lip  of  party 
slander  dared  to  breathe  its  rank  venom  upon  the  name  of 
one  of  the  gentlest  that  ever  .adorned  a  throne.  There  are 
some  who  know  how  that  unpopularity  was  met:  with 
meekness — with  Christian  forgiveness — with  quiet  dignity — 
with  that  composure  which  is  the  highest  result  and  evi- 
dence of  strength.  Like  Joseph,  she  passed  through  the 
temptations  of  a  court  with  unsullied  spotlessness — like  Jo- 
seph, the  domestic  and  social  relationships  were  sustained 
w^ith  beautiful  fidelity — like  Joseph,  she  lived  down  opposi- 
tion, outlived  calumny — like  Joseph,  she  used  the  noble  in- 
come intrusted  to  her  in  acts  of  almost  unexampled  munifi- 
cence— like  Joseph,  her  life  was  checkered  with  sorrow ;  and 
when  the  clouds  of  earlier  difficulties  had  cleared  away,  the 
rainbow  sign  of  peace,  even  in  the  midst  of  broken  health, 
spanned  the  calmness  of  her  evening  years — like  Joseph,  she 
will  have  a  regal  burial,  and  her  ashes  will  repose  with  the 
dust  of  England's  princes  amidst  the  mourning  of  the  nation 
in  which  she  found  a  home. 

The  homage  which  is  given  to  her  is  not  the  homage 
yielded  to  rank  or  wealth  or  genius.  There  will  be  silver 
on  her  coffin,  and  magnificence  in  the  pageantry  which  at- 
tends her  to  the  grave  ;*  but  it  is  not  in  these  that  the  glory 
of  her  funeral  lies.  These  were  the  privileges  of  the  most 
profligate  of  her  ancestors  as  well  as  her.  These  are  the 
world's  rewards  for  those  whom  she  delights  to  honor.  There 
will  be  something  in  her  funeral  besides  which  these  things 
are  mean.  There  is  a  grandeur  in  a  nation's  tears ;  and  they 
will  be  shed  in  unfeigned  reverence  over  the  remains  of  all 
that  was  most  queenly,  and  all  that  was  most  womanly. 
No  political  fervor  mixes  with  her  obsequies.  She  stood 
identified  with  no  party  politics.  No  peculiar  religious  par- 
ty mourns  its  patroness.  Of  all  our  jarring  religious  sects, 
in  the  Church  and  out  of  it,  not  one  dares  to  claim  her  as  its 
own.  Her  spirit  soared  above  these  things.  It  is  known 

*  This  anticipation  has  not  been  realized.  In  one  of  the  most  touching 
and  unaffected  documents  that  ever  went  right  home  to  English  hearts,  the 
queen  of  a  British  sovereign  requested  to  be  borne  to  the  grave  as  the  wife 
of  a  sailor. 


The  Israelite  s  Grave.  247 

that  she  scarcely  recognized  them.  All  was  lost  in  the  sub- 
limer  name  of  Christian.  It  is  a  Christian  who  has  passed 
from  this  earth  away,  to  take  her  place  in  the  general  As- 
sembly and  Church  of  the  first-born :  to  stand  before  God, 
the  Judge  of  all,  among  the  spirits  of  the  just  made  per- 
fect. 

One  word  more.  Honoring  the  Queen,  profoundly  rever- 
encing the  Woman,  let  not  contemplation  stop  there.  Do 
not  bury  thought  in  the  human  and  finite.  Mildly  as  her 
lustre  shone  on  earth,  remember  it  was  but  one  feeble  ray  of 
the  Light  that  is  Uncreated.  All  that  she  had  she  received. 
If  we  honor  her,  it  is  to  adore  Him  who  made  her  what  she 
was.  Of  His  fullness  she  had  received,  and  grace  for  grace. 
What  she  was,  she  became  through  adoring  faith  in  Christ. 
It  is  an  elevating  thing  to  gaze  on  human  excellence,  be- 
cause through  it  the  Highest  becomes  conceivable.  It  is  a 
spirit-stirring  thing  to  see  saintly  goodness  asserting  its  ce- 
lestial origin  by  turning  pale  the  lustre  of  the  highest  earth- 
ly rank;  for  in  this  universal  mourning  our  noble  country 
has  not  bowed  the  knee  in  reverence  to  the  majesty  which  is 
of  time.  Every  heart  in  England  has  felt  that  the  sovereign 
was  merged  in  the  servant  of  Christ.  "  The  King's  daugh- 
ter was  all  glorious  within."  "Hers  was  Christian  goodness. 
Her  eyes  had  beheld  the  King  in  His  beauty,  and  therefore 
Tier  life  was  beautiful,  and  feminine,  and  meek,  and  simple. 
It  was  all  derived  beauty.  She  had  robed  herself  in  Christ. 
"  Reflecting  back,  as  from  a  burnished  mirror,  the  glory  of 
the  Lord,  she  was  changed  into  the  same  image,  from  glory 
to  glory,  even  as  by  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord."* 

*  2  Cor.  iii.  18.     This  appears  to  be  the  true  force  and  rendering  of  the 
metaphor. 


Subjoined  are  the  directions  given  by  her  late  Majesty  for  her  own  funeral. 
The  reader  will  be  glad  to  have  them  preserved  in  a  form  less  inconvenient 
than  the  columns  of  a  newspaper.  Should  he  be  one  who  feels  it  a  relief  to 
miss,  for  once,  the  worn-out  conventionalisms  of  religious  expression,  and 
come  in  contact  with  something  fres,h  and  living,  he  will  find  more  in  these 
quiet  lines  than  in  ten  sermons ;  more  to  make  a  very  happy  tear  start ; 
more  of  the  simplicity  and  the  beauty  of  the  life  in  God ;  more  to  cool  the 
feverishness  of  his  heart,  and  still  its  worldliness  into  silence ;  more  of  that 
deep  rest  into  which  the  meek  and  humble  enter ;  more  that  will  make  him 
long  to  be  simple,  and  inartificial,  and  real,  as  Christ  was,  desiring  only,  in 
life,  and  death,  and  judgment,  to  be  found  in  HIM. 


248  The  Israelites  Grave. 

[COPY.] 

"  I  die  in  all  humility,  knowing  well  that  we  are  all  alike  before  the  Throne 
of  God,  and  request,  therefore,  that  my  mortal  remains  be  conveyed  to  the 
grave  without  any  pomp  or  state.  They  are  to  be  moved  to  St.  George's 
Chapel,  Windsor,  where  I  request  to  have  as  private  and  quiet  a  funeral  as 
possible. 

"I  particularly  desire  not  to  be  laid  out  in  state,  and  the  funeral  to  take 
place  by  daylight,  no  procession,  the  coffin  to  be  carried  by  sailors  to  the 
chapel. 

"  All  those  of  my  friends  and  relations,  to  a  limited  number,  who  wish  to 
attend,  may  do  so.  My  nephew,  Prince  Edward  of  Saxe  Weimar,  Lords 
Howe  and  Denbigh,  the  Hon.  William  Ashley,  Mr.  Wood,  Sir  Andrew 
Barnard,  and  Sir  D.  Davis,  with  my  dressers,  and  those  of  my  ladies  who 
may  wish  to  attend. 

"I  die  in  peace,  and  wish  to  be  carried  to  the  tomb  in  peace,  and  free 
from  the  vanities  and  the  pomp  of  this  world. 

"  I  request  not  to  be  dissected,  nor  embalmed  ;  and  desire  to  give  as  little 
trouble  as  possible. 

(Signed)  "  ADELAIDE  R 

"November,  184ft- 


SERMONS 


Series. 


i. 
THE  STAR  IN  THE  EAST. 

"Now  when  Jesus  was  born  in  Bethlehem  of  Judea  in  the  days  of  Herod 
the  king,  behold,  there  came  wise  men  from  the  east  to  Jerusalem,  saying, 
Where  is  he  that  is  born  King  of  the  Jews  ?  for  we  have  seen  his  star  in  the 
east,  and  are  come  to  worship  him."  —  Matt.  ii.  1,  2. 

OUR  subject  is  the  Manifestation  of  -Christ  to  the  Gentiles. 
The  King  of  the  Jews  has  become  the  Sovereign  of  the 
world  :  a  fact,  one  would  think,  which  must  cause  a  secret 
complacency  in  the  heart  of  all  Jews.  For  that  which  is 
most  deeply  working  in  modern  life  and  thought  is  the  mind 
of  Christ.  His  name  has  passed  over  our  institutions,  and 
much  more  has  His  spirit  penetrated  into  our  social  and  do- 
mestic existence.  In  other  words,  a  Hebrew  mind  is  now, 
and  has  been  for  centuries,  ruling  Europe. 

But  the  Gospel  which  He  proclaimed  was  not  limited  to 
the  Hebrews  :  it  was  a  Gospel  for  the  nations.  By  the  death 
of  Christ,  God  has  struck  His  death-blow  at  the  root  of  the 
hereditary  principle.  "  We  be  the  seed  of  Abraham  "  was 
the  proud  pretension  of  the  Israelite  ;  and  he  was  told  by 
Christ's  Gospel  that  spiritual  dignity  rests  not  upon  spiritual 
descent,  but  upon  spiritual  character.  New  tribes  were 
adopted  into  the  Christian  union,  and  it  became  clear  that 
there  was  no  distinction  of  race  in  the  spiritual  family.  The 
Jewish  rite  of  circumcision  —  a  symbol  of  exclusiveness,  cut- 
ting off  one  nation  from  all  others  —  was  exchanged  for  Bap- 
tism, the  symbol  of  universality,  proclaiming  the  nearness  of 
all  to  God,  His  paternity  over  the  human  race,  and  the  Son* 
ship  of  all  who  chose  to  claim  their  privileges. 

This  was  a  Gospel  for  the  world,  and  nation  after  nation 


250  The  Star  in  the  East. 

accepted  it.  Churches  were  formed ;  the  kingdom  which  is 
the  domain  of  love  grew;  the  Roman  Empire  crumbled  into 
fragments ;  but  every  fragment  was  found  pregnant  with 
life.  It  brake  not  as  some  ancient  temple  might  break,  its 
broken  pieces  lying  in  lifeless  ruin,. overgrown  with  weeds: 
ratLer  as  one  of  those  mysterious  animals  break,  of  w/iich,  if 
vou  rend  them  asunder,  every  separate  portion  forms  itself 
into  a  new  anc1.  .complete  existence.  Rome  gave  way;  but 
every  portion  became  a  Christian  kingdom,  alive  with  the 
mind  of  Christ,  and  developing  the  Christian  idea  after  its 
own  peculiar  nature. 

The  portion  of  Scripture  selected  for  the  text  and  for  the 
gospel  of  the  day  has  an  important  bearing  on  this  great 
Epiphany.  The  ';  wise  men  "  belonged  to  a  creed  of  very 
hoary  and  venerable  antiquity  ;  a  system,  too,  which  had  in 
it  the  elements  of  strong  vitality.  For  seven  centuries  after, 
the  Mohammedan  sword  scarcely  availed  to  extirpate  it — 
indeed  could  not.  They  whom  the  Mohammedan  called  fire- 
worshippers  clung  to  their  creed  with  vigor  and  indestructi- 
ble tenacity,  in  spite  of  ail  his  efforts. 

Here  then,  in  this  act  of  homage  to  the  Messiah,  were  the 
representatives  of  the  highest  then  existing  influences  of  the 
world,  doing  homage  to  the  Lord  of  a  mightier  influence,  and 
reverently  bending  before  the  dawn  of  the  Star  of  a  new  and 
brighter  Day.  It  was  the  first  distinct  turning  of  the  Gen- 
tile mind  to  Christ ;  the  first  instinctive  craving  after  a 
something  higher  than  Gentilism  could  ever  satisfy. 
.  In  this  light  our  thoughts  arrange  themselves  thus  : 

I.  The  expectation  of  the  Gentiles. 
IL  The  Manifestation  or  Epiphany. 

I.  The  expectation :  "  Where  is  He  that  is  born  King  of 
the  Jews  ?  for  we  have  seen  His  star  in  the  east,  and  are 
^ome  to  worship  Him." 

Observe — 1.  The  craving  for  eternal  life.  The  "  wise  men  " 
were  "  Magians,"  that  is,  Persian  priests.  The  name,  howev- 
er, was  extended  to  all  the  Eastern  philosophers  who  profess- 
ed that  religion,  or  even  that  philosophy.  The  Magians  were 
chiefly  distinguished  by  being  worshippers  of  the  stars,  or 
students  of  astronomy. 

Xo\v  astronomy  is  a  science  which  arises  from  man's  need 
of  religion  ;  other  sciences  spring  out  of  wants  bounded  by 
th is  life.  For  instance,  anatomy  presupposes  disease.  There 
would  be  no  prying  into  our  animal  frame,  no  anatomy,  were 
there  not  a  malady  to  stimulate  the  inquiry.  Navigation 
arises  from  the  necessity  of  traversing  the  seas  to  appropri- 


The  Star  in  the  East.  251 

ate  t;ne  produce  of  other  countries.  Charts,  and  maps,  and 
soundings  are  made,  because  of  a  felt  earthly  want.  But 
in  astronomy  the  first  impulse  of  mankind  came  not  from 
the  craving  of  the  intellect,  but  from  the  necessities  of  the 
soul. 

If  you  search  down  into  the  constitution  of  your  being  till 
you  come  to  the  lowest  deep  of  all,  underlying  all  other 
wants  you  will  find  a  craving  for  what  is  infinite — a  some- 
thing that  desires  perfection — a  wish  that  nothing  but  the 
thought  of  that  which  is  eternal  can  satisfy.  To  the  untu- 
tored mind  nowhere  was  that  want  so  called  into  conscious- 
ness, perhaps,  as  beneath  the  mighty  skies  of  the  East.  Se- 
rene and  beautiful  are  the  nights  in  Persia,  and  many  a  wise 
man  in  earlier  days,  full  of  deep  thoughts,  went  out  into  the 
fields  like  Isaac  to  meditate  at  eventide:  God  has  so  made 
us  that  the  very  act  of  looking  up  produces  in  us  percep- 
tions of  the  sublime.  And  then  those  skies  in  their  calm 
depths  mirroring  that  which  is  boundless  in  space  and  illim- 
itable in  time,  with  a  silence  profound  as  death  and  a  motion 
gliding  on  forever,  as  if  symbolizing  eternity  of  life,  no  won- 
der if  men  associated  with  them  their  highest  thoughts,  and 
conceived  them  to  be  the  home  of  Deity — no  wonder  if  an 
Eternal  Destiny  seemed  to  sit  enthroned  there — no  wonder 
if  they  seemed  to  have  in  their  mystic  motion  an  invisible 
sympathy  with  human  life  and  its  mysterious  destinies — no 
wonder  if  he  who  could  read  best  their  laws  was  reckoned 
best  able  to  interpret  the  duties  of  this  life,  and  all  that  con- 
nects man  with  that  which  is  invisible — no  wonder  if,  in 
those  devout  days  of  young  thought,  science  was  only  an- 
other name  for  religion,  and  the  Priest  of  the  great  temple 
of  the  universe  was  also  the  Priest  in  the  temple  made  with 
hands.  Astronomy  was  the  religion  of  the  world's  youth. 

The  Magians  were  led  by  the  star  to  Christ ;  their  as- 
tronomy was  the  very  pathway  to  their  Saviour. 

Upon  this  I  make  one  or  two  remarks. 

1.  The  folly  of  depreciating  human  wisdom.  Of  all  vani- 
ties, the  worst  is  the  vanity  of  ignorance.  It  is  common 
enough  to  hear  learning  decried,  as"  if  it  were  an  opposite  of 
religion.  If  that  means  that  science  is  not  religion,  and  that 
the  man  who  can  calculate  the  motions  of  the  stars  may  nev- 
er have  bowed  his  soul  t©  Christ,  it  contains  a  truth.  But 
if  it  means,  as  it  often  does,  that  learning  is  a  positive  incum- 
brance  arid  hindrance  to  religion,  then  it  is  as  much  as  to  say 
that  the  God  of  nature  is  not  the  God  of  grace;  that  the 
more  you  study  the  Creator's  works,  the  farther  you  remove 
from  Himself:  nay,  we  must  go  farther  to  be  consistent,  and 


252  The  Star  in  the  East* 

hold,  as  most  uncultivated  and  rude  nations  do,  that  the 
state  of  idiocy  is  nearest  to  that  of  inspiration. 

There  are  expressions  of  St.  Paul  often  quoted  as  sanction- 
ing this  idea.  He  tells  his  converts  to  beware  "  lest  any  man 
spoil  you  through  philosophy."  Whereupon  we  take  for 
granted  that  modern  philosophy  is  a  kind  of  antagonist  to 
Christianity.  This  is  one  instance  out  of  many  of  the  way 
in  which  an  ambiguous  word  misunderstood  becomes  the 
source  of  infinite  error.  Let  us  hear  St.  Paul.  He  bids  Tim- 
othy "beware  of  profane  and  old  wives'  fables."  He  speaks 
of  "endless  genealogies" — "worshipping  of  angels" — "in- 
truding into  those  things  which  men  have  riot  seen."  This 
was  the  philosophy  of  those  days :  a  system  of  wild  fancies 
spun  out  of  the  brain— somewhat  like  what  we  might  now 
call  demonolatry:  but  as  different  from  philosophy  as  any 
two  things  can  differ. 

They  forget,  too,  another  thing.  Philosophy  has  become 
Christian  ;  science  has  knelt  to  Christ.  There  is  a  deep  sig- 
nificance in  that  homage  of  the  Magians.  For  it  in  fact  was 
but  a  specimen  and  type  of  that  which  science  has  been  doing 
ever  since.  The  mind  of  Christ  has  not  only  entered  into  the 
Temple,  and  made  it  the  house  of  prayer,  it  has  entered  into 
the  temple  of  science,  and  purified  the  spirit  of  philosopb;. 
This  is  its  spirit  now,  as,  expounded  by  its  chief  interpreter, 
"  Man,  the  interpreter  of  Nature,  knows  nothing,  and  can  do 
nothing,  except  that  which  Nature  teaches  him."  What  is 
this  but  science  bending  before  the  Child,  becoming  childlike, 
and,  instead  of  projecting  its  own  fancies  upon  God's  world, 
listening  reverently  to  hear  what  It  has  to  teach  him?  In  a 
similar  spirit,  too,  spoke  the  greatest  of  philosophers,  in  words 
quoted  in  every  child's  book :  "  I  am  but  a  child,  picking  up 
pebbles  on  the  shore  of  the  great  sea  of  truth." 

Oh,  be  sure  all  the  universe  tells  of  Christ  and  leads  to 
Christ.  Rightly  those  ancient  Magians  deemed,  in  believing 
that  God  was  worshipped  truly  in  that  august  temple.  The 
stars  preach  the  mind  of  Christ.  Not  as  of  old,  w^hen  a  mys- 
tic star  guided  their  feet  to  Bethlehem,  but  now,  to  the  mind 
of  the  astronomer,  they  tell  of  eternal  order  and  harmony ; 
they  speak  of  changeless  law,  where  no  caprice  reigns.  You 
may  calculate  the  star's  return :  and  to  the  day,  and  hour, 
and  minute  it  will  be  there.  This  is  the  fidelity  of  God. 
These  mute  masses  obey  the  law  impressed  upon  them  by 
their  Creator's  hand,  unconsciously  :  and  that  law  is  the  law 
of  their  own  nature.  To  understand  the  laws  of  our  nature, 
and  consciously  and  reverently  to  obey  them,  that  is  the  mind 
of  Christ,  the  subliinest  spirit  of  the  Gospel. 


The  Star  in  the  East.  253 

I  remark  again — This  universe  may  be  studied  in  an  irrev- 
erent spirit.  In  Dan.  ii.  48,  we  find  the  reverence  which  was 
paid  to  science.  Daniel  among  the  Chaldees  was  made  chief 
of  the  wise  men ;  that  is,  the  first  of  the  Magians :  and  King 
Nebuchadnezzar  bowed  before  him,  with  incense  and  obla- 
tions. In  later  days  we  find  that  spirit  changed.  Another 
king,  Herod,  commands  the  wise  men  to  use  their  science  for 
the  purpose  of  letting  him  know  where  the  Child  was.  In 
earlier  times  they  honored  the  priest  of  N&ture :  in  later  times 
they  made  use  of  him. 

Only  by  a  few  is  science  studied  now  in  the  sublime  and 
reverent  spirit  of  old  days.  A  vulgar  demand  for  utility  has 
taken  the  place  of  that  lowly  prostration  with  which  the 
world  listened  to  the  discoveries  of  truth.  The  discovery  of 
some  new  and  mighty  agent,  by  which  the  east  and  west  are 
brought  together  in  a  moment,  awakens  chiefly  the  emotion 
of  delight  in  us  that  correspondence  and  travelling  will  be 
quickened.  The  merchant  congratulates  himself  upon  the 
speedier  arrival  of  the  news  which  will  give  him  the  start  of 
his  rivals,  and  enable  him  to  outrace  his  competitors  in  the 
competition  of  wealth.  Yet  what  is  this  but  the  utilitarian 
spirit  of  Herod,  seeing  nothing  more  solemn  in  a  mysterious 
star  than  the  means  whereby  he  might  crush  his  supposed 
rival  ? 

There  is  a  spirit  which  believes  that  "  godliness  is  gain," 
and  aims  at  being  godly  for  the  sake  of  advantage — which  is 
honest,  because  honesty  is  the  best  policy — which  says,  Do 
right,  and  you  will  be  the  better,  that  is,  the  richer  for  it. 
There  is  a  spirit  which  seeks  for  wisdom  simply  as  a  means 
to  an  earthly  end — and  that  often  a  mean  one.  This  is  a 
spirit  rebuked  by  the  nobler  reverence  of  the  earlier  days  of 
Magianism.  Knowledge  for  its  own  pure  sake.  God  for  His 
own  sake.  Truth  for  the  sake  of  truth.  This  was  the  reason 
for  which,  in  earlier  days,  men  read  the  aspect  of  the  heavens. 

2.  Next,  in  this  craving  of  the  Gentiles  we  meet  with  traces 
of  the  yearning  of  the  human  soul  for  light.  The  Magian  sys- 
tem was  called  the  system  of  light  about  seven  centuries  be- 
fore Christ.  A  great  reformer  (Zoroaster)  had  appeared,  who 
either  restored  the  system  to  its  purity,  or  created  out  of  it 
a  new  system.  He  said  that  light  is  eternal — that  the  Lord 
of  the  universe  is  light ;  but  because  there  was  an  eternal 
light,  there  was  also  an  eternal  possibility  of  the  absence  of 
light.  Light  and  darkness,  therefore,  were  the  eternal  prin- 
ciples of  the  universe — not  equal  principles,  but  one  the  nega- 
tion of  the  other.  He  taught  that  the  soul  of  man  needs 
light — a  light  external  to  itself  as  well  as  in  itself.  As  the 


254  The  Star  in  the  East. 

eye  can  not  see  in  darkness,  and  is  useless,  so  is  there  a  ca* 
pacity  in  the  soul  for  light ;  but  it  is  not  itself  light ;  it 
needs  the  Everlasting  light  from  outside  itself. 

Hence  the  stars  became  worshipped  as  the  symbols  of  this 
light.  But  by  degrees  these  stars  began  to  stand  in  the  place 
of  the  light  Himself.  This  was  the  state  of  things  in  the  days 
of  these  Magians. 

Magianism  was  now  midway  between  its  glory  and  its  de- 
cline. For  its  glorj-  we  must  go  back  to  the  days  of  Daniel, 
when  a  monarch  felt  it  his  privilege  to  do  honor  to  the  priest 
of  Light — when  that  priest  was  the  sole  medium  of  commu- 
nication between  Deity  and  man,  and  through  him  alone 
"Oromasdes"  made  his  revelations  known — when  the  law 
given  by  the  Magian,  revealed  by  the  eternal  stars,  was  "  the 
law  of  the  Medes  and  Persians  which  altereth  not."  For  its 
lowest  degradation  we  must  pass  over  about  half  a  century 
from  the  time  we  are  now  considering  till  WTC  find  ourselves 
in  Samaria,  in  the  presence  of  Simon  the  Magian.  He  gave 
himself  out  for  the  great  power  of  God.  He  prostituted  such 
powers  and  knowledge  as  he  possessed  to  the  object  of  mak- 
ing gain.  Half  dupe,  half  impostor,  in  him  the  noble  system 
of  Light  had  sunk  to  petty  charlatanism :  Magianism  had  de- 
generated into  Magic. 

Midway  between  these  two  periods,  or  rather  nearer  to  the 
latter,  stood  the  Magian  of  the  text.  There  is  a  time  in  the 
history  of  every  superstition  when  it  is  respectable,  even  de- 
serving reverence,  when  men  believed  it — when  it  is  in  fact 
associated  with  the  highest  feelings  that  are  in  man,  and  the 
channel  even  for  God's  manifestation  to  the  soul.  And  there 
is  a  time  when  it  becomes  less  and  less  credible,  when  clearer 
science  is  superseding  its  pretensions  :  and  then  is  the  p'eriod 
in  which  one  class  of  men  like  Simon  keep  up  the  imposture — 
the  priests  who  will  not  let  the  old  superstition  die,  but 
go  on,  half  impostors,  half  deceived  by  the  strong  delusion 
wherewith  they  believe  their  own  lie — another  class,  like 
Herod,  the  wise  men  of  the  world,  who  patronize  it  for  their 
own  purposes,  and  make  use  of  it  as  an  engine  of  state — 
another  still,  who  turn  from  side  to  side,  feeling  with  horror 
the  old,  and  all  that  they  held  dear,  crumbling  away  beneath 
them :  the  ancient  lights  going  out,  more  than  half  suspecting 
the  falsehood  of  all  the  rest,  and  with  an  earnestness  amount- 
ing almost  to  agony,  leaving  their  own  homes  and  inquiring 
for  fresh  light. 

Such  was  the  posture  of  these  Magians.  You  can  not  en- 
ter into  their  questions  or  sympathize  with  their  wants  un- 
less you  realize  all  this.  For  that  desire  for  light  is  one  of 


The  Star  in  the  East.  255 

the  most  impassioned  of  our  nobler  natures.  That  noble 
prayer  of  the  ancient  world  (iv  $e  tyaei  rat  dXeovrov),  "  Give 
light,  and  let  us  die:"  can  we  not  feel  it?  Light — light 
Oh,  if  the  result  were  the  immediate  realization  of  the  old  fa* 
ble,  and  the  blasting  of  the  daring  spirit  in  the  moment  of 
revelation  of  its  God,  yet  give  us  light.  The  wish  for  light, 
the  expectation  of  the  manifestation  of  God,  is  the  mystery 
which  lies  beneath  the  history  of  the  whole  ancient  world. 

n.  The  Epiphany  itself. 

First,  they  found  a  king.  There  is  something  very  signifi- 
cant in  the  fact  of  that  king  being  discovered  as  a  child. 
The  royal  child  was  the  answer  to  their  desires.  There  are 
two  kinds  of  monarchy,  rule  or  command.  One  is  that  of 
hereditary  title ;  the  other  is  that  of  Divine  Right.  There 
are  kings  of  men's  making,  and  kings  of  God's  making.  The 
se'cret  of  that  command  which  men  obey  involuntarily  is  sub- 
mission of  the  ruler  himself  to  law.  And  this  is  the  secret 
at*  the  royalty  of  the  humanity  of  Christ.  No  principle 
through  all  His  life  is  more  striking,  none  characterizes  it  so 
peculiarly,  as  His  submission  to  another  will.  "  I  came  not 
to  do  Mine  own  will,  but  the  will  of  Him  that  sent  Me." 
"The  words  which  I  speak,  I  speak  not  of  myself."  His 
commands  are  not  arbitrary.  They  are  not  laws  given  on 
authority  only,  they  are  the  eternal  laws  of  our  humanity,  to 
which  He  himself  submitted:  obedience  to  which  alone  can 
makte  our  being  attain  its  end.  This  is  the  secret  of  His  king- 
ship— "He  became  obedient  .  .  .  wherefore  God  also  hath 
highly  exalted  Him."  And  this  is  the  secret  of  all  influence 
and  all  command.  Obedience  to  a  law  above  you  subjugates 
minds  to  you  who  never  would  have  yielded  to  mere  will. 
"Rule  thyself,  thou  rulest  all." 

2.  Next,  observe  the  adoration  of  the  Magians  —  very 
touching,  and  full  of  deep  truth.  The  wisest  of  the  world 
bending  before  the  Child.  Remember  the  history  of  Ma- 
gianism.  It  began  with  awe,  entering  into  this  world  be* 
neath  the  serene  skies  of  the  East ;  in  wonder  and  worship. 
It  passed  into  priestcraft  and  skepticism.  It  ended  in  won- 
der and  adoration  as  it  had  begun :  only  with  a  truer  and 
nobler  meaning. 

This  is  but  a  Tepresentation  of  human  life.  "Heaven  lies 
around  us  in  our  infancy."  The  child  looks  on  this  world  of 
God's  as  one,  not  many — all  beautiful — wonderful — God's — 
the  creation  of  a  Father's  hand.  The  man  dissects,  breaks 
it  into  fragments — loses  love  and  worship  in  speculation  and 
reasoning  -  becomes  more  manly,  more  independent,  and  less 


256  The  Star  in  the  East. 

irradiated  with  a  sense  of  the  presence  of  the  Lord  of  all ;  till 
at  last,  after  many  a  devious  wandering,  if  he  be  one  whom 
the  Star  of  God  is  leading  blind  by  a  way  he  knows  not,  he 
begins  to  see  all  as  one  again,  and  God  in  all.  Back  comes 
the  child-like  spirit  once  more  in  the  Christianity  of  old  age. 
We  kneel  before  the  Child — we  feel  that  to  adore  is  greater 
than  to  reason — that  to  love,  and  worship,  and  believe,  bring 
the  soul  nearer  heaven  than  scientific  analysis.  The  Child  is 
nearer  God  than  we. 

And  this,  too,  is  one  of  the  deep  sayings  of  Christ — "Ex- 
cept ye  be  converted  and  become  as  little  children,  ye  shall 
in  no  case  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven." 

3.  Lastly — In  that  Epiphany  we  have  to  remark  the  Ma- 
gians'  joy.  They  had  seen  the  star  in  the  east.  They  fol- 
lowed it — it  seemed  to  go  out  in  dim  obscurity.  They  went 
about  inquiring  :  asked  Herod,  who  could  tell  them  nothing: 
asked  the  scribes,  who  only  gave  them  a  vague  direction. 
At  last  the  star  shone  out  once  more,  clear  before  them  in 
their  path.  "  When  they  saw  the  star,  they  rejoiced  with 
exceeding  great  joy." 

Perhaps  the  hearts  of  some  of  us  can  interpret  that.  There 
are  some  who  have  seen  the  star  that  shone  in  earlier  days 
go  out ;  quench  itself  in  black  vapors  or  sour  smoke.  There 
are  some  who  have  followed  many  a  star  that  turned  out  to 
be  but  an  ignis  fatuus — one  of  those  bright  exhalations  which 
hover  over  marshes  and  church-yards,  and  only  lead  to  the 
chambers  of  the  dead,  or  the  cold  damp  pits  of  disappoint- 
ment: and  oh,  the  blessing  of  "exceeding  joy,"  after  follow- 
ing in  vain — after  inquiring  of  the  great  men  and  learning 
nothing — of  the  religious  men  and  finding  little — to  see  the 
star  at  last  resting  over  "  the  place  where  the  young  Child 
lies  " — after  groping  the  way  alone,  to  see  the  star  stand  still 
— to  find  thaiT Religion  is  a  thing  far  simpler  than  we  thought 
— that  God  is  near  us — that  to  kneel  and  adore  is  the  noblest 
posture  of  the  soul.  For,  whoever  will  follow  with  fidelity 
his  own  star,  God  will  guide  him  aright.  He  spoke  to  the 
Magians  by  the  star;  to  the  shepherds  by  the  melody  of  the 
heavenly  host ;  to  Joseph  by  a  dream;  to  Simeon  by  an  in- 
ward revelation.  "  Gold,  and  frankincense,  and  myrrh  " — 
these,  and  ten  times  these,  were  poor  and  cheap  to  give  for 
that  blessed  certainty  that  the  star  of  God  is  on  before  us. 

Two  practical  hints  in  conclusion. 

1.  A  hint  of  immortality.  That  star  is  now  looking  down 
on  the  wise  men's  graves;  and  if  there  be  no  life  to  come, 
then  this  is  the  confusion  :  that  mass  of  inert  matter  is  pur- 
suing its  way  through  space,  and  the  minds  that  watched  it, 


The  Healing  of  Jairus's  Daughter         257 

calculated  its  movements,  were  led  by  it  through  aspiring 
wishes  to  holy  adorations ;  those  minds,  more  precious  than 
a  thousand  stars,  have  dropped  out  of  God's  universe.  And 
then  God  cares  for  mere  material  masses  more  than  for  spirits, 
which  are  the  emanation  and  copy  of  Himself.  Impossible ! 
"  God  is  not  the  God  of  the  dead,  but  of  the  living."  God  is 
the  Father  of  our  spirits.  Eternity  and  immeasurableness 
belong  to  Thought  alone.  You  may  measure  the  cycles  of 
that  star  by  years  and  miles :  can  you  bring  any  measure- 
ment which  belongs  to  time  or  space,  by  which  you  can  com- 
pute the  length  or  breadth  or  the  duration  of  one  pure 
thought,  one  aspiration,  one  moment  of  love  ?  This  is  eter- 
nity. Nothing  but  thought  can  be  immortal. 

2.  Learn,  finally,  the  truth  of  the  Epiphany  by  heart.  To 
the  Jew  it  chiefly  meant  that  the  Gentile  too  could  become 
the  child  of  God.  But  to  us ;  is  that  doctrine  obsolete  ? 
Nay,  it  requires  to  be  reiterated  in  this  age  as  much  as  in 
any  other.  There  is  a  spirit  in  all  our  hearts  whereby  we 
would  monopolize  God,  conceiving  of  Him  as  an  unapproach- 
able Being ;  whereby  we  may  terrify  other  men  outside  our 
own  pale,  instead  of  as  the  Father  that  is  near  to  all,  whom 
we  may  approach,  and  whom  to  adore  is  blessedness. 

This  is  our  Judaism :  we  do  not  believe  in  the  Epiphany. 
We  do  not  believe  that  God  is  the  Father  of  the  world — we  do 
not  actually  credit  that  He  has  a  star  for  the  Persian  priest, 
and  celestial  melody  for  the  Hebrew  shepherd,  and  an  unsyl- 
labled  voice  for  all  the  humble  and  inquiring  spirits  in  His 
world.  Therefore  remember  Christ  has  broken  down  the 
middle  wall  of  partition ;  He  has  revealed  God  as  Our  Fa- 
ther; proclaimed  that  there  is  no  distinction  in  the  spiritual 
tamily,  and  established  a  real  Brotherhood  on  earth. 


II. 
THE  HEALING  OF  JAIRTJS'S  DAUGHTER. 

"And  when  Jesus  came  into  the  ruler's  house,  and  saw  the  minstrels  and 
the  people  making  a  noise,  he  said  unto  them,  Give  place :  for  the  maid  is 
not  dead,  but  sleepeth.  And  they  laughed  him  to  scorn.  But  when  the 
people  were  put  forth,  he  went  in,  and  took'  her  by  the  hand,  and  the  maid 
arose.""— Matt.  ix.  23-25. 

THIS  is  one  of  a  pair  of  miracles,  the  full  instruction  from 
neither  of  which  can  be  gained,  unless  taken  in  connection 
with  the  other. 


258         The  Healing  of  Jairu^  s  Daughter. 

On  His  way  to  heal  the  daughter  of  Jairus,  the  Son  of  Man 
was  accosted  by  another  sufferer,  afflicted  twelve  years  with 
an  issue  of  blood.  Humanly  speaking,  there  were  many  causes 
which  might  have  led  to  the  rejection  of  her  request.  The 
case  of  Jairus's  daughter  was  urgent ;  a  matter  of  life  and 
death ;  delay  might  be  fatal ;  a  few  minutes  might  make  all  the 
difference  between  living  and  dying.  Yet  Jesus  not  only  per- 
formed the  miracle,  but  refused  to  perform  it  in  a  hurried 
way ;  paused  to  converse — to  inquire  who  had  touched  Him — 
to  perfect  the  lesson  of  the  whole.  On  his  way  to  perform  one 
act  of  love,  He  turned  aside  to  give  His  attention  to  another. 

The  practical  lesson  is  this:  There  are  many  who  are  so 
occupied  by  one  set  of  duties  as  to  have  no  time  for  others : 
some  whose  life-business  is  the  suppression  of  the  slave-trad^ 
— the  amelioration  of  the  state  of  prisons — the  reformation 
o^  public  abuses.  Right,  except  so  far  as  they  are  monopo- 
lized by  these,  and  feel  themselves  discharged  from  other  ob- 
ligations. The  minister's  work  is  spiritual;  the  physician's 
temporal.  But  if  the  former  neglect  physical  needs,  or  the 
latter  shrink  from  spiritual  opportunities  on  the  plea  that  the 
cure  of  bodies,  not  of  souls,  is  his  work,  so  far  they  refuse  to 
imitate  their  Master. 

He  had  an  ear  open  for  every  tone  of  wail,  a  heart  ready 
to  respond  to  every  species  of  need.  Specially  the  Redeem- 
er of  the  soul,  He  was  yet  as  emphatically  the  "  Saviour  of 
the  body."  He  "  taught  the  people,"  but  he  did  not  neglect 
to  multiply  the  loaves  and  fishes.  The  peculiar  need  of  the 
woman,  the  father's  cry  of  anguish,  the  infant's  cry  of  help- 
lessness, the  wail  of  oppression,  and  the  shriek  of  pain,  all 
were  heard  by  Him,  and  none  were  heard  in  vain. 

Therein  lies  the  difference  between  Christian  love  and  the 
impulse  of  mere  inclination.  We  hear  of  men  being  "  inter- 
ested "  in  a  cause.  It  has  some  peculiar  charm  for  them  in- 
dividually :  the  wants  of  the  heathen,  or  the  destitution  of 
the  soldier  and  sailor,  or  the  conversion  of  the  Jews — accord- 
ing to  men's  associations,  or  fancies,  or  peculiar  bias — may 
engage  their  attention  and  monopolize  their  sympathy.  I 
am  far  from  saying  these  are  wrong :  I  only  say  that  so  far 
as  they  only  interest^  and  monopolize  interest,  the  scurce 
from  which,  they  spring  is  only  human,  and  not  the  highest. 
The  difference  between  such  beneficence  and  that  which  is 
the  result  of  Christian  love,  is  marked  by  partiality  in  one 
case,  universality  in  the  other.  Love  is  universal.  It  is  in- 
tevested  in  all  that  is  human :  not  merely  in  the  concerns  of 
its  own  family,  nation,  sect,  or  circle  of  associations.  Hu- 
manity is  the  sphere  of  its  activity. 


The  Healing  of  Jairus' s  Daughter.        259 

Here,  too,  we  find  the  Son  of  Man  the  pattern  of  our  hu- 
manity. His  bosom  was  to  mankind  what  the  ocean  is  to 
the  world.  The  ocean  has  its  own  mighty  tide ;  but  it  re- 
ceives and  responds  to,  in  exact  proportion,  the  tidal  influ- 
ences of  every  estuary,  and  river,  and  small  creek  which 
pours  into  its  bosom.  So  it  was  in  Christ;  His  bosom 
heaved  with  the  tides  of  our  humanity  ;  but  every  separate 
Borrow,  pain,  and  joy  gave  its  pulsation,  and  received  back 
influence  from  the  sea  of  His  being. 

Looking  at  this  matter  somewhat  more  closely,  it  will  be 
plain  that  the  delay  was  only  apparent — seemingly  there 
was  delay,  and  fatal  delay  :  while  He  yet  spake  there  came 
news  of  the  child's  death.  But  just  so  far  as  the  resurrec- 
tion of  the  dead  is  a  mightier  miracle  than  the  healing  of  the 
sick,  just  so  far  did  the  delay  enhance  and  illustrate,  instead 
of  dimming  the  glory  of  His  mission. 

But  more  definitely  still.  The  miracles  of  Jesus  were  not 
merely  arbitrary  acts :  they  were  subject  to  the  laws  of  the 
spiritual  world.  It  was,  we  may  humbly  say,  impossible  to 
convey  a  spiritual  blessing  to  one  who  was  not  spiritually 
susceptible.  A  certain  inward  character,  a  certain  relation 
(rapport)  to  the  Redeemer,  was  required  to  make  the  mercy 
eificacious.  Hence  in  one  place  we  read,  "  He  could  not  do 
many  miracles  there  because  of  their  unbelief."  And  His 
perpetual  question  was, "  Believest  thou  that  I  am  able  to 
do  this?" 

Now  Jairus  beheld  this  miracle.  He  saw  the  woman's 
modest  touch  approaching  the  hem  of  the  Saviour's  garment. 
He  saw  the  abashed  look  with  which  she  shrunk  from  public 
gaze  and  exposure.  He  heard  the  language  of  Omniscience, 
"  Somebody  hath  touched  Me."  He  heard  the  great  princi- 
ple enunciated,  that  the  only  touch  which  reaches  God  is 
that  of  faith.  The  multitude  may  throng  and  press ;  but 
heart  to  heart,  soul  to  soul,  mind  to  mind,  only  so  do  we 
come  in  actual  contact  with  God.  And  remembering  this,  it 
is  a  matter  not  of  probability  but  of  certainty,  that  the  soul 
of  Jairus  was  actually  made  more  capable  of  a  blessing  than 
b?fore — that  he  must  have  walked  with  a  more  .hopeful  step 
— that  he  must  have  heard  the  announcement,  "Thy  daugh- 
ter is  dead,"  with  less  dismay — that  the  words,  "Fear  not, 
only  believe,"  must  have  come  to  him  with  deeper  meaning, 
and  been  received  with  more  implicit  trust  than  if  Jesus  had 
not  paused  to  heal  the  woman,  but  hurried  on. 

And  this  is  the  principle  of  the  spiritual  kingdom.  Tn 
matters  worldly,  the  more  occupations,  duties,  a  man  has.  t  i  e 
more  certain  is  he  of  doing  all  imperfectly.  In  the  thills 


260        The  Healing  of  J alms's  Daughter. 

of  God  this  is  reversed.  The  more  duties  you  perform,  the 
more  you  are  fitted  for  doing  others :  what  you  lose  in  time, 
you  gain  in  strength.  You  do  not  love  God  the  less,  but  the 
more,  for  loving  man.  You  do  not  weaken  your  .affection 
for  your  family  by  cultivating  attachments  beyond  its  pale, 
but  deepen  and  intensify  it.  Respect  for  the  alien,  tender- 
ness for  the  heretic,  do  not  interfere  with,  but  rather 
strengthen,  attachment  to  your  own  country  and  your  own 
church.  He  who  is  most  liberal  in  the  case  of  a  foreign 
famine  or  a  distant  mission,  will  be  found  to  have  only  learn- 
ed more  liberal  love  towards  the  poor  and  the  uuspiritual- 
ized  of  his  own  land :  so  false  is  the  querulous  complaint  that 
money  is  drained  away  by  such  calls,  to  the  disadvantage  of 
more  near  and  juster  claims. 

You  do  not  injure  one  cause  of  mercy  by  turning  aside  to 
listen  to  the  call  of  another. 

I.  The  uses  of  adversity. 
II.  The  principles  of  a  miracle. 

I.  The  simplest  and  most  obvious  use  of  sorrow  is  to  re- 
mind of  God.  Jairus  and  the  woman,  like  many  others, 
came  to  Christ  from  a  sense  of  want.  It  would  seem  that  a 
certain  shock  is  needed  to  bring  us  in  contact  with  reality. 
We  are  not  conscious  of  our  breathing  till  obstruction  makes 
it  felt.  We  are  not  aware  of  the  possession  of  a  heart  till 
some  disease,  some  sudden  joy  or  sorrow,  rouses  it  into  extra- 
ordinary action.  And  we  are  not  conscious  of  the  mighty 
cravings  of  our  half  Divine  humanity ;  we  are  not  aware  of 
the  God  within  us,  till  some  chasm  yawns  which  must  be 
filled,  or  till  the  rending  asunder  of  our  affections  forces  us  to 
become  fearfully  conscious  of  a  need. 

And  this,  too*  is  the  reply  to  a  rebellious  question  which  our 
hearts  are  putting  perpetually :  Why  am  I  treated  so  ? 
Why  is  my  health  or  my  child  taken  from  me  ?  What  have 
I  done  to  deserve  this  ?  So  Job  passionately  complained 
that  God  had  set  him  up  as  a  mark  to  empty  His  quiver  on. 

The  reply  is,  that  gifts  are  granted  to  elicit  our  affections ; 
they  are  resumed  to  elicit  them  still  more;  for  we  never 
know  the  value  of  a  blessing  till  it  is  gone.  Health,  children 
— we  must  lose  them  before  we  know  the  love  which  they 
contain. 

However,  we  are  not  prepared  to  say  that  a  charge  might 
Dot  with  some  plausibility  be  brought  against  the  love  of 
God,  were  no  intimation  ever  given  that  God  means  to  re- 
sume His  blessings.  That  man  may  fairly  complain  of  his 
adopted  father  who  has  been  educated  as  his  own  son,  and 


The  Healing  of  J aims' s  Daughter.        261 

after  contracting  habits  of  extravagance,  loosing  forward  to 
a  certain  line  of  life,  cultivating  certain  tastes,  is  informed 
that  he  is  only  adopted :  that  he  must  part  with  these  tem- 
porary advantages,  and  sink  into  a  lower  sphere.  It  would 
be  a  poor  excuse  to  say  that  all  he  had  before  was  so  much 
gain,  and  unmerited.  It  is  enough  to  reply  that  false  hopes 
were  raised,  and  knowingly. 

Nay,  the  laws  of  countries  sanction  this.  After  a  certain 
period,  a  title  to  property  can  not  be  interfered  with  :  if  a 
right  of  way  or  road  has  existed,  in  the  venerable  language 
of  the  law,  after  a  custom  "  whereof  the  memory  of  man 
runneth  not  to  the  contrary,"  no  private  right,  however  dig- 
nified, can  overthrow  the  public  claim.  I  do  not  say  that  a 
bitter  feeling  might  not  have  some  show  of  justice  if  such 
were  the  case  with  God's  blessings. 

But  the  truth  is  this  :  God  confers  His  gifts  with  distinct 
reminders  that  they  are  His.  He  gives  us,  for  a  season, 
spirits  taken  out  of  His  universe;  brings  them  into  temporary 
contact  with  us ;  and  we  call  them  father,  mother,  sister, 
child,  friend.  But  just  as  in  some  places,  on  one  day  in  the 
year  the  way  or  path  is  closed  in  order  to  remind  the  public 
that  they  pass  by  sufferance  and  not  by  right,  in  order  that 
no  lapse  of  time  may  establish  "adverse  possession,"  so  does 
God  give  warning  to  us.  Every  ache  and  pain  —  every 
wrinkle  you  see  stamping  itself  on  a  parent's  brow — every 
accident  which  reveals  the  uncertain  tenure  of  life  and  pos- 
sessions—  every  funeral-bell  that  tolls,  are  only  Gcd's  re- 
minders that  we  are  tenants  at  will  and  not  by  right :  pen- 
sioners on  the  bounty  of  an  hour.  He  is  closing  up  the  right 
of  way,  warning  fairly  that  what  we  have  is  lent,  not  given: 
His,  not  ours.  His  mercies  are  so  much  gain.  The  resump- 
tion of  them  is  no  injustice.  Job  learned  that,  too,  by  heart, 
"The  Lord  gave,  and  the  Lord  hath  taken  away :  blessed  be 
the  name  of  the  Lord." 

Again — observe  the  misuse  of  sorrow.  When  Jesus  came 
to  the  house,  He  found  the  minstrels  and  people  making  a 
noise.  In  the  East,  not  content  with  natural  grief,  they  use 
artificial  means  to  deepen  and  prolong  it.  Men  and  women 
make  it  a  separate  profession  to  act  as  mourners,  to  exhibit 
for  hire  the  customary  symbols  and  wail  of  grief,  partly  to 
soothe  and  partly  to  rivet  sorrow  deeply,  by  the  expression 
of  it. 

The  South  and  North  differ  greatly  from  each  other  in 
this  respect.  The  nations  of  the  North  restrain  their  grief- 
affect  the  tearless  eyes  and  the  stern  look.  The  expressive 
South,  and  all  the  nations  whose  origin  is  from  thence,  are 


262         The  Healing  of  Jairus^s  Daiighter. 

demonstrative  in  grief.  They  beat  their  breasts,  tear  theii 
hair,  throw  dust  upon  their  heads.  It  would  be  unwise 
were  either  to  blame  or  ridicule  the  other  so  long  as  each  is 
true  to  Nature.  Unwise  for  the  nations  of  the  South  tc 
deny  the  reality  of  the  grief  which  is  repressed  and  silent ; 
unjust  in  the  denizen  of  the  North  were  he  to  scorn  the 
violence  of  Southern  grief,  or  call  its  uncontrollable  demon- 
strations unmanly.  Much  must  be  allowed  for  tempera- 
ment. 

These  two  opposite  tendencies,  however,  indicate  the  two 
extremes  into  which  men  may  fall  in  this  matter  of  sorrow. 
There  are  two  ways  in  which  we  may  defeat  the  purposes  of 
God  in  grief— by  forgetting  it,  or  by  over-indulging  it. 

The  world's  way  is  to  forget.  It  prescribes  gayety  as  the 
remedy  for  woe ;  banishes  all  objects  which  recall  the  past ; 
makes  it  the  etiquette  of  feeling,  even  amongst  near  relations, 
to  abstain  from  the  mention  of  the  names  of  the  lost ;  gets 
rid  of  the  mourning  weeds  as  soon  as  possible — the  worst  of 
all  remedies  for  grief.  Sorrow,  the  discipline  of  the  Cross,  is 
the  school  for  all  that  is  highest  in  us.  Self-knowledge,  true 
power,  all  that  dignifies  humanity,  are  precluded  the  moment 
you  try  to  merely  banish  grief.  It  is  a  touching  truth  that 
the  Saviour  refused  the  anodyne  on  the  cross  that  would 
have  deadened  pain.  He  would  not  steep  his  senses  in  ob- 
livion. He  would  not  suffer  one  drop  to  trickle  down  the 
side  of  His  Father's  cup  of  anguish  untasted. 

The  other  way  is  to  nurse  sorrow  :  nay,  even  our  best  af- 
fections may  tempt  us  to  this.  It  seems  treason  to  those  we 
have  loved  to  be  happy  now.  We  sit  beneath  the  cypress ; 
we  school  ourselves  to  gloom.  Romance  magnifies  the  fidel- 
ity of  the  broken  heart :  we  refuse  to  be  comforted. 

Now,  generally  speaking,  all  this  must  be  done  by  effort. 
For  God  has  so  constituted  both  our  hearts  and  the  world, 
that  it  is  hard  to  prolong  grief  beyond  a  time.  Say  wrhat 
we  will,  the  heart  has  in  it  a  surprising,  nay,  a  startling 
elasticity.  It  can  not  sustain  unalterable  melancholy ;  and 
beside  our  very  pathway  plants  growr,  healing  and  full  of 
balm.  It  is  a  sullen  heart  that  can  withstand  the  slow  but 
sure  influences  of  the  morning  sun,  the  summer  sky,  the  trees 
and  flowers,  and  the  soothing  power  of  human  sympathy. 

We  are  meant  to  sorrow,  "but  not  as  those  without 
hope."  The  rule  seems  to  consist  in  being  simply  natural. 
The  great  thing  which  Christ  did  was  to  call  men  back  to 
simplicity  and  nature — not  to  perverted,  but  original  nature. 
He  counted  it  no  derogation  of  His  manhood  to  be  seen  to 
weep  ;  he  thought  it  no  shame  to  mingle  with  merry  crowds  ; 


The  Healing  of  Jairus's  Daughter.        263 

He  opened  His  heart  wide  to  all  the  genial  and  all  the  mourn- 
ful impressions  of  this  manifold  life  of  ours.  And  this  is 
what  we  have  to  do ;  be  natural.  Let  God,  that  is,  let  the 
influences  of  God,  freely  play  unthwarted  upon  the  soul. 
Let  there  be  no  unnatural  repression,  no  control  of  feeling 
by  mere  effort.  Let  there  be  no  artificial  and  prolonged 
grief,  no  "minstrels  making  a  noise."  Let  great  Nature 
have  her  way ;  or,  rather,  feel  that  you  are  in  a  Father's 
world,  and  live  in  it  with  Him,  frankly,  in  a  free,  fearless, 
childlike,  and  natural  spirit.  Then  grief  will  do  its  work 
healthily.  The  heart  will  bleed,  and  stanch  when  it  has  bled 
enough.  Do  not  stop  the  bleeding ;  but,  also,  do  not  open 
the  wound  afresh. 

II.  We  come  to  the  principles  on  which  a  miracle  rests. 
1.  I  observe  that  the  perception  of  it  was  confined  to  a 
few.  Peter,  James,  John,  and  the  parents  of  the  child  were 
the  only  persons  present.  The  rest  were  excluded.  To 
behold  wonders,  certain  inward  qualifications,  a  certain  state 
of  heart,  a  certain  susceptibility  are  required.  Those  who 
were  shut  out  were  rendered  incapable  by  disqualifications. 
Absence  of  spiritual  susceptibility  in  the  case  of  those  who 
"  laughed  Him  to  scorn  " — unbelief,  in  those  who  came  with 
courteous  skepticism,  saying,  "  Trouble  not  the  Master ;"  in 
other  words,  He  is  not  master  of  impossibilities — unreality 
in  the  professional  mourners — the  -most  helpless  of  all  dis- 
qualifications. Their  whole  life  was  acting :  they  had  caught 
the  tone  of  condolence  and  sympathy  as  a  trick.  Before 
minds  such  as  these  the  wonders  of  creation  may  be  spread 
in  vain.  Grief  and  joy  alike  are  powerless  to  break  through 
the  crust  of  artificial  semblance  which  envelops  them.  Such 
beings  see  no  miracles.  They  gaze  on  all  with  dead,  dim 
eyes — wrapped  in  conventionalisms,  their  life  a  drama  in 
which  they  are  but  actors,  modulating  their  tones  and  simu- 
lating feelings  according  to  a  received  standard.  How  can 
such  be  ever  witnesses  of  the  supernatural,  or  enter  into  the 
presence  of  the  wonderful  ? 

•  Two  classes'  alone  were  admitted.  They  who,  like  Peter, 
James,  and  John,  lived  the  life  of  courage,  moral  purity,  and 
love,  and  they  who,  like  the  parents,  had  had  the  film  re- 
moved from  their  eyes  by  grief.  For  there  is  a  way  which 
God  has  of  forcing  the  spiritual  upon  men's  attention. 
When  you  shut  down  the  lid  upon  the  coffin  of  a  child,  or 
one  as  dearly  loved,  there  is  an  awful  want,  a  horrible  sense 
of  insecurity,  which  swreeps  away  the  glittering  mist  of  time 
from  the  edge  of  the  abyss,  and  you  gaze  on  the  phantom 


264         The  Healing  of  Jairus's  Daughter. 

wonders  of  the  unseen.     Yes,  real  anguish  qualifies  fo'r  an 
entrance  into  the  solemn  chamber  where  all  is  miracle. 

In  another  way,  and  for  another  reason,  the  numbers  of 
those  who  witness  a  miracle  must  be  limited.  Jairus  had 
his  daughter  restored  to  life :  the  woman  was  miraculously 
healed.  But  if  every  anxious  parent  and  every  sick  sufferer 
could  have  the  wonder  repeated  in  his  or  her  case,  the  won- 
der itself  would  cease.  This  is  the  preposterousness  of  the 
skeptic's  demand — Let  me  see  a  miracle,  on  an  appointed  day 
and  hour,  and  I  will  believe.  Let  us  examine  this. 

A  miracle  is  commonly  defined  to  be  a  contravention  of 
the  laws  of  nature.  More  properly  speaking,  it  is  only  a 
higher  operation  of  those  same  laws  in  a  form  hitherto  un^ 
seen.  A  miracle  is  perhaps  no  more  a  suspension  or  contra- 
diction of  the  laws  of  nature  than  a  hurricane  or  a  thunder- 
storm. They  who  first  travelled  to  tropical  latitudes  came 
back  with  anecdotes  of  supernatural  convulsions  of  the  ele- 
ments. In  truth,  it  was  only  that  they  had  never  personally 
witnessed  such  effects ;  but  the  hurricane  which  swept  the 
waves  flat,  and  the  lightning  which  illuminated  all  the  heav- 
en, or  played  upon  the  bayonets  or  masts  in  lambent  flames, 
were  but  effects  of  the  very  same  laws  of  electricity  and  me- 
teorology which  were  in  operation  at  home. 

A  miracle  is  perhaps  no  more  in  contravention  of  the  laws 
of  the  universe,  than  the  direct  interposition  of  a  whole  na- 
tion in  cases  of  emergency  to  uphold  what  is  right  in  oppo- 
sition to  what  is  established,  is  an  opposition  to  "the  laws  of 
the  realm.  For  instance,  the  whole  people  of  Israel  reversed 
the  unjust  decree  of  Saul  which  had  sentenced  Jonathan  to 
death.  But  law  is  the  expression  only  of  a  people's  will. 
Ordinarily  we  see  that  expression  mediately  made  through 
judges,  office-bearers,  kings  :  and  so  long  as  we  see  it  in  this 
mediate  form,  we  are  by  habit  satisfied  that  all  is  legal. 
There  are  cases,  however,  in  which,  not  an  indirect,  but  a 
direct  expression  of  a  nation's  will  is  demanded.  Extraordi- 
nary cases :  and  because  extraordinary,  they  who  can  only 
see  what  is  legal  in  what  is  customary,  conventional,  and  in 
the  routine  of  written  precedents,  get  bewildeVed,  and  reck- 
on the  anomalous  act  illegal  or  rebellious.  In  reality,  it  is 
only  the  source  of  earthly  law,  the  nation,  pronouncing  the 
law  without  the  intervention  of  the  subordinate  agents. 

This  will  help  us  to  understand  the  nature  of  a  miracle. 
What  we  call  laws  are  simply  the  subordinate  expressions  of 
a  will.  There  must  be  a  will  before  there  can  be  a  law. 
Certain  antecedents  are  followed  by  certain  consequents. 
When  we  see  this  succession,  we  are  satisfied,  and  call  it  nat- 


The  Healing  of  Jairus's  Daughter.         265 

ural.  But  there  are  emergencies  in  which  it  may  be  neces- 
sary for  the  will  to  assert  itself,  and  become  not  the  mediate, 
but  the  immediate  antecedent  to  the  consequent.  No  sub- 
ordinate agent  interposes ;  simply  the  first  cause  comes  in 
contact  with  a  result.  The  audible  expression  of  will  is  fol- 
lowed immediately  by  something  which  is  generally  pre- 
ceded by  some  lower  antecedent  which  we  call  a  cause.  In 
this  case,  you  will  observe,  there  has  been  no  contravention 
of  the  laws  of  nature,  there  has  only  been  an  immediate 
connection  between  the  first  cause  and  the  last  result.  A 
miracle  is  the  manifestation  to  man  of  the  voluntariness  of 
power. 

Now,  bearing  this  in  mind,  let  it  be  supposed  that  every 
one  had  a  right  to  demand  a  miracle — that  the  occurrence 
of  miracles  was  unlimited — that  as  often  as  you  had  an  ache, 
or  trembled  for  the  loss  of  a  relation,  you  had  but  to  pray, 
and  receive  your  wish. 

Clearly  in  this  case,  first  of  all,  the  constitution  of  the  uni- 
verse would  be  reversed.  The  will  of  man  would  be  substi- 
tuted for  the  will  of  God.  Caprice  and  chance  would  regu- 
late all :  God  would  be  dethroned  ;  God  would  be  degraded 
to  the  rank  of  one  of  those  beings  of  supernatural  power  with 
whom  Eastern  romance  abounds,  who  are  subordinated  by  a 
spell  to  the  will  of  a  mortal,  who  is  armed  with  their  powers 
and  uses  them  as  vassals ;  God  would  be  merely  the  genius 
who  would  be  chained  by  the  spell  of  prayer  to  obey  the  be- 
hests of  man.  Man  would  arm  himself  with  the  powers  of 
Deity,  and  God  would  be  his  slave. 

Further  still :  This  unlimited  extension  of  miracles  would 
annihilate  miracles  themselves.  For  suppose  that  miracles 
were  universal — that  prayer  was  directly  followed  by  a  re- 
ply— that  we  could  all  heal  the  sick  and  raise  the  dead — this 
then  would  become  the  common  order  of  things.  It  would 
be  what  we  now  call  nature.  It  would  cease  to  be  extraor- 
dinary, and  the  infidel  would  be  as  unsatisfied  as  ever.  He 
would  see  only  the  antecedent,  prayer,  and  the  invariable 
consequent,  a  reply  to  prayer ;  exactly  what  he  sees  now  in 
the  process  of  causation.  And  then,  just  as  now,  he  would 
say,  What  more  do  you  want  ?  These  are  the  laws  of  the 
universe:  Why  interpose  the  complex  and  cumbrous  ma- 
chinery of  a  God,  the  awkward  hypothesis  of  a  will,  to  ac- 
count for  laws  ? 

Miracles,  then,  are  necessarily  limited.  The  non-limita- 
tion of  miracles  would  annihilate  the  miraculous. 

Lastly ;  it  is  the  intention  of  a  miracle  to  manifest  the  Di- 
vine in  the  common  and  ordinary. 

12 


266         The  Healing  of  Jairus^s  Daughter. 

For  instance,  in  a  boat  on  the  Sea  of  Tiberias  the  Redeem- 
er rose  and  rebuked  the  storm.  Was  that  miracle  merely  a 
proof  of  His  divine  mission  ?  Are  we  merely  to  gather  from 
it  that  then  and  there  on  a  certain  day,  in  a  certain  obscure 
corner  of  the  world,  Divine  power  was  at  work  ?  It  is  con- 
ceivable that  a  man  might  credit  that  miracle — that  he 
might  be  exceedingly  indignant  with  the  rationalist  who  re- 
solves it  into  a  natural  phenomenon — and  it  is  conceivable 
that  that  very  man  might  tremble  in  a  storm.  To  what 
purpose  is  that  miracle  announced  to  him  ?  He  believes  in 
God  existing  in  the  past,  but  not  in  the  present ;  he  believes 
in  a  Divine  presence  in  the  supernatural,  but  discredits  it  in 
the  natural ;  he  recognizes  God  in  the  marvellous,  but  does 
not  feel  Him  in  the  wonderful  of  every  day :  but  unless  it 
has  taught  him  that  the  waves  and  winds  now  are  in  the 
hollow  of  the  hand  of  God,  the  miracle  has  lost  its  mean- 
ing. 

Here  again,  as  in  many  other  cases,  Christ  healed  sickness 
and  raised  the  dead  to  life.  Are  we  merely  to  insert  this 
among  the  "  Evidences  of  Christianity,"  and  then,  with  law- 
yer-like sagacity,  having  laid  down  the  rules  of  evidence, 
say  to  the  infidel,  "  Behold  our  credentials ;  we  call  upon 
you  to  believe  our  Christianity  ?"  This  were  a  poor  reason 
to  account  for  the  putting  forth  of  Almighty  Power.  More 
truly  and  more  deeply,  these  miracles  were  vivid  manifesta- 
tions to  the  senses  that  Christ  is  the  Saviour  of  the  body — 
that  now,  as  then,  the  issues  of  life  and  death  are  in  His 
hands — that  our  daily  existence  is  a  perpetual  miracle.  The 
extraordinary  was  simply  a  manifestation  of  God's  power  in 
the  ordinary.  Nay,  the  ordinary  marvels  are  greater  than 
the  extraordinary,  for  these  are  subordinate  to  them ;  mere- 
ly indications  and  handmaids  guiding  us  to  perceive  and 
recognize  a  constant  Presence,  and  reminding  us  that  in 
everyday  existence  the  miraculous  and  the  Godlike  rule  us. 


Baptism.  267 


in. 
BAPTISM. 

"For  ye  are  all  the  children  of  God  by  faith  in  Christ  Jesus.  For  as 
many  of  you  as  have  been  baptized  into  Christ  have  put  on  Christ.  There 
is  neither  Jew  nor  Greek,  there  is  neither  bond  nor  free,  there  is  neither  male 
nor  female :  for  ye  are  all  one  in  Christ  Jesus.  And  if  ye  be  Christ's,  then 
are  ye  Abraham's  seed,  and  heirs  according  to  the  promise. " — Gal.  iii.  26-29. 

WHEREVER  opposite  views  are  held  with  warmth  by  re- 
ligious-nrinded  men,  we  may  take  for  granted  that  there  is 
some  higher  truth  which  embraces  both.  All  high  .truth  is 
the  union  of  two  contradictories.  Thus  predestination  and 
free-will  are  opposites :  and  the  truth  does  not  lie  between 
these  two,  but  in  a  higher  reconciling  truth  which  leaves 
both  true.  So  with  the  opposing  views  of  baptism.  Men  of 
equal  spirituality  are  ready  to  sacrifice  all  to  assert,  or  to 
deny,  the  doctrine  of  baptismal  regeneration.  And  the  truth, 
I  believe,  will  be  found,  not  in  some  middle,  moderate,  timid 
doctrine  which  skillfully  avoids  extremes,  but  in  a  truth 
larger  than  either  of  these  opposite  views,  which  is  the  basis 
of  both,  and  which  really  is  that  for  which  each  party  tena- 
ciously clings  to  its  own  view  as  to  a  matter  of  life  and 
death. 

The  present  occasion*  only  requires  us  to  examine  three 
views. 

I.  That  of  Rome. 
II.  That  of  modern  Calvinism. 

III.  That  of  (as  I  believe)  Scripture  and  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land. 

I.  The  doctrine  of  Rome  respecting  baptism.  We  will 
take  her  own  authorities. 

1.  "If  any  one  say  that  the  sin  of  Adam  ....  is  taken 
away,  either  by  the  powers  of  human  nature  or  by  any  other 
remedy  than  the  merit  of  the  One  Mediator,  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  ....  or  denies  that  the  merit  of  Jesus  Christ,  duly 
conferred  by  the  sacrament  of  baptism  in  the  church  form,  is 
applied  to  adults  as  well  as  to  children — let  him  be  accursed." 
• — Sess.  v.  4. 

"  If  any  one  deny  that  the  imputation  of  original  sin  is  re- 

*  The  recent  decision  on  the  Gorham  case  of  the  Privy  Council. 


268  Baptism. 

raitted  by  the  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  which  is  con- 
ferred in  baptism,  or  even  asserts  that  the  whole  of  that 
which  has  the  true  and  proper  character  of  sin,  is  not  taken 
away,  but  only  not  imputed — let  him  be  accursed." — Sess. 
v.  5. 

"If  any  one  say  that  grace  is  not  given  by  sacraments  of 
this  kind  always  and  to  all,  so  far  as  God's  part  is  concerned, 
but  only  at  times,  and  to  some,  although  they  be  duly  re- 
ceived— let  him  be  accursed." 

"  If  any  one  say  that  by  the  sacraments  of  the  New  Cove- 
nant themselves,  grace  is  not  conferred  by  the  efficacy  of  the 
rite  (opus  operatum),  but  that  faith  alone  is  sufficient  for  ob- 
taining grace — let  him  be  accursed." 

"  If  any  one  say  that  in  three  sacraments,  i.  e.,  baptism,  con- 
firmation, and  orders,  a  character  is  not  impressed  upon  the 
soul,  i.  e.,  a  certain  spiritual  and  indelible  mark  (for  which 
reason  they  can  not  be  repeated) — let  him  be  accursed." — 
Sess.  vii.  cap.  7-9. 

"  By  baptism,  putting  on  Christ,  we  are  made  a  new  crea- 
tion in  Him,  obtaining  plenary  and  entire  'remission  of  all 
sins." 

It  is  scarcely  possible  to  misrepresent  the  doctrine  so  plain- 
ly propounded.  Christ's  merits  are  instrumentally  applied 
by  baptism ;  original  sin  is  removed  by  a  change  of  nature ; 
a  new  character  is  imparted  to  the  soul ;  a  germinal  principle 
or  seed  of  life  is  miraculously  given ;  and  all  this  in  virtue  not 
of  any  condition  in  the  recipient,  nor  of  any  condition  at  all 
except  that  of  the  due  performance  of  the  rite. 

This  view  is  held,  with  varieties  and  modifications  of  many 
kinds,  by  an  increasingly  large  number  of  the  members  of 
the  Church  of  England ;  but  we  do  not  concern  ourselves 
with  these  timid  modifications,  which  painfully  attempt  to 
draw  some  subtle  hair's-breadth  distinction  between  them- 
selves and  the  above  doctrine.  The  true,  honest,  and  only 
honest  representation  of  this  view  is  that  put  forward  undis- 
guisedly  by  Rome. 

When  it  is  objected  to  the  Romanist  that  there  is  no  evi- 
dence in  the  life  of  the  baptized  child  different  from  that- 
given  by  the  unbaptized  sufficient  to  make  credible  a  change 
so  enormous,  he  replies,  as  in  the  case  of  the  other  sacrament, 
The  miracle  is  invisible.  You  can  not  see  the  bread  and  wine 
•  become  flesh  and  blood ;  but  the  flesh  and  blood  are  there, 
whether  you  see  them  or  not.  You  can  not  see  the  effects 
of  regeneration,  but  they  are  there,  hidden,  whether  visible 
to  you  or  not.  In  other  words,  Christ  has  declared  that  it  is 
with  every  one  born  of  the  Spirit  as  with  the  wind,  "77wu 


Baptism.  269 

nearest  the  sound  thereof"  But  the  Romanist  distinctly 
holds  that  you  can  not  hear  the  sound — that  the  wind  hath 
blown,  but  there  is  no  sound — that  the  Spirit  hath  descended, 
and  there  are  no  fruits  whereby  the  tree  is  known. 

In  examining  this  view,  at  the  outset  we  deprecate  those 
vituperative  and  ferocious  expressions  which  are  used  so 
commonly  against  the  Church  of  Rome — unbecoming  in  pri- 
vate conversation,  disgraceful  on  the  platform,  they  are  still 
more  unpardonable  in  the  pulpit.  I  am  not  advocating  that 
feeble  softness  of  mind  which  can  not  speak  strongly  because 
it  can  not  feel  strongly.  I  know  the  value,  and  in  their 
place,  the  need  of  strong  words.  I  know  that  the  Redeemer 
used  them  :  stronger  and  keener  never  fell  from  the  lips  of 
man.  I  am  aware  that  our  Reformers  used  coarse  and  ve- 
hement language ;  but  we  do  not  imbibe  the  Reformers' 
spirit  by  the  mere  adoption  of  the  Reformers'  language; 
nay,  paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  the  use  of  their  language 
even  proves  a  degeneracy  from  their  spirit.  You  will  find 
harsh  and  gross  expressions  enough  in  the  Homilies,  but  re- 
member that  when  they  spoke  thus,  Rome  was  in  the  as- 
cendency. She  had  the  power  of  fire  and  sword  ;  and  the 
men  who  spoke  so  were  candidates  for  martyrdom,  by  the 
expressions  that  they  used.  livery  one  might  be  called 
upon  by  fire  and  steel  to  prove  the  quality  of  what  was  in 
him,  and  account  for  the  high  pretension  of  his  words.  I 
grant  the  grossness.  But  when  they  spoke  of  the  harlotries 
of  Rome,  and  spoke  ofMier  adulteries,  and  fornications,  and 
lies  which  she  had  put  in  full  cup  to  the  lip  of  nations,  it  was 
the  sublime  defiance  of  free-hearted  men  against  oppression 
in  high  places,  and  falsehood  dominant.  But  now,  when 
Rome  is  no  longer  dominant,  and  the  only  persecutions  that 
we  hear -of  are  the  petty  persecutions  of  Protestants  among 
themselves,  to  use  language  such  as  this  is  not  the  spirit  of  a 
daring  Reformer,  but  only  the  pusillanimous  shriek  of  a  cru- 
el cowardice  which  keeps  down  the  enemy  whose  rising  it  is 
afraid  of! 

We  will  do  justice  to  this  doctrine  of  Rome.  It  has  this 
merit  at  least,  that  it  recognizes  the  character  of  a  church  : 
it  admits  it  to  be  a  society,  and  not  an  association.  An  as- 
sociation is  an  arbitrary  union.  Men  form  associations  for 
temporary  reasons  ;  and,  arbitrarily  made,  they  can  be  arbi- 
trarily dissolved.  Society,  on  the  contrary,  is  made,  not  by 
will,  but  facts.  Brotherhood,  sonship,  families,  nations  are 
nature's  work  :  real  facts.  Rome  acknowledges  this.  It  per- 
mits no  arbitrary  drawing  of  the  lines  of  that  which  calls  it- 
self the  Church.  A  large,  broad,  mighty  field  :  the  Christian 


270  Baptism. 

world :  all  baptized :  nay,  expressly,  even  those  who  are 
baptized  by  heretics.  It  shares  the  spirit,  instead  of  mo- 
nopolizing it. 

Practically,  therefore,  in  the  matter  of  education,  we  should 
teach  children  on  the  basis  on  which  Rome  works.  We  say 
as  Rome  says,  You  are  the  child  of  God :  baptism  declares 
you  such.  Rome  says  as  Paul  says,  "  As  many  of  you  as  are 
baptized  into  Christ  have  put  on  Christ." 

Consequently,  we  distinguish  between  this  doctrine  as 
held  by  spiritual  and  as  held  by  unspiritual  men.  Spiritu- 
ality often  neutralizes  error  in  views.  Men  are  often  better 
than  their  creeds.  The  Calvinist  ought  to  be  an  Antinomi- 
an — he  is  not.  So,  in  holy-minded  men,  this  doctrine  of  bap- 
tismal regeneration  loses  its  perniciousness — nay,  even  be- 
comes, in  erroneous  form,  a  precious,  blessed  truth. 

It  is  quite  another  thing,  however,  held  by  unspiritual 
men.  Our  objections  to  this  doctrine  are, 

1.  Because  it  assumes  baptism  to  be  not  the  testimony  to 
a  fact,  but  the  fact  itself.     Baptism  proclaims  the  child  of 
God.     The  Romanist  says  it  creates  him.     Then  and  there  a 
mysterious  change  takes  place,  inward,  spiritual,  effected  by 
an  external  rite.     This  makes  baptism  not  a  sacrament,  but 
an  event.  9 

2.  Because  it  is  materialism  of  the  grossest  kind.     The  or- 
der of  Christian  life  is  from  within  to  that  which  is  without 
— from  the  spiritual  truth  to  the  material  expression  of  it. 
The  Roman  order  is  from  the  outwar'd  to  the  creation  of  the 
inward.    This  is  magic.    The  Jewish  Cabalists  believed  that 
the  pronunciation  of  certain  magical  words  engraved  on  the 
seal  of  Solomon  would  perform  marvels.    The  whole  Eastern 
world  fancied  that  such  spells  could  transform  one  being 
into  another — a  brute  into  a  man,  or  a  man  into  'a  brute. 
Books  containing  such  trash  were  burnt  at  Ephesus  in  the 
dawn  of  Christianity.      But  here,  in  the  midday  of  Chris- 
tianity, we  have  belief  in  such  spells,  given,  it  is  true  that  it 
is  said,  by  God,  whereby  the  demoniacal  nature  can  be  exor- 
cised, the  Divine  implanted  in  its  stead,  and  the  evil  heart 
transformed  unconsciously  into  a  pure  spirit. 

Xow  this  is  degrading  God.  Observe  the  results:  A  child 
is  to  be  baptized  on  a  given  day ;  but  when  that  day  ar- 
rives the  child  is  unwell,  and  the  ceremony  must  be  post- 
poned another  week  or  month.  Again  a  delay  takes  place 
— the  day  is  damp  or  cold.  At  last  the  time  arrives ;  the 
service  is  read ;  it  may  require,  if  read  slowly,  five  minutes 
more  than  ordinarily.  Then  and  there,  when  that  reading  is 
slowly  accomplished,  the  mystery  is  achieved.  And  all  this 


Baptism.  271 

time,  while  the  child  is  ill,  while  the  weather  is  bad,  while 
the  reader  procrastinates — I  say  it  solemnly — the  Eternal 
Spirit  who  rules  this  universe  must  wait  patiently,  and  come 
down,  obedient  to  a  mortal's  spell,  at  the  very  second  that  rt 
suits  his  convenience.  God  must  wait  attendance  on  the  ca- 
price of  a  careless  parent,  ten  thousand  accidents,  nay,  the 
leisure  of  an  indolent  or  an  immoral  priest.  Will  you  dare 
insult  the  Majesty  on  high  by  such  a  mockery  as  this  result  ? 

3.  We  object,  because  this  view  makes  Christian  life  a 
struggle  for  something  that  is  lost,  instead  of  a  progress  to 
something  that  lies  before.  Let  no  one  fancy  that  Rome's 
doctrine  on  this  matter  makes  salvation  an  easy  thing.  The 
Spirit  of  God  is  given — the  germ  is  implanted  ;  but  it  may 
be  crushed,  injured,  destroyed.  And  her  doctrine  is,  that 
venial  sins  after  baptism  are  removed  by  absolutions  and  at- 
tendance on  the  ordinances  :  whereas  for  mortal  sins  there  is 
— not  no  hope — but  no  certainty  ever  after  until  the  judg- 
ment-day. Vicious  men  may  make  light  of  such  teaching, 
and  get  periodic  peace,  from  absolution,  to  go  and  sin  again ; 
but  to  a  spiritual  Romanist  this  doctrine  is  no  encourage- 
ment for  laxity.  Now  observe,  after  sin  life  becomes  the  ef- 
fort to  get  back  to  where  you  were  years  ago.  It  is  the  sad 
longing  glance  at  the  Eden  from  which  you  have  been  ex- 
pelled, which  is  guarded  now  by  a  fiery  sword  in  this  world 
forever.  And,  therefore,  whoever  is  familiar  with  the  writ- 
ings of  some  of  the  earliest  leaders  of  the  present  movement 
Romeward,  writings  that  rank  among  the  most  touching  and 
beautiful  of  English  compositions,  will  remember  the  marked 
tone  of  sadness  which  pervades  them — their  high,  sad  long- 
ings after  the  baptismal  purity  that  is  gone — their  mournful 
contemplations  of  a  soul  that  once  glistened  with  baptismal 
dew,  now  "  seamed  and  scarred  "  with  the  indelible  marks  of 
sin. 

The  true  Christian  life  is  ever  onward,  full  of  trust  and 
hope :  a  life  wherein  even  past  sin  is  no  bar  to  saintliness, 
but  the  step  by  which  you  ascend  to  higher  vantage-ground 
of  holiness.  The  "  indelible  grace  of  baptism,"  how  can  it 
teach  that? 

II.  The  second  view  is  that  held  by  what  we,  for  the  sake 
of  avoiding  personalities,  call  modern  Calvinism.  It  draws 
a  distinction  between  the  visible  and  the  invisible  Church. 
It  holds  that  baptism  admits  all  into  the  former,  but  into  the 
latter  only  a  special  few.  Baptismal  regeneration  as  applied 
to  the  first,  is  merely  a  change  of  state  —  though  what  is  » 
meant  by  a  change  of  state  it  were  hard  to  say,  or  to  deter- 


272  Baptism, 

mine  wherein  an  unbaptized  person  admitted  to  all  the 
ordinances  would  differ  in  state  from  a  person  baptized. 
The  real  benefit  of  baptism,  however,  only  belongs  to  the 
elect.  With  respect  to  others,  to  predicate  of  them  regen- 
eration in  the  highest  sense,  is  at  best  an  ecclesiastical  fie* 
tion,  said  "  in  the  judgment  of  charity." 

This  view  maintains  that  you  are  not  God's  child  until 
you  become  such  consciously.  Not  until  evidence  of  a  re- 
generate life  is  given  —  not  until  signs  of  a  converted  soul 
are  shown,  is  it  right  to  speak  of  being  God's  child,  except 
in  this  judgment  of  charity.  Now  we  remark, 

1.  This  judgment  of  charity  ends  at  the  baptismal  font. 
It  is  never  heard  of  in  after-life.     It  is  like  the  charitable 
judgment  of  the  English  law,  which  presumes,  or  is  said  to 
presume,  a  man  innocent  till  proved  guilty :  valuable  enough 
as  a  legal  fiction ;  nevertheless,  it  does  not  prevent  a  man 
barring  his  windows,  guarding  his  purse,  keenly  watching 
against  the  dealings  of  those  around  him  who  are  presumed 
innocent.      Similarly,  the  so-called  "judgment  of  charity" 
terminates  with  infancy.     They  who  speak  of  the  Church's 
language,  in  which  children  are  called  children  of  God,  as 
being  quite  right,  but  only  in  "the  judgment  of  charity," 
are  exactly  the  persons  who  do  not  in  after-life  charitably 
presume  that  all  their  neighbors  are  Christians.     "  He  is  not 
a  Christian."     "  She  is  one  of  the  world,"  or  "  one  of  the 
unregenerate."     Such  is  the  language  applied  to  those  who 
are  in  baptism  reckoned  children  of  God.     They  could  not 
consistently  apply  to  all  adults  the  language  applied  in  this 
text:  "As  many  of  you  as  have  been  baptized  into  Christ, 
have  put  on  Christ.     Ye  are  all  the  children  of  God  by  faith 
ir  Christ  Jesus." 

2.  Next,  I  observe  that  this  view  is  identical  with  the 
Roman  one  in  this  respect,  that  it  creates  the  fact  instead  of 
testifying  to  it.      Only,  instead  of  baptism,  it  substitutes 
certain   views,  feelings,  and   impressions,  and  asserts   that 
these  make  the  man  into  a  child  of  God.    The  Romanist  says 
baptism,  the  Calvinist  says  faith,  makes  that  true  which  was 
not  true  before.     It  is  not  a  fact  that  God  is  that  person's 
Father  till  in  the  one  case  baptism,  in  the  other  faith,  have 
made  him  such. 

3.  Observe  the  pernicious  results  of  this  teaching  in  the 
matter  of  education.     Here,  again,  I  draw  the  distinction 
between  the  practical  consequences  which  legitimately  ought 
to  be,  and  those  which  actually  are  deduced  from  it.     Hap- 
pily men  are  better  than  their  views.     Hear  the  man  speak 
ing  out  of  his  theological  system*  and  then  hear  him  speak- 


Baptism.  273 

ing  out  of  the  abundance  of  his  heart.  Hear  the  religious 
mother  when  the  system  is  in  view,  and  all  are  indiscrimi- 
nately, except  a  certain  few,  corrupt,  vile,  with  nothing  good 
in  them,  heirs  of  ruin.  But  hear  her  talk  unguardedly  of 
her  own  children.  They  have  the  frailties,  weaknesses, 
common  faults  of  childhood ;  but  they  have  no  vice  in  them : 
there  is  nothing  base  or  degraded  in  her  children  !  When 
the  embraces  of  her  child  are  round  her  neck,  it  will  require 
more  eloquence  than  you  possess  to  convince  her  that  she  is 
nursing  a  little  demon  in  her  lap.  The  heart  of  the  mother- 
is  more  than  a  match  for  the  creed  of  the  Calvinist. 

There  are  some,  however,  who  do  not  shrink  from  con- 
sistency, and  develop  their  doctrine  in  all  its  consequences. 
The  children  follow  out  their  instructions  with  fearful  fidelity. 
Taught  that  they  are  not  the  children  of  God  till  certain 
feelings  have  been  developed  in  them,  they  become  by  de- 
grees bewildered,  or  else  lose  their  footing  on  reality.  They 
hear  of  certain  mystic  joys  and. sorrows;  and  unless  they 
fictitiously  adopt  the  language  they  hear,  they  are  painfully 
conscious  that  they  know  nothing  of  them  as  yet.  They 
hear  of  a  depression  for  sin  which  they  certainly  have  never 
experienced  —  a  joy  in  God,  making  His  service  and  His 
house  the  gate  of  heaven ;  and  they  know  that  it  is  excess- 
ively irksome  to  them  —  a  confidence,  trust,  and  assurance 
of  which  they  know  nothing  —  till  they  take  for  granted 
what  has  been  told  them,  that  they  are  not  God's  children. 
Tauiiht  that  they  are  as  yet  of  the  world,  they  live  as  the 
world ;  they  carry  out  their  education,  which  has  dealt  with 
them  as  children  of  the  devil,  to  be  converted;  and  children 
of  the  devil  they  become. 

Of  these  two  views,  the  last  is  by  far  the  most  certain  to 
undermine  Christianity  in  every  Protestant  country.  The 
first  at  least  assumes  God's  badge  to  be  an  universal  one, 
and  in  education  is  so  far  right,  practically:  only  wrong  in 
the  decision  of  the  question  how  the  child  was  created  a 
child  of  God.  But  the  second  assumes  a  false,  partial,  party 
badge — election,  views,  feelings.  No  wonder  that  the  chil- 
dren of  such  religionists  proverbially  turn  out  ill. 

III.  We  pass  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Bible  and  (I  believe) 
of  the  Church  of  England. 

Christ  came  to  reveal  a  name — the  Father.  He  abolished 
the  exclusive  "  my,"  and  He  taught  us  to  pray,  "  our  Father.'' 
He  proclaimed  God  the  Father — man  the  Son  :  revealecl  that 
vhe  Son  of  Man  is  also  the  Son  of  God.  Man,  as  man,  God's 
child.  He  came  to  redeem  the  world  from  that  ignorance 

12* 


274  Baptism. 

of  the  relationship  which  had  left  them  in  heart  aliens  and 
unregenerate.  •  Human  nature,  therefore,  became,  viewed  in 
Christ,  a  holy  thing  and  divine.  The  revelation  is  a  com- 
mon humanity,  sanctified  in  God.  The  appearance  of  the 
Son  of  God  is  the  sanctification  of  the  human  race. 

The  development  of  this  startled  men.  Sons  of  God ! 
Yes;  ye  Jews  have  monopolized  it  too  long.  Is  that  Samar- 
itan, heretic  and  alien,  a  child  of  God  ?  Yes.  The  Samar- 
itan, but  not  these  outcasts  of  society  ?  Yes,  these  outcasts 
ef  society.  He  went  into  the  publican's  house  and  proclaim- 
ed that  "  he  too  was  a  son  of  Abraham."  He  suffered  the 
sinful  penitent  to  flood  His  feet  with  tears.  He  saw  there 
the  Eternal  Light  unquenched — the  eye,  long  dimmed  and 
darkened,  which  yet  still  could  read  the  Eternal  Mind.  She, 
too,  is  God's  erring,  but  forgiven,  beloved,  and  "  much-loving  " 
child.  One  step  farther.  He  will  not  dare  to  say — the  Gen- 
tiles?— the  Gentiles  who  bow  down  to  stocks  and  stones? 
Yes,  the  Gentiles  too.  He  spake  to  them  a  parable.  He 
told  of  a  younger  son  who  had  lived  long  away  from  his 
father's  home.  But  his  forgetfulness  of  his  father  could  not 
abrogate  the  fact  of  his  being  his  son,  and  as  soon  as  he  rec- 
ognized the  relationship,  all  the  blessings  of  it  were  his  own. 

Now  this  is  the  revelation.  Man  is  God's  child,  and  the 
sin  of  the  man  consists  in  perpetually  living  as  if  it  were 
false.  It  is  the  sin  of  the  heathen,  and  what  is  your  mission 
to  him  but  to  tell  him  that  he  is  God'S  child,  and  not  living 
up  to  his  privilege  ?  It  is  the  sin  of  the  baptized  Christian — 
waiting  for  feelings  for  a  claim  on  God.  It  was  the  false  life 
which  the  Jews  had  led:  precisely  this,  that  they  were  liv- 
ing coerced  by  law.  Christ  had  come  to  redeem  them  from 
the  law,  that  they  might  receive  the  adoption  of  sons.  But 
they  were  sons  already,  if  they  only  knew  it.  "Because  ye 
are'sons,  God  hath  sent  forth  the  Spirit  of  His  Son  into  your 
hearts,  whereby  ye  cry  Abba,  Father."  To  be  a  son  of  God 
is  one  thing ;  to  know  that  you  are,  and  call  Him  Father,  is 
another — and  that  is  regeneration. 

Now  there  was  wanted  a  permanent  and  authoritative 
pledge,  revealing  and  confirming  this :  for,  to  mankind  in 
the  mass,  invisible  truths  become  real  only  when  they  have 
been  made  visible.  All  spiritual  facts  must  have  an  existence 
in  form  for  the  human  mind  to  rest  on.  This  pledge  is  bap- 
tism. Baptism  is  a  visible  witness  to  the  world  of  that 
which  the  world  is  forever  forgetting.  A  common  humanity 
united  in  God.  Baptism  authoritatively  reveals  and  pledges 
to  the  individual  that  which  is  true  6*f  the  race.  Baptisni 
takes  the  child  and  addresses  it  by  name :  Paul — no  longer 


Baptism.  275 

Saul — you  are  a  child  of  God.  Remember  it  henceforth. 
It  is  now  revealed  to  you,  and  recognized  by  you ;  and  to 
recognize  God  as  the  Father  is -to  be  regenerate.  You,  Paul, 
are  now  regenerate  ;  you  will  have  foes  to  fight — the  world, 
the  flesh,  and  the  devil :  but  remember,  they  only  keep  you 
out  of  an  inheritance  which  is  your  own — not  an  inheritance 
which  you  have  to  win  by  some  new  feeling  or  merit  in 
yourself.  It  is  yours ;  you  are  the  child  of  God — you  are 
a  member  of  Christ — you  are  an  inheritor  of  the  kingdom  of 
heaven. 

Observe  then — baptism  does  not  create  a  child  of  God.  It 
authoritatively  declares  him  so.  It  does  not  make  the  fact, 
it  only  reveals  it.  If  baptism  made  it  a  fact  then  and  there 
for  the  first  time,  baptism  would  be  magic.  Nay,  faith  does 
not  create  a  child  of  God  any  more  than  baptism,  nor  does 
it  make  a  fact.  It  only  appropriates  that  which  is  a  fact  al- 
ready. For  otherwise  see  what  inextricable  confusion  you 
fall  into.  You  ask  a  man  to  believe,  and  thereby  be  created 
a  child  of  God.  Believe  what — that  God  is  his  Father? 
But  God  is  not  his  Father.  He  is  not  a  child  of  God,  you 
say,  till  he  believes.  Then  you  ask  him  to  believe  a  lie. 

Herein  lies  the  error,  in  basis  identical,  of  the  Romanist 
and  the  Calvinist.  Faith  is  to  one  what  baptism  is  to  the 
other,  the  creator  of  a  fact ;  whereas  they  both  rest  upon  a 
fact,  which  is  a  fact  whether  they  exist  or  not — before  they 
exist ;  nay,  without  whose  previous  existence  both  of  them 
are  unmeaning  and  false. 

The  Catechism,  however,  says :  In  baptism  ....  I  was 
made  a  child  of  God.  Yes,  coronation  makes  a  sovereign  ; 
but,  paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  it  can  only  make  one  a 
sovereign  who  is  a  sovereign  already.  Crown  a  pretender, 
that  coronation  will  not  create  the  king.  Coronation  is  the 
authoritative  act  of  the  nation  declaring  a  fact  which  was 
fact  before.  And  ever  after  coronation  is  the  event  to  which 
all  dates  back,  and  the  crown  is  the  expression  used  for  all 
royal  acts :  the  crown  pardons,  the  prerogatives  of  the 
crown,  etc. 

Similarly  with  baptism.  Baptism  makes  a  child  of  God  in 
the  sense  in  which  coronation  makes  a  king.  And  baptism 
naturally  stands  in  Scripture  for  the  title  of  regeneration  and 
the  moment  of  it.  Only  what  coronation  is  in  an  earthly  way, 
an  authoritative  manifestation  of  an  invisible  earthly  truth, 
baptism  is  in  a  heavenly  way  :  God's  authoritative  declara- 
tion in  material  form  of  a  spiritual  reality.  In  other  words, 
no  bare  sign,  but  a  Divine  sacrament. 

Now  for  the  blessings  of  this  view. 


276  Baptism. 

1.  It  prevents  exclusiveness  and   spiritual  pride,  and  all 
condemnation  and  contempt  of  others ;  for  it  admits  those 
who  have  no  spiritual  capacity  or  consciousness  to  be  God's 
children.     It  proclaims  a  kingdom,  not  for  a  few  favorites, 
but  for  mankind.     It  protests  against  the  idea  that  sonship 
depends  on  feelings.     It  asserts  it   as  a  broad,  grand,  uni- 
versal, blessed  fact.     It  bids  you  pray  with  a  meaning  of 
added  majesty  in  the  words,  Our  Father. 

Take  care.  Do  not  say  of  others  that  they  are  unregener- 
ate,  of  the  world.  Do  not  make  a  distinction  within  the 
Church  of  Christians  and  not-Christians.  If  you  do,  what  do 
you  more  than  the  Pharisees  of  old  ?  That  wretched  beggar 
that  holds  his  hat  at  the  crossing  of  the  street  is  God's  child 
as  well  as  you,  if  he  only  knew  it.  You  know  it — he  does 
not :  that  is  the  difference.  But  the  immortal  is  in  him  too, 
and  the  Eternal  Word  speaks  in  him.  That  daughter  of  dis- 
sipation whom  you  despise,  spending  night  after  night  in 
frivolity,  she  too  has  a  Father  in  heaven.  "  My  Father  and 
your  Father,  my  God  and  your  God."  She  has  forgotten 
Him,  and,  like  the  prodigal,  is  trying  to  live  on  the  husks  of 
the  world — the  empty  husks  which  will  not  satisfy — the  de- 
grading husks  which  the  swine  did  eat.  But  whether  she 
will  or  not,  her  baptism  is  valid,  and  proclaims  a  fact — which 
may  be,  alas  !  the  worse  for  her,  if  she  will  not  have  it  the 
better. 

2.  This  doctrine  protests  against  the  notion  of  our  being 
separate  units  in  the  Divine  fife.     The  Church  of  Calvinism 
is  merely  a  collection  of  atoms,  a  sand-heap  piled  together, 
with  no  cohesion  among  themselves,  or  a  mass  of  steel  filings 
cleaving  separately  to  a  magnet,  but  not   to  each-  other. 
Baptism  proclaims  a  church.-    Humanity  joined  in  Christ  to 
God.      Do  not  say  that  the  separating   work  of  baptism, 
drawing  a  distinction  between  the  Church  and  the  world, 
negatives  this.     Do  not  say,  that  because  the  Church  is  sep- 
arated from  the  world,  therefore  the  world  are  not   God's 
children.     Rather  that  very  separation  proves  it.     You  bap- 
tize a  separate  body,  in  order  to  realize  that  which  is  true  of 
the  collective  race,  as  in  this  text,  "There  is  neither  Jew  nor 
Greek."     In  all  things  it  is  the  same.     If  you  would  sanctify 
all  time,  you  set  apart  a  sabbath — not  to  show  that  other 
days  are  not  intended  to  be  sacred,  but  for  the  very  purpose 
of  making  them  sacred.     If  you  would  have  a  "nation  of 
priests,"  you  set  apart  a  priesthood ;  not  as  if  the  priestly 
functions  of  instruction  and  assisting  to  approach  God  were 
exclusively  in  that  body,  but   in  order,  by  concentration,  to 
bring  out  to  greater  perfection  the  priestly  character  which 


Baptism.  277 

is  shared  by  the  whole,  and  then  thereby  make  the  whole 
more  truly  "  priests  to  God  to  offer  spiritual  sacrifices."  In 
the  same  "way,  if  God  would  baptize  humanity,  He  baptizes 
a  separate  Church,  in  order  that  that  Church  may  baptize 
the  race.  The  Church  is  God's  ideal  of  humanity  realized. 

Lastly,  This  doctrine  of  baptism  sanctifies  materialism. 
The  Romanist  was  feeling  his  way  to  a  great  fact  when  he 
said  that  there  are  other  things  of  sacramental  efficacy  be- 
sides these  two — Baptism  and  the  Supper  of  the  Lord.  The 
things  of  earth  are  pledges  and  sacraments  of  things  in  heav- 
en. It  is  not  for  nothing  that  God  has  selected  for  His  sac- 
raments the  commonest  of  all  acts — a  meal,  and  the  most 
abundant  of  all  materials  —  water.  Think  you  that  He 
means  to  say  that  only  through  two  channels  His  Spirit 
streams  into  the  soul  ?  Or  is  it  not  much  more  in  unison 
with  His  dealings  to  say  that  these  two  are  set  apart  to  sig- 
nify to  us  the  sacramental  character  of  all  nature  ?  Just  as 
a  miracle  was  intended  not  to  reveal  God  working  there,  at 
that  death-bed  and  in  that  storm,  but  to  call  attention  to  His 
presence  in  every  death  and  every  storm.  Go  out  at  this 
spring  season  of  the  year ;.  see  the  mighty  preparations  for 
life  that  Nature  is  making ;  feel  the  swelling  sense  of  grate- 
fulness, and  the  pervasive  expanding  consciousness  of  love 
for  all  Being ;  and  then  say,  whether  this  whole  form  which 
we  call  nature  is  not  the  great  Sacrament  of  God,  the  rev- 
elation of  His  existence,  and  the  channel  of  His  communica- 
tions to  the  spirit  ? 


IV. 
BAPTISM. 

"The  like  figure  whereunto  even  baptism  doth  also  now  save  us." — 1 
Peter  iii.  21. 

LAST  Sunday  we  considered  the  subject  of  baptism  in  ref- 
erence to  the  Romish  and  modern  Calvinistic  views.  The 
truth  seemed  to  lie  not  in  a  middle  course  between  the  two 
extremes,  but  in  a  truth  deeper  than  either  of  them.  For 
there  are  various  modifications  of  the  Romish  view  which 
soften  down  its  repulsive  features.  There  are  some  who  hold 
that  the  guilt  of  original  sin  is  pardoned,  but  the  tendencies 
of  an  evil  nature  remain ;  others  who  attribute  a  milder 
meaning  to*"  regeneration,"  understanding  by  it  a  change  of 
state  instead  of  a  change  of  nature  ;  others  who  acknowledge 


278  Baptism. 

a  certain  mysterious  benefit  imparted  by  baptism,  but  decline 
determining  how  much  grace  is  given,  or  what  the  exact  na- 
ture of  the  blessing  is;  others  who  acknowledge  that  it  is  in 
certain  cases  the  moment  when  regeneration  takes  place,  but 
hold  that  it  is  conditional,  occurring  sometimes,  not  always, 
and  following  upon  the  condition  of  what  they  call  "  preven- 
ient  grace."  We  do  not  touch  upon  these  views.  They  are 
simply  modifications  of  the  Romish  view,  and  as  such,  more 
offensive  than  the  view  itself;  for  they  contain  that  which  is 
most  objectionable  in  it,  and  special  evils  of  their  own  besides. 

We  admitted  the  merits  of  the  two  views.  We  are  grate- 
ful to  the  Romanist  for  the  testimony  which  he  bears  to  the 
truth  of  the  extent  of  Christ's  salvation — for  the  privilege 
which  he  gives  of  calling  all  the  baptized,  children  of  God — 
for  the  protest  which  his  doctrine  makes  against  all  party 
monopoly  of  God — for  the  protest  against  ultra-spiritualism, 
in  acknowledging  that  material  things  are  the  types  and 
channels  of  the  Almighty  Presence. 

We  are  grateful  to  the  Calvinist  for  his  strong  protest 
against  formalism — for  his  assertion  of  the  necessity  of  an  in- 
ward change — for  the  distinction  which  he  has  drawir  be- 
tween being  in  the  state  of  sons,  a,nd  having  the  nature  of 
sons  of  God. 

The  error  in  these  two  systems,  contrary  as  they  are,  ap- 
peared to  us  to  be  identically  one  and  the  same — that  of  pre- 
tending to  create  a  fact  instead  of  witnessing  to  it.  The  Cal- 
vinist maintains  that  on  a  certain  day  and  hour,  under  the 
ministry  of  the  Word,  under  the  preaching  of  some  one  who 
"proclaims  the  Gospel,"  he  was  born  again,  and  God  became 
his  Father;  and  the  Romanist  declares  that  on  a  certain  day, 
at  a  certain  moment  by  an  earthly  clock,  by  the  hands  of  a 
priest  apostolically  ordained,  the  evil  nature  was  expelled 
from  him,  and  a  new  fact  in  the  world  was  created — he  at- 
tained the  right  of  calling  God  his  Father. 

Now  if  baptism  makes  God  our  Father,  baptism  is  incan- 
tation ;  if  faith  makes  him  so,  faith  rests  upon  a  falsehood. 

For  the  Romanist  does  no  more  than  the  red  Indian  and 
the  black  negro  pretend  to  do — exorcise  the  devil,  and  infuse 
God.  The  only  question  then  becomes,  Which  is  the  true 
enchanter,  and  which  is  the  impostor?  for  the  juggler  does, 
by  the  power  of  imagination,  often  cure  the  sick  man ;  but 
the  mysterious  effects  of  baptism  never  are  visible,  and  never 
can  be  tested  in  this  world. 

On  the  other  hand,  faith  would  rest  upon  a  falsehood :  for 
if  faith  is  to  give  the  right  of  calling  God  a  Fatfter,  how  can 
you  believe  that  which  is  not  true  the  very  moment  before 


Baptism.  279 

belief?  God  is  not  your  Father.  If  you  believe  He  is,  your 
belief  is  false. 

The  truth  which  underlies  these  two  views,  on  which  all 
that  is  true  in  them  rests,  and  in  which  all  that  is  false  is  ab- 
sorbed, is  the  paternity  of  God.  This  is  the  revelation  of  the 
Redeemer.  This  is  authoritatively  declared  by  baptism,  ap- 
propriated personally  by  faith,  but  a  truth  independent  both 
of  baptism  and  faith — which  would  still  be  true  if  there  were 
neither  a  baptism  nor  a  faith  in  the  world.  They  are  the 
witnesses  of  the  fact — not  the  creators  of  it. 

Here,  however,  two  difficulties  arise.  If  this  be  so,  do  we 
not  make  light  of  Original  Sin?  And  do  we  not  reduce  bap- 
tism into  a  superfluous  ceremony  ? 

Before  we  enter  upon  these  questions,  I  must  vindicate  my- 
self from  the  appearance  of  presumption.  Where  the  wisest 
and  holiest  have  held  opposite  views,  it  seems  immodest  to 
speak  with  unfaltering  certainty  and  decisive  tone.  Hesita- 
tion, guarded  statements,  caution,  it  would  seem,  would  be 
far  more  in  place.  Now,  to  speak  decidedly,  is  not,  necessa- 
rily, to  speak  presumptuously.  There  are  questions  involv- 
ing great  research,  and  questions  relating  to  truths  beyond 
our  ken,  where  guarded  and  uncertain  tones  are  only  a  duty. 
There  are  others  where  the  decision  has  become  conviction, 
a 'kind  of  intuition,  the  result  of  years  of  thought,  which  has 
been  the  day  to  a  man's  darkness,  "  the  fountain-light  of  all 
his  seeing,"  which  has  interpreted  him  to  himself,  made  all 
clear  where  all  was  perplexed  before,  been  the  key  to  the  rid- 
dle of  truths  that  seemed  contradictory,  become  part  of  his 
very  being,  and  for  which  more  than  once  he  has  held  him- 
self cheerfully  prepared  to  sacrifice  all  that  is  commonly  held 
dear.  With  respect  to  convictions  such  as  these,  of  course, 
the  arguments  by  which  they  are  enforced  may  be  faulty,  the 
illustrations  inadequate,  the  power  of  making  them  intelligi- 
ble very  feeble ;  nay,  the  views  themselves  may  be  wrong ; 
but  to  pretend  to  speak  with  hesitation  and  uncertainty  re- 
specting such  convictions  would  be  not  modesty,  but  affec- 
tation. 

For  let  us  remember  in  what  spirit  we  are  to  enter  on  this 
inquiry.  Not  in  the  spirit  of  mere  cautious  orthodoxy,  en- 
deavoring to  find  a  safe  mean  between  two  extremes — in- 
quiring what  is  the  view  held  by  the  sound,  and  judicious, 
and  respectable  men,  who  were  never  found  guilty  of  any  en- 
thusiasm, and  under  the  shelter  of  whose  opinion  we  may  be 
secure  from  the  charge  of  any  thing  unsound ;  nor  in  the 
spirit  of  the  lawyer,  patiently  examining  documents,  weigh- 
ing evidence,  and  deciding  whether  upon  sufficient  testimony 


280  Baptism. 

there  is  such  a  thing  as  "  prevenient  grace  "  or  not ;  nor, 
once  more,  in  the  spirit  of  superstition.  The  superstitious 
mother  of  the  lower  classes  baptizes  her  child  in  all  haste  be- 
cause she  believes  it  has  a  mystic  influence  on  its  health,  or 
because  she  fancies  that  it  confers  the  name  without  which  it 
would  not  be  summoned  at  the  day  of  judgment.  And  the 
superstitious  mother  of  the  upper  classes  baptizes  her  child 
too  in  all  haste,  because,  though  she  does  not  precisely  know 
what  the  mystic  effect  of  baptism  is,  she  thinks  it  best  to  be 
on  the  safer  side,  lest  her  child  should  die,  and  its  eternity 
should  be  decided  by  the  omission.  And  we  go  to  preach  to 
the  heathen  while  there  are  men  and  women  in  our  Christian 
England  so  bewildered  with  systems  and  sermons,  so  pro- 
foundly in  the  dark  respecting  the  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  so  utterly  unable  to  repose  in  eternal  love  and  justice, 
that  they  must  guard  their  child  from  Him  by  a  ceremony, 
and  have  the  shadow  of  a  shade  of  doubt  whether  or  not,  for 
omission  of  theirs,  that  child's  Creator  and  Father  may  curse 
its  soul  for  all  eternity  ! 

We  are  to  enter  upon  this  question  as  a  real  one  of  life 
and  death — as  men  who  feel  in  their  bosoms  sin  and  death, 
and  who  want  to  determine  no  theological  nicety,  but  this: 
Whether  we  have  a  right  to  claim  to  be  sons  of  God  or  not  ? 
And  if  so,  on  what  grounds?  In  virtue  of  a  ceremony,  or  in 
virtue  of  a  certain  set  of  feelings  ?  Or  in  virtue  of  an  eternal 
fact — the  fact  of  God's  paternity  ? 

I  reply  to  two  objections. 

I.  The  apparent  denial  of  original  sin. 
H.  The  apparent  result  that  baptism  is  nothing. 

I.  The  text  selected  is  a  strong  and  distinct  one.  It  pro- 
claims the  value  of  baptism.  "  Baptism  saves  us."  But  it 
declares  that  it  can  only  be  said  figuratively:  "The  like  fig- 
ure whereunto  even  baptism  cloth  also  now  save  us." 

Now  the  first  reply  I  make  is,  that  in  truth  the  Romish 
view  seems  to  make  lighter  of  original  sin  than  this.  Me- 
thinks  original  sin  must  be  a  trifling  thing  if  a  little  water 
and  a  few  human  words  can  do  away  with  it.  A  trifling 
thing  if,  after  it  is  done  away,  there  is  rib  distinguishable  dif- 
ference between  the  baptized  and  unbaptized ;  if  the  unbap- 
tized  Quaker  is  just  as  likely  to  exhibit  the  fruits  of  goodness 
as  the  baptized  son  of  the  Church  of  England.  We  have  got 
out  of  the  land  of  reality  into  the  domain  of  figments  and 
speculations.  A  fictitious  guilt  is  done  away  with  by  a  fic- 
titious pardon,  neither  the  appearance  nor  the  disappearance 
being  visible. 


Baptism.  281 

Original  sin  is  an  awful  fact.  It  is  not  the  guilt  of  an  an- 
cestor imputed  to  an  innocent  descendant,  but  if  is  the  ten« 
dencies  of  that  ancestor  living  in  his  offspring  and  incurring 
guilt.  Original  sin  can  be  forgiven  only  so  far  as  original 
sin  is  removed.  It  is  not  Adam's,  it  is  yours;  and  it  must 
.cease  to  be  yours,  or  else  what  is  "  taking  away  original  sin  ?" 

Now  he  who  would  deny  original  sin  must  contradict  all 
experience  in  the  transmission  of  qualities.  The  very  hound 
transmits  his  peculiarities  learnt  by  education,  and  the  Span- 
ish horse  his  paces,  taught  by  art,  to  his  offspring,  as  a  part 
of  their  nature.  If  it  were  not  so  in  man,  there  could  be  no 
history  of  man  as  a  species — no  tracing  out  the  tendencies 
of  a  race  or  nation — nothing  but  the  unconnected  repetitions 
of  isolated  individuals  and  their  lives.  It  is  plain  that  the 
first  man  must  have  exerted  on  his  race  an  influence  quite 
peculiar — that  his  acts  must  have  biased  their  acts.  And 
this  bias  or  tendency  is  what  we  call  original  sin. 

Now  original  sin  is  just  this  denial  of  God's  paternity,  re- 
fusing to  live  as  His  children,  and  saying  we  are  not  His  chil- 
dren. To  live  as  His  child  is  the  true  life — to  live  as  not  His 
child  is  the  false  life.  What  was  the  Jews'  crime?  Was  it 
not  this :  "  He  came  unto  His  own,  and  His  own  received 
him  not :"  that  they  were  His  own,  and  in  act  denied  it,  pre- 
ferring to  the  claim  of  spiritual  relationship,  the  claim  of 
union  by  circumcision  or  hereditary  descent  ?  What  was  the 
crime  of  the  Gentiles  ?  Was  it  not  this :  that  "  when  they 
knew  God,  they  glorified  Him  not '  as  God,  neither  were 
thankful?"  For  what  were  they  to  be  thankful?  For  being 
His  enemies?  -Were  they  not  His  children,  His  sheep  of 
another  fold  ?  Was  not  the  whole  falsehood  of  their  life  the 
worship  of  demons  and  nothings  instead  of  Him  ?  Did  not 
the  parable  represent  them  as  the  younger  son — a  wanderer 
from  home,  but  still  a  son  f 

From  this  state  Christ  redeemed.  He  revealed  God  not 
as  the  mechanic  of  the  universe,  not  the  judge,  but  as  the 
Father,  and  as  the  Spirit  who  is  in  man,  "  lighting  every  man," 
moving  in  man  his  infinite  desires  and  infinite  affections. 
This  was  the  revelation.  The  reception  of  that  revelation  is 
regeneration.  "  He  came  unto  His  own,  and  His  own  received 
Him  not ;  but  to  as  many  as  received  Him  to  them  gave  He 
power  to  become  the  sons  of  God,  even  to  as  many  as  be- 
lieved on  His  name."  They  were  His  own,  yet  they  wanted 
power  to  become  His  own. 

Draw  a  distinction,  therefore,  between  being  the  child  of 
God  and  realizing  it.  The  fact  is  one  thing ;  the  feeling  of 
the  fact,  and  the  life  which  results  from  that  feeling,  is  anoth* 


282  Baptism. 

er.  Redemption  is  the  taking  of  us  out  of  the  life  of  false- 
hood  into  tne  life  01  truth  and  fact.  "Of  His  own  will  begat 
He  us  by  the  word  of  truth."  But,  remember,  it  is  a  truth ; 
true  whether  you  believe  it.  or  not ;  true  whether  you  are 
baptized  or  not. 

There  are  two  ways  in  which  that  revelation  may  be  a'>. 
cepted.     1.  By  a  public  recognition  called  baptism.     2.  By 
faith.     In  two  ways,  therefore,  may  it  be  said  that  man  is 
saved.     "  We  are  saved  by  faith."     But  it  is  also  true,  figu- 
ratively, "Baptism  saves  us." 

IT.  If  baptism  is  only  the  public  recognition  and  symbol 
of  a  fact,  is  not  baptism  degraded  and  made  superfluous? 

1.  Baptism  is  given  as  a  something  to  rest  upon;  nay,  as  a 
something  without  which  redemption  would  soon  become 
unreal — which  converts  a  doctrine  into  a  reality — which  re- 
alizes visibly  what  is  invisible. 

For  our  nature  is  such,  that  immaterial  truths  are  unreal 
to  us  until  they  are  embodied  in  material  form.  Form  al- 
most gives  them  reality  and  being.  For  instance,  time  is  an 
eternal  fact.  But  time  only  exists  to  our  conceptions  as  an 
actuality  by  measurements  of  materialism.  When  God  cre- 
ated the  sun,  and  moon,  and  stars,  to  serve  for  "  signs  and  for 
seasons,  and  for  days  and  years,"  He  was  actually,  so  far  as 
man  was  concerned,  creating  time.  Our  minds  would  be 
only  floating  in  an  eternal  Now,  if  it  were  not  for  symbolical 
successions  which  represent  the  processes  of  thought.  The 
clock  in  the  house  is  almost-  a  fresh  creation.  It  realizes. 
The  gliding  heavens,  and  the  seasons,  and  the' ticking  clock — 
what  is  time  to  us  without  them  ?  Nothing. 

God's  character,  again,  nay,  God  Himself,  to  us  would  be 
nothing  if  it  were  not  for  the  creation,  which  is  the  great 
symbol  and  sacrament  of  His  presence.  'If  there  were  no 
light,  no  sunshine,  no  sea,  no  national  and  domestic  life,  no 
material  witness  of  His  being,  God  would  be  to  us  as  good 
as  lost.  The  Creation  gives  us  God :  forever  real  in  Himself, 
by  Creation  He  becomes  a  fact  to  us. 

It  is  in  virtue,  again,  of  this  necessity  in  man  for  an  out- 
ward symbol  to  realize  an  invisible  idea,  that  a  bit  of  torn 
and  blackened  rag  hanging  from  a  fortress  or  the  taflrail  of 
a  ship,  is  a  kind  of  life  to  iron-hearted  men.  Why  is  it  that 
in  the  heat  of  battle  there  is  one  spot  where  the  sabres  flash 
most  rapidly,  and  the  pistols'  ring  is  quicker,  and  men  and 
officers  close  in  most  densely,  and  all  are  gathered  round  one 
man,  round  whose  body  that  tattered  silk  is  wound,  and  held 
with  the  tenacity  of  a  death-struggle  ?  Are  they  only  chib 


Baptism.  283 

dren  fighting  for  a  bit  of  rag  ?  That  flag  is  every  thing  to 
them :  their  regiment,  their  country,  their  honor,  their  life ; 
yet  it  is  only  a  symbol !  Are  symbols  nothing  ? 

In  the  same  way,  baptism  is  a  fact  for  man  to  rest  upon, 
a  doctrine  realized  to  flesh  and  blood.  A  something  in  eter- 
nity which  has  no  place  in  time  brought  down  to  such  time 
expressions  as  "  then  and  there." 

2.  Again,  baptism  is  the  token  of  a  church  :  the  token  of 
an  universal  church.     Observe  the  importance  of  its  being 
the  .sacrament  of  an  universal  church  instead  of  the  symbol 
of  a  sect.     Not  episcopacy,  not  justification  by  faith,  nor  any 
party   badge,  but   "  one    baptism."     How   blessed,  on    the 
strength  of  this,  to  be  able  to  say  to  the  baptized  dissenter, 
You  are  my  brother :  you  anathematize  my  church — link 
Popery  and  Prelacy  together  —  malign  me ;  but  the  same 
sign  is  on  our  brow,  and  the  same  Father  was  named  over 
our  baptism.     Or  to  say  to  a  baptized  Romanist,  You  are  my 
brother  too — in  doctrinal  error  perhaps — in  error  of  life  it 
may  be  too :  but  my  brother — our  enemies  the  same — our 
struggle  the  same — our  hopes  and  warfare  the  very  same. 
Or  to  the  very  outcast,  And  you,  my  poor  degraded  friend, 
are  my  brother  still — sunk,  oblivious  of  your  high  calling ; 
but  still,  whatever  keeps  you  away  from  heaven  keeps  you 
from  your  own.     You  may  live  the  false  life  till  it  is  too 
late  :  but  still,  you  only  exclude  yourself  from  your  home. 
Of  course  this  is  very  offensive.     What !  the  Romanist  my 
brother !  the  synagogue  of  Satan  the  house  of  God  !  the 
Spirit  of  God  dwelling  with  the  Church  of  Rome  !  the  be- 
liever in  transubstantiation  my  brother,  and  God's  child  ! 
Yes,  even  so ;  and  it  is  just  your  forgetfulness  of  what  bap- 
tism is  and  means,  that  accounts  for  that  indignation  of 
yours.     Do  you  remember  what  the  elder  brother  in  the  par- 
able was  doing  ?     He  went  away  sulky  and  gloomy,  because 
one  not  half  so  good  as  himself  was  recognized  as  his  father's 
child. 

3.  Baptism  is  seen  to  be  no  mere  superfluity  when  you  re- 
member that  it  is  an  authoritative  symbol.     Draw  the  dis- 
tinction between  an  arbitrary  symbol  and  an  authoritative 
:ne — for  this  difference  is  every  thing. 

I  take  once  again  the  illustration  of  the  coronation  act. 
Coronation  places  the  crown  on  the  brow  of  one  who  is  sov- 
ereign. It  does  not  make  the  fact,  it  witnesses  it.  Is  cor- 
onation therefore  nothing  ?  An  arbitrary  symbolical  act 
agreed  on  by  a  few  friends  of  the  sovereign  would  be  noth- 
ing; but  an  act  which  is  the  solemn  ratification  of  a  country 
is  every  thing.  It  realizes  a  fact  scarcely  till  then  felt  to  be 


284  Baptism. 

real.  Yet  the  fact  was  fact  before — otherwise  the  coronation 
would  be  invalid.  Even  when  the  third  William  was  crown- 
ed, there  was  the  symbol  of  a  previous  fact — the  nation's  de- 
cree that  he  should  be  king :  and  accordingly,  ever  after,  all 
is  dated  back  to  that.  You  talk  of  crown-prerogatives.  You 
say  in  your  loyalty  you  "  would  bow  to  the  crown,  though  it 
hung  upon  a  bush."  Yet  it  is  only  a  symbol!  You  only 
say  it  "  in  a  figure."  But  that  figure  contains  within  it  the 
royalty  of  England. 

In  a  figure,  the  Bible  speaks  of  baptism  as  you  speak  of 
coronation,  as  identical  with  that  which  it  proclaims*  It 
calls  it  regeneration.  It  says  baptism  saves.  A  grand  fig- 
ure, because  it  rests  upon  eternal  fact.  Call  you  that  noth- 
ing ? 

We  look  to  the  Bible  to  corroborate  this.  In  the  Acts  of 
the  Apostles  Cornelius  is  baptized.  On  what  grounds  ?  To 
manufacture  him  into  a  child  of  God,  or  because  he  was  tV 
child  of  God  ?  Did  his  baptism  create  the  fact,  or  was  . 
fact  prior  to  his  baptism,  and  the  ground  on  which  his  bap- 
tism was  valid  ?  The  history  is  this :  St.  Peter  could  not  be- 
lieve that  a  Gentile  could  be  a  child  of  God.  But  miracu- 
lous phenomena  manifested  to  his  astonishment  that  this  Gen- 
tile actually  was  God's  child — whereupon  the  argument  of 
Peter  was  very  natural.  He  has  the  Spirit,  therefore  baptism 
is  superfluous.  Nay,  he  has  the  Spirit,  therefore  give  him  the 
symbol  of  the  Spirit.  Let  it  be  revealed  to  others  what  he  is. 
He  is  heir  to  the  inheritance,  therefore  give  him  the  title- 
deeds.  He  is  of  royal  lineage — put  the  crown  upon  his  head. 
He  is  a  child  of  God — baptize  him.  "Who  shall  forbid  wa- 
ter, seeing  these  have  received  the  Holy  Ghost  as  well  as 
we?" 

One  illustration  more  from  the  marriage  ceremony ;  and  I 
select  this  for  two  reasons :  because  it  is  the  type  in  Scrip- 
ture of  the  union  between  Christ  and  his  Church,  and  because 
the  Church  oi  Rome  has  called  it  a  sacrament. 

A  deep  truth  is  in  that  error.  Rome  calls  it  a  sacramenx, 
because  it  is  the  authoritative  symbol  of  an  invisible  fact. 
That  invisible  fact  is  the  agreement  of  two  human  beings  to 
be  one.  We  deny  it  to  be  a  sacrament,  because,  though  it  is 
the  symbol  of  an  invisible  fact,  it  is  not  the  symbol  of  a  spir- 
itual fact,  nor  an  eternal  fact :  no  spiritual  truth,  but  only  a 
changeful  human  covenant. 

Now  observe  the  difference  between  an  arbitrary  or  con- 
ventional, and  an  authoritative  ceremony  of  marriage-union. 
There  are  conventional  acknowledgments  of  that  agreement, 
ceremonies  peculiar  to  certain  districts,  private  pledges,  be- 


Baptism.  285 

trothals.  In  the  sight  of  God  those  are  valid ;  they  can  not 
be  lightly  broken  without  sin.  You  can  not  in  the  courts  of 
heaven  distinguish  between  an  oath  to  God  and  a  word 
pledged  to  man.  He  said,  "Let  your  yea  be  yea,  and  your 
nay,  nay."  Such  an  engagement  can  not  be  infringed  with- 
out penalty — the  penalty  of  frivolized  hearts,  and  that  habit 
of  changefulness  of  attachment  which  is  the  worst  of  penal- 
ties. But  now,  additional  to  that,  will  any  one  say  that  the 
marriage  ceremony  is  superfluous — that  the  ring  he  gives  his 
wife  is  nothing  ?  It  is  every  thing.  It  is  the  authoritative 
ratification  by  a  country  and  before  God  of  that  which  be- 
fore was  for  all  purposes  of  earth  unreal.  Authoritative — 
therein  lies  the  difference.  Just  in  that  authoritativeness 
lies  the  question  whether  the  ceremony  is  nothing  or  every 
thing. 

And  yet  remember,  the  ceremony  itself  does  not  pretend 
to  create  the  fact.  It  only  claims  to  realize  the  fact.  It  ad* 
mits  the  fact  as  existing  previously.  It  bases  itself  upon  a 
fact.  Forasmuch  as  two  persons  have  consented  together, 
and  forasmuch  as  a  token  and  pledge  of  that  in  the  shape 
of  a  ring  has  been  given,  therefore,  only  therefore,  the  ap- 
pointed minister  pronounces  that  they  are  what  betrothax 
had  made  them  already  in  the  sight  of  God. 

Exactly  so,  the  authoritativeness  is  the  all  in  all  which 
converts  baptism  from  a  mere  ceremony  into  a  sacrament. 
Baptism  is  not  merely  a  conventional  arrangement,  exceed- 
ingly convenient,  agreed  on  by  men  to  remind  themselves 
and  one  another  that  they  are  God's  children,  but  valid  as  a 
legal,  eternal  truth,  a  condensed,  embodied  fact. 

Is  this  making  baptism  nothing  ?  I  should  rather  say 
baptism  is  every  thing.  Baptism  saves  us. 

One  word  now  practically.  I  address  myself  to  any  one 
who  is  conscious  of  fault,  sin-laden,  struggling  with  the  ter- 
rible question  whether  he  has  a  right  to  claim^God  as  his  Fa- 
ther or  not,  bewildered  on  the  one  side  by  Romanism,  on  the 
other  by  Calvinism.  My  brother,  let  not  either  of  these  rob 
you  of  your  privileges.  Let  not  Rome  send  you  to  the  fear- 
ful questioning  as  to  whether  the  mystic  seed  infused  at  a 
certain  moment  by  an  act  of  man  remains  in  you  still,  of 
whether  it  has  been  so  impaired  by  sin  that  henceforth  there 
is  nothing  but  penance,  tears,  and  uncertainty  until  the  grave. 
Let  not  Calvinism  send  you  with  terrible  self-inspection  to 
the  more  dreadful  task  of  searching  your  own  soul  for  the 
warrant  of  your  redemption,  and  deciding  whether  you  have 
or  have  not  the  feelings  and  the  faith  which  give  you  a 
right  to  be  one  of  God's  elect.  Better  make  up  your  minft 


286  Elijah. 

at  once  you  have  not ;  you  have  no  feelings  that  entitle  you 
to  that.  Take  your  stand  upon  the  broader,  sublimer  basis 
of  God's  paternity.  God  created  the  world — God  redeemed 
the  world.  Baptism  proclaims  separately,  personally,  by 
name,  to  you — God  created  you,  God  redeemed  you.  "Bap- 
tism is  your  warrant,  you  are  His  child.  And  now,  because 
you  are  His  child,  live  as  a  child  of  God  ;  be  redeemed  from 
the  life  of  evil,  which  is  false  to  your  nature,  into  the  life  of 
light  and  goodness,  which  is  the  truth  of  your  being.  Scorn 
all  that  is  mean ;  hate  all  that  is  false  ;  struggle  with  all  that 
is  impure.  Love  whatsoever  "  things  are  true,  whatsoever 
things  are  just,  whatsoever  things  are  honest,  whatsoever 
things  are  lovely,  whatsoever  things  are  of  good  report," 
certain  that  God  is  on  your  side,  and  tfiat  whatever  keeps 
you  from  Him,  keeps  you  from  your  own  Father.  Live  the 
simple,  lofty  life  which  befits  an  heir  of  immortality. 


V. 
ELIJAH. 

"  But  he  himself  went  a  day's  journey  into  the  wilderness,  and  came  and 
sat  down  under  a  juniper-tree:  and  he  requested  for  himself  that  he  might 
die ;  and  said,  It  is  enough ;  now,  O  Lord,  take  away  my  life ;  for  I  am  not 
better  than  my  fathers." — 1  Kings  xix.  4. 

IT  has  been  observed  of  the  holy  men  of  Scripture  that 
their  most  signal  failures  took  place  in  those  points  of  char- 
acter for  which  they  were  remarkable  in  excellence.  Moses 
was  the  meekest  of  men,  but  it  was  Moses  who  "  spake  un- 
advisedly with  his  lips."  St.  John  was  the  apostle  of  chari- 
ty ;  yet  he  is  the  very  type  to  us  of  religious  intolerance,  in 
his  desire  to  call  down  fire  from  heaven.  St.  Peter  is  pro- 
verbially the  apostle  of  impetuous  intrepidity,  yet  twice  he 
proved  a  craven.  If  there  were  any  thing  for  which  Elijah  is 
remarkable,  we  should  say  it  was  superiority  to  human  weak- 
ness. Like  the  Baptist,  he  dared  to  arraign  and  rebuke  his 
sovereign :  like  the  commander  who  cuts  down  the  bridge 
behind  him,  leaving  himself  no  alternative  but  death  or  vic- 
tory, he  taunted  his  adversaries  the  priests  of  Baal,  on  Mount 
Carmel,  making  them  gnash  their  teeth  and  cut  themselves 
with  knives,  but  at  the  same  time  insuring  for  himself  a  ter- 
rible end,  in  case  of  failure,  from  his  exasperated  foes.  And 
again,  in  his  last  hour,  when  he  was  on  his  way  to  a  strange 
and  unprecedented  departure  from  this  world — when  th« 


Elijah.  287 

and  flame-chariot  were  ready,  he  asked  for  no  hu- 
man companionship.  The  bravest  men  are  pardoned  if  one 
lingering  feeling  of  human  weakness  clings  to  them  at  the 
last,  and  they  desire  a  human  eye  resting  on  them — a  human 
hand  in  theirs — a  human  presence  with  them.  But  Elijah 
would  have  rejected  all.  In  harmony  with  the  rest  of  his 
lonely  severe  character,  he  desired  to  meet  his  Creator 
alone.  Now  it  was  this  man — so  stern,  so  iron,  so  independ- 
ent, so  above  all  human  weakness — of  whom  it  was  record* 
ed  that  in  his  trial-hour  he  gave  way  to  a  fit  of  petulance  and 
querulous  despondency  to  which  there  is  scarcely  found  a 
parallel.  Religious  despondency,  therefore,  is  our  subject. 

I.  The  causes  of  Elijah's  despondency. 
II.  God's  treatment  of  it. 

The  causes  of  Elijah's  despondency. 

1.  Relaxation  of  physical  strength. 

On  the  reception  of  Jezebel's  message,  Elijah  flies  for  his 
life — toils  on  the  whole  day — sits  down  under  a  juniper-tree, 
faint,  hungry,  and  travel-worn ;  the  gale  of  an  Oriental  even- 
ing, damp  and  heavy  with  languid  sweetness,  breathing  on 
his  face.  The  prophet  and  the  man  give  way.  He  longs  to 
die :  you  can  not  mistake  the  presence  of  causes  in  part 
purely  physical. 

We  are  fearfully  and  wonderfully  made.  Of  that  consti* 
tution  which  in  our  ignorance  we  call  union  of  soul  and  body, 
we  know  little  respecting  what  is  cause  and  what  is  effect. 
We  would  fain  believe  that  the  mind  has  power  over  the 
body,  but  it  is  just  as  true  that  the  body  rules  the  mind. 
Causes  apparently  the  most  trivial  :  a  heated  room — want  of 
exercise — a  sunless  day — a  northern  aspect — will  make  all 
the  difference  between  happiness  and  unhappiness,  between 
faith  and  doubt,  between  courage  and  indecision.  To  our 
fancy  there  is  something  humiliating  in  being  thus  at  the 
mercy  of  our  animal  organism.  We  would  fain  find  nobler 
causes  for  our  emotions.  We  talk  of  the  hiding  of  God's 
countenance,  and  the  fiery  darts  of  Satan.  But  the  picture 
given  here  is  true.  The  body  is  the  channel  of  our  noblest 
emotions  as  well  as  our  sublimest  sorrows. 

Two  practical  results  follow.  First,  instead  of  vilifying 
the  body,  complaining  that  our  nobler  part  is  chained  down 
to  a  base  partner,  it  is  worth  recollecting  that  the  body  too 
is  the  gift  of  Go4,  in  its  way  Divine — "  the  temple  of  the 
Holy  Ghost ;"  and  that  to  keep  the  body  in  temperance,  so- 
berness, and  chastity,  to  guard  it  from  pernicious  influence, 
and  to  obey  the  laws  of  health,  are  just  as  much  religious  as 


288  Rlijah. 

they  are  moral  duties ;  just  as  much  obligatory  on  the  Chris* 
dan  as  they  are  on  a  member  of  a  Sanitary  Committee. 
Next,  there  are  persons  melancholy  by  constitution,  in  whom 
the  tendency  is  incurable ;  you  can  not  exorcise  the  phantom 
of  despondency.  But  it  is  something  to  know  that  it  is  a 
phantom,  and  not  to  treat  it  as  a  reality — something  taught 
by  Elijah's  history,  if  we  only  learn  from  it  to  be  patient,  and 
wait  humbly  the  time  and  good  pleasure  of  God. 

2.  Want  of  sympathy.  . 

"  I,  even  I  only,  am  left."  Lay  the  stress  on  only.  The 
loneliness  of  his  position- was  shocking  to  Elijah.  Surprising 
this  :  for  Elijah  wanted  no  sympathy  in  a  far  harder  trial  on 
Mount  Carmel.  It  was  in  a  tone  of  triumph  that  he  pro- 
claimed that  he  was  the  single,  solitary  prophet  of  the  Lord, 
while  Baal's  prophets  were  four  hundred  and  fifty  men. 

Observe,  however,  the  difference.  There  was  in  that  case 
an  opposition  which  could  be  grappled  with :  here  there  was 
nothing  against  which  mere  manhood  was  availing.  The 
excitement  was  passed,  the  chivalrous  look  of  the  thing 
gone.  To  die  as  a  martyr,  yes,  that  were  easy,  in  grand  fail- 
ure ;  but  to  die  as  a  felon — to  be  hunted,  caught,  taken  back 
to  an  ignominious  death — flesh  and  blood  recoiled  from  that. 

And  Elijah  began  to  feel  that  popularity  is  not  love.  The 
world  will  support  you  when  you  have  constrained  its  votes 
by  a  manifestation  of  power,  and  shrink  from  you  when  pow- 
er and  greatness  are  no  longer  on  your  side.  "  I,  even  J 
only,  am  left." 

This  trial  is  most  distinctly  realized  by  men  of  Elijah's 
stamp  and  placed  under  Elijah's  circumstances.  It  is  the 
penalty  paid  by  superior  mental  and  moral  qualities,  that 
such  men  must  make  up  their  minds  to  live  without  sympa- 
thy. Their  feelings  will  be  misunderstood,  and  their  proj- 
ects uncomprehended.  They  must  be  content  to  live  alone. 
It  is  sad  to  hear  such  appeal  from  the  present  to  the  judg- 
ment of  the  future.  Poor  consolation !  Elijah  has  been 
judged  at  that  bar.  *We  are  his  posterity:  our  reverence 
this  day  is  the  judgment  of  posterity  on  him.  But  to  Elijah 
what  is  that  now?  Elijah  is  in  that  quiet  country  where 
the  voice  of  praise  and  the  voice  of  blame  are  alike  unheard, 
Elijah  lived  and  died  alone ;  once  only  the  bitterness  of  it 
found  expression.  But  what  is  posthumous  justice  to  the 
heart  that  ached  then  f 

What  greater  minds  like  Elijah's  have  felt  intensely,  all 
we  have  felt  in  our  own  degree.  Not  one  of  us  but  what 
has  felt  his  heart  aching  for  want  of  sympathy.  We  have 
had  our  lonely  hours,  our  days  of  disappointment,  and  >jf 


Elijah  289 

moments  of  hopelessness — times  when  our  highest  feelings 
have  been  misunderstood,  and  our  purest  met  with  ridicule. 
Days  when  our  heavy  secret  was  lying  unshared,  like  ice 
upon  the  heart.  And  then  the  spirit  gives  way  :  we  have 
wished  that  all  were  over — that  we  could  lie  down  tired, 
and  rest  like  the  children,  from  life — that  the  hour  was  come 
when  we  could  put  down  the  extinguisher  on  the  lamp,  and 
feel  the  last  grand  rush  of  darkness  on  the  spirit. 

Now,  the  final  cause  of  this  capacity  for  depression,  the 
reason  for  which  it  is  granted  us,  is  that  it  may  make  God 
necessary.  In  such  moments  it  is  felt  that  sympathy  be- 
yond human  is  needful.  Alone,  the  world  against  him,  Eli- 
jah turns  to  God.  "  It  is  enough :  now,  0 Lord" 

3.  Want  of  occupation. 

As  long  as  Elijah  had  a  prophet's  work  to  do,  severe  as 
that  work  was,  all  went  on  healthily;  but  his  occupation 
was  gone.  To-morrow,  and  the  day  after,  what  has  he  left 
on  earth  to  do  ?  The  misery  of  having  nothing  to  do  pro- 
ceeds from  causes  voluntary  or  involuntary  in  their  nature. 
Multitudes  of  our  race,  by  circumstances  over  which  they 
have  no  control — in  single  life  or  widowhood — in  straitened 
circumstances — are  compelled  to  endure  lonely  days,  and 
still  more  lonely  nights  and  evenings.  They  who  have  felt 
the  hours  hang  so  heavy  can  comprehend  part  of  Elijah's 
sadness. 

This  misery,  however,  is  sometimes  voluntarily  incurred. 
In  artificial  civilization  certain  persons  exempt  themselves 
from  the  necessity  of  work.  They  eat  the  bread  which  has" 
been  procured  by  the  sweat  of  the  brow  of  others — they 
skim  the  surface  of  the  thought  which  has  been  ploughed  by 
the  sweat  of  the  brain  of  others.  They  are  reckoned  the  fa- 
vored ones  of  fortune,  and  envied.  Are  they  blessed  ?  The 
law  of  life  is,  in  the  sweat  of  thy  brow  thou  shalt  eat  bread. 
No  man  can  evade  that  law  with  impunity.  Like  all  God's 
laws,  it  is  its  own  executioner.  It  has  strange  penalties  an- 
nexed to  it :  would  you  know  them  ?  Go  to  the  park,  or  the 
esplanade,  or  the  solitude  after  the  night  of  dissipation,  and 
read  the  penalties  of  being  useless,  in  the  sad,  jaded,  listless 
countenances — nay,  in  the  very  trifles  which  must  be  con- 
trived to  create  excitement  artificially.  Yet  these  very  eyes 
could,  dull  as  they  are,  beam  with  intelligence  :  on  many  of 
those  brows  is  stamped  the  mark  of  possible  nobility.  The 
fact  is,  that  the  capacity  of  ennui  is  one  of  the  signatures  of 
man's  immortality.  It  is  his  very  greatness  which  makes  in- 
action misery.  If  God  had  made  us  only  to  be  insects,  with 
no  nobler  care  incumbent  on  us  than  the  preservation  of  our 

13 


290  Elijah. 

lives,  or  the  pursuit  of  happiness,  we  might  be  content  to 
flutter  from  sweetness  to  sweetness,  and  from  bud  to  flower. 
But  if  men  with  souls  live  only  to  eat  and  drink  and  be 
amused,  is  it  any  wonder  if  life  be  darkened  with  despond- 
ency? 

4.  Disappointment  in  the  expectation  of  success. 

On  Carmel  the  great  object  for  which  Elijah  L  ji-7  lived 
seemed  on  the  point  of  being  realized.  Baal's  prophets  were 
slain — Jehovah  acknowledged  with  one  voice-^false  worship 
put  down.  Elijah's  life-aim,  the  transformation  of  Israel  into 
a  kingdom  of  God,  was  all  but  accomplished.  In  a  single 
day  all  this  bright  picture  was  annihilated. 

Man  is  to  desire  success,  but  success  rarely  cornea.  The 
wisest  has  written  upon  life  its  sad  epitaph — "  All  is  vanity," 
i.  <?.,  nothingness. 

The  tradesman  sees  the  noble  fortune  for  which  he  lived, 
every  coin  of  which  is  the  representative  of  so  much  time 
and  labor  spent,  squandered  by  a  spendthrift  son.  The 
purest  statesmen  find  themselves  at  last  neglected,  and  re- 
warded by  defeat.  Almost  never  can  a  man  look  back  on 
life  and  say  that  its  anticipations  have  been  realized.  For 
the  most  part  life  is  disappointment,  and  the  moments  in 
which  this  is  keenly  realized  are  moments  like  this  of 
Elijah's. 

II.  God's  treatment  of  it. 

1.  First  He  recruited  His  servant's  exhausted  strength. 
Read  the  history.     Miraculous  meals  are  given — then  Elijah 
sleeps,  wakes,  and  eats :  on  the  strength  of  that  goes  forty 
days'  journey.     In  other  words,  like  a  wise  physician,  God 
administers  food,  rest,  and   exercise,  and  then,  and   not   till 
then,  proceeds  to  expostulate ;  for  before,  Elijah's  mind  was 
unfit  for  reasoning. 

Persons  come  to  the  ministers  of  God  in  seasons  of  de- 
spondency ;  they  pervert  with  marvellous  ingenuity  all  the 
consolation  which  is  given  them,  turning  wholesome  food 
into  poison.  Then  we  begin  to  perceive  the  wisdom  of 
God's  simple  homely  treatment  of  Elijah,  and  discover  that 
there  are  spiritual  cases  which  are  cases  for  the  physician 
rather  than  the  divine. 

2.  Next  Jehovah  calmed  his  stormy  mind  by  the  healing 
influences   of  Nature.      He   commanded    the   hurricane   to 
sweep  the  sky,  and  the   earthquake  to  shake  the  ground. 
He  lighted  up  the  heavens  till  they  were  one  mass  of  fire. 
All  this  expressed  and  reflected  Elijah's  feelings.    The  mode 
in    which   Nature  soothes  us  is  by  finding  meeter  and  no- 


Elijah.  291 

blei  utterance  for  our  feelings  than  we  can  find  in  words — 
by  expressing  and  exalting  them.  In  expression  there  is  re- 
lief. Elijah's  spirit  rose  with  the  spirit  of  the  storm.  Stern, 
wild  defiance — strange  joy — all  by  turns  were  imaged  there. 
Observe,  "  God  was  not  in  the  wind,"  nor  in  the  fire,  nor  in 
the  earthquake.  It  was  Elijah's  stormy  self  reflected  in  the 
moods  of  the  tempest,  and  giving  them  their  character. 

Then  came  a  calmer  hour.  Elijah  rose  in  reverence — felt 
tenderer  sensations  in  his  bosom.  He  opened  his  heart  to 
gentler  influences,  till  at  last  out  of  the  manifold  voices  of 
Nature  there  seemed  to  speak,  not  the  stormy  passions  of 
the  man,  but  the  "still  small  voice"  of  the  harmony  and  the 
peace  of  God. 

There  are  some  spirits  which  must  go  through  a  discipline 
analogous  to  that  sustained  by  Elijah.  The  storm-struggle 
must  precede  the  still  small  voice.  There  are  minds  which 
must  be  convulsed  with  doubt  before  they  can  repose  in 
faith.  There  are  hearts  which  must  be  broken  with  disap- 
pointment before  they  can  rise  into  hope.  There  are  dispo- 
sitions which,  like  Job,  must  have  all  things  taken  from  them 
before  they  can  find  all  things  again  in  God.  Blessed  is  the 
man  who,  when  the  tempest  has  spent  its  fury,  recognizes  his 
Father's  voice  in  its  under-tone,  and  bares  his  head  and  bows 
his  knee,  as  Elijah  did.  To  such  spirits,  generally  those  of  a 
stern  rugged  cast,  it  seems  as  if  God  had  said,  "  In  the  still 
sunshine  and  ordinary  ways  of  life  you  can  not  meet  Me,  but 
like  Job,  in  the  desolation  of  the  tempest,  you  shall  see  My 
form,  and  hear  My  voice,  and  know  that  your  Redeemer 
liveth." 

3.  Besides,  God  made  him  feel  the  earnestness  of  life. 
What  doest  thou  here,  Elijah  ?  Life  is  for  doing.  A  proph- 
et's life  for  nobler  doing — and  the  prophet  was  not  doing, 
but  moaning. 

Such  a  voice  repeats  itself  to  all  of  us,  rousing  us  from  our 
lethargy,  or  our  despondency,  or  our  protracted  leisure, 
"  What  doest  thou  here  ?"  here  in  this  short  life.  There  is 
work  to  be  done — evil  put  down — God's  Church  purified — 
good  men  encouraged — doubting  men  directed — a  country 
to  be  saved — time  going — life  a  dream — eternity  long — one 
chance,  and  but  one  forever.  What  doest  thou  here  ? 

Then  he  went  on  farther  :  "Arise,  go  on  thy  way."  That 
speaks  to  us  :  on  thy  way.  Be.up  and  doing ;  fill  up  every 
hour,  leaving  no  crevice  or  craving  for  a  remorse,  or  a  re- 
pentance to  creep  through  afterwards.  Let  not  the  mind 
brood  on  self;  save  it  from  speculation,  from  those  stagnant 
moments  in  which  the  awful  teachings  of  the  spirit  grope 


292  Elijah. 

into  the  unfathomable  unknown,  and  the  heart  torments  it- 
self with  questions  which  are  insoluble  except  to  an  active 
life.  For  the  awful  Future  becomes  intelligible  only  in  the 
light  of  a  felt  and  active  Present.  Go,  return  on  thy  way  if 
thou  art  desponding — on  thy  way  ;  health  of  spirit  will  re- 
turn. 

4.  He  completed  the  cure  by  the  assurance  of  victory.1 
"  Yet  have  I  left  me  seven  thousand  in  Israel  who  have  not 
bowed  the  knee  to  Baal."  So,  then,  Elijah's  life  had  been  no 
failure  after  all.  Seven  thousand  at  least  in  Israel  had  been 
braced  and  encouraged  by  his  example,  and  silently  blessed 
him,  perhaps,  for  the  courage  which  they  felt.  In  God's 
world  for  those  that  are  in  earnest  there  is  no  failure.  No 
work  truly  done — no  word  earnestly  spoken — no  sacrifice 
freely  made,  was  ever  made  in  vain.  Never  did  the  cup  of 
cold  water  given  for  Christ's  sake  lose  its  reward. 

We  turn  naturally  from  this  scene  to  a  still  darker  hour 
and  more  august  agony.  If  ever  failure  seemed  to  rest  on  a 
noble  life,  it  was  when  the  Son  of  Man,  deserted  by  His 
friends,  heard  the  cry  which  proclaimed  that  the  Pharisees 
had  successfully  drawn  the  net  round  their  Divine  victim. 
Yet  from  that  very  hour  of  defeat  and  death  there  went 
forth  the  world's  life — from  that  very  moment  of  apparent 
failure  there  proceeded  forth  into  the  ages  the  spirit  of  the 
conquering  Cross.  Surely  if  the  Cross  says  any  thing,  it 
says  that  apparent  defeat  is  real  victory,  and  that  there  is  a 
heaven  for  those  who  have  nobly  and  truly  failed  on  earth. 

Distinguish,  therefore,  between  the  real  and  the  apparent. 
Elijah's  apparent  success  was  in  the  shouts  of  Mount  Carmel. 
His  real  success  was  in  the  unostentatious,  unsurmised  obe- 
dienoe  of  the  seven  thousand  who  had  taken  his  God  for 
their  God. 

This  is  a  lesson  for  all :  for  teachers  who  lay  their  heads 
down  at  night  sickening  over  their  thankless  task.  Remem- 
ber the  power  of  indirect  influences:  those  which  distill  from 
a  life,  not  from  a  sudden,  brilliant  effort.  The  former  never 
fail,  the  latter  often.  There  is  good  done  of  which  we  can 
never  predicate  the  when  or  where.  Not  in  the  flushing  of 
a  pupil's  cheek,  or  the  glistening  of  an  attentive  eye  ;  not  in 
the  shining  results  of  an  examination  does  your  real  success 
lie.  It  lies  in  that  invisible  influence  on  character  which  He 
alone  can  read  who  counte^  the  seven  thousand  nameless 
ones  in  Israel. 

For  ministers,  again — what  is  ministerial  success  ?  Crowd- 
ed churches — full  aisles — attentive  congregations — the  ap- 
proval of  the  religious  world — much  impression  produced  ? 


Notes  on  Psalm  LI.  293 

Elijah  thought  so ;  and  when  he  found  out  his  mistake,  and 
discovered  that  the  applause  on  Carmel  subsided  into  hide- 
ous stillness,  his  heart  well-nigh  broke  with  disappointment. 
Ministerial  success  lies  in  altered  lives  and  obedient  humble 
hearts  :  unseen  work  recognized  in  the  judgment-day. 

What  is  a  public  man's  success?  That  which  can  be 
measured  by  feast-days  and  the  number  of  journals  which 
espouse  his  cause?  Deeper,  deeper  far  must  he  work  who 
works  for  eternity.  In  the  eye  of  that,  nothing  stands  but 
gold — real  work  :  all  else  perishes. 

Get  below  appearances,  below  glitter  and  show.  Plant 
your  foot  upon  reality.  Not  in  the  jubilee  of  the  myriads 
on  Carmel,  but  in  the  humble  silence  of  the  hearts  of  the 
seven  thousand,  lay  the  proof  that  Elijah  had  not  lived  in 
vain. 


VI. 
NOTES  ON  PSALM  LI. 

Written  by  David  after  a  double  crime: — Uriah  put  in  the  forefront  of  the» 
battle — the  wife  of  the  murdered  man  taken,  etc. 

A  DARKER  guilt  you  will  scarcely  find  —  kingly  power 
abused — worst  passions  yielded  to.  Yet  this  psalm  breathes 
from  a  spirit  touched  with  the  finest  sensibilities  of  spiritual 
feeling. 

Two  sides  of  our  mysterious  twofold  being  here,  Some- 
thing in  us  near  to  hell :  something  strangely  near  to  God. 
"  Half  beast— half  devil  ?"  No :  rather  half  diabolical— half 
divine :  half  demon — half  God.  This  man  mixing  with  the 
world's  sins  in  such  sort  that  we  shudder.  But  he  draws 
near  the  Majesty  of  God,  and  becomes  softened,  purified, 
melted. 

It  is  good  to  observe  this,  that  we  rightly  estimate :  gen- 
erously of  fallen  humanity,  moderately  of  highest  saintship. 

In  our  best  estate  and  in  our  purest  moments  there  is  a 
something  of  the  devil  in  us  which,  if  it  could  be  known, 
would  make  men  shrink  from  us.  The  germs  of  the  worst 
crimes  are  in  us  all.  In  our  deepest  degradation  there  re- 
mains something  sacred,  undefjled,  the  pledge  and  gift  of  our 
better  nature  :  a  germ  of  indestructible  life,  like  the  grains  of 
wheat  among  the  cerements  of  a  mummy  surviving  through 
three  thousand  years,  which  may  be  planted,  and  live,  an] 
grow  again. 


294  Notes  on  Psalm  LI. 

It  is  this  truth  of  human  feeling  which  makes  the  Psalms, 
more  than  any  other  portion  of  the  Old  Testament,  the  link 
of  union  between  distant  ages.  The  historical  books  need  a 
rich  store  of  knowledge  before  they  can  be  a  modern  book 
of  life,  but  the  Psalms  are  the  records  of  individual  experi- 
ence. Personal  religion  is  the  same  in  all  ages.  The  deeps 
of  our  humanity  remain  unruffled  by  the  storms  of  ages  which 
change  the  surface.  This  psalm,  written  three  thousand  years 
ago,  might  have  been  written  yesterday :  describes  the  vicis- 
situdes of  spiritual  life  in  an  Englishman  as  truly  as  of  a  Jew. 
"  Not  of  an  age,  but  for  all  time." 

I.  Scripture  estimate  of  sin. 
n.  Spiritual  restoration. 

I.  Scripture  estimate  of  sin. 

1.  Personal  accountability.  "  My  sin  " — strange,  but  true. 
It  is  hard  to  believe  the  sin  we  do  our  own.  One  lays  the 
blame  on  circumstances ;  another  on  those  who  tempted ;  a 
third  on  Adam,  Satan,  or  his  own  nature,  as  if  it  were  not 
himself.  "  The  fathers  have  eaten  a  sour  grape,  and  the  chil- 
dren's teeth  are  set  on  edge." 

In  this  psalm  there  is  no  such  self-exculpation.  Personal 
accountability  is  recognized  throughout.  No  source  of  evil 
suggested  or  conceived  but  his  own  guilty  will — no  shifting 
of  responsibility — no  pleading  of  a  passionate  nature,  or  of 
royal  exposure  as  peculiar.  "  I  have  sinned."  "  I  acknowl- 
edge my  transgression  :  my  sin  is  ever  before  me." 

One  passage  only  seems  at  first  to  breathe  a  different  tone : 
"  In  sin  did  my  mother  conceive  me."  By  some  interpreted 
as  referring  to  hereditary  sin  :  alleged  as  a  proof  of  the  doc- 
trine of  transmitted  guilt,  as  if  David  traced  the  cause  of  his 
act  to  his  maternal  character. 

True  as  the  doctrine  is  that  physical  and  moral  qualities 
are  transmissible,  you  do  not  find  that  doctrine  here.  It  is  not 
in  excuse,  but  in  exaggeration  of  his  fault  that  David  speaks. 
He  lays  on  himself  the  blame  of  a  tainted  nature,  instead  of 
that  of  a  single  fault :  not  a  murder  only,  but  of  a  murderous 
nature.  "  Conceived  in  sin."  From  his  first  moments  up  till 
then,  he  saw  sin — sin — sin :  nothing  but  sin. 

Learn  the  individual  character  of  sin — its  personal  origin, 
and  personal  identity.  There  can  be  no  transference  of  it. 
It  is  individual  and  incommunicable.  My  sin  can  not  be 
your  sin,  nor  yours  mine. 

Conscience,  when  it  is  healthy,  ever  speaks  thus:  "my 
transgression."  It  was  not  the  guilt  of  them  that  tempted 
you  —  they  have  theirs ;  but  each  as  a  separate  agent,  hia 


Notes  on  Psalm  LL  295 

own  degree  of  guilt.  Yours  is  your  own ;  the  violation  of 
your  own  and  not  another's  sense  of  duty ;  solitary,  awful, 
unshared,  adhering  to  you  alone  of  all  the  spirits  of  the 
universe. 

Perilous  to  refer  the  evil  in  us  to  any  source  out  of  and  be- 
yond ourselves.  In  this  way  penitence  becomes  impossible  : 
fictitious. 

2.  Estimated  as  hateful  to  God.  "  Against  thee,  thee  only, 
.have  I  sinned,  and  done  this  evil  in  thy  sight ;  that  thou 
mightest  be  justified  when  thou  speakest,  and  be  clear  when 
thou  judgest."  The  simple  judgment  of  the  conscience.  But 
another  estimate,  born  of  the  intellect,  comes  in  collision  with 
this  religion  and  bewilders  it.  Look  over  life,  and  you  will 
find  it  hard  to  believe  that  sin  is  against  God ;  that  it  is  not 
rather/or  Him. 

Undeniable,  that  out  of  evil  comes  good — that  evil  is  the 
resistance  in  battle,  with  which  good  is  created  and  becomes 
possible.  Physical  evil,  for  example,  hunger,  an  evil,  is  the 
parent  of  industry,  human  works,  all  that  man  has  done :  it 
beautifies  life.  The  storm-fire  burns  up  the  forest,  and  slays 
man  and  beast,  but  purifies  the  air  of  contagion.  Lately, 
the  tragic  death  of  eleven  fishermen  elicited  the  sympathy 
and  charities  of  thousands. 

Even  moral  evil  is  also  generative  of  good.  Peter's  cow- 
ardice enabled  him  to  be  a  comforter:  "when  he  was  con- 
verted, to  strengthen  his  brethren."  David's  crime  was  a 
vantage-ground,  from  which  he  rose  through  penitence  near- 
er to  God.  Through  it  this  psalm  has  blessed  ages.  But  if 
the  sin  had  not  been  done  ! 

Now,  contemplating  this,  we  begin  to  perceive  that  evil  is 
God's  instrument.  "  If  evil  be  in  the  city,  the  Lord  hath 
done  it."  Then  the  contemplative  intellectualist  looks  over 
this  scene  of  things,  and  complacently  approves  of  evil  as 
God's  contrivance  as  much  as  good  is — a  temporary  necessi- 
ty, worthy  of  His  wisdom  to  create.  And  then,  can  He  truly 
hate  that  which  He  has  made  ?  Can  His  agent  be  his  enemy  ? 
Is  it  not  short-sightedness  to  be  angry  with  it?  Not  the  an- 
tagonist of  God  surely,  but  His  creature  and  faithful  servant 
this  evil.  Sin  can  not  be  "  against  God." 

Thus  arises  a  horrible  contradiction  between  the  instincts 
of  the  conscience  and  the  judgment  of  the  understanding. 
Judas  must  have  been,  says  the  intellect,  God's  a^ent  as 
much  as  Paul.  "Why  doth  He  yet  find  fault?  for  who  had 
resisted  His  will  ?  Do  not  evil  men  perform  His  will  ?  Why 
should  I  blame  sin  in  another  or  myself,  seeing  it  is  neces- 
sary ?  Why  not  say  at  once,  crime  and  virtue  are  the  same  ?" 


296  Notes  on  Psalm  LI. 

Thoughts  such  as  these,  at  some  time  or  another,  I  doubt 
not  haunt  and  perplex  us  all.  Conscience  is  overborne  by 
the  intellect.  Some  time  during  every  life  the  impossibility 
of  reconciling  these  two  verdicts  is  felt,  and  the  perplexity 
confuses  action.  Men  sin  with  a  secret  peradventure  behind. 
"Perhaps  evil  is  not  so  bad,  after  all — perhaps  good — who 
knows  ?" 

Remember,  therefore,  in  matters  practical,  conscience,  not 
intellect,  is  our  guide.  Unsophisticated  conscience  ever 
speaks  this  language  of  the  Bible. 

We  can  not  help  believing  that  our  sentiments  towards 
right  and  wrong  are  a  reflection  of  God's.  That  we  fall  just 
and  true,  we  can  not  but  think  is  just  and  true  in  His  sight. 
That  which  seems  base  and  vile  to  us,  we  are  compelled  to 
think  is  so  to  Him — and  this  in  proportion  as  we  act  up  to 
duty.  In  that  proportion  we  feel  that  His  sentiments  coin- 
cide with  ours. 

In  such  moments  when  the  God  within  us  speaks  most  per- 
emptorily and  distinctly,  we  feel  that  the  language  of  this 
psalm  is  true,  and  that  no  other  language  expresses  the  truth. 
Sin  is  not  for  God — can  not  be,  but  "  against  God."  An  op- 
position to  His  will,  a  contradiction  to  His  nature,  not  a  co- 
incidence with  it.  He  abhors  it — will  banish  it,  and  annihi- 
late it. 

In  these  days,  when  French  sentimentalism,  theological 
dreams,  and  political  speculations  are  unsettling  the  old 
landmarks  with  fearful  rapidity,  if  we  do  not  hold  fast,  and 
that  simply,  and  firmly,  that  first  principle,  that  right  is  right, 
and  wrong  wrong,  all  our  moral  judgments  will  become  con- 
fused, and  the  penitence  of  the  noblest  hearts  an  absurdity. 
For  what  can  be  more  absurd  than  knowingly  to  reproach 
ourselves  for  that  which  God  intended  ? 

3.  Sin  estimated  as  separation  from  God.  Two  views  of 
sin :  The  first  reckoning  it  evil,  because  consequences  of  pain 
are  annexed;  the  second  evil,  because  a,  contradiction  of  our 
own  nature  and  God's  will. 

In  this  psalm  the  first  is  ignored ;  the  second,  implied 
throughout.  "Take  not  thy  Holy  Spirit  from  me;"  "Have 
mercy  upon  me,"  does  not  mean,  Save  me  from  torture. 
You  can  not  read  the  psalm  and  think  so.  It  is  not  the 
trembling  of  a  craven  spirit  in  anticipation  of  torture,  but 
the  agonies  of  a  noble  one  in  the  horror  of  being  evil. 

If  the  first  view  were  true,  then — if  God  were  by  an  act  of 
will  to  reverse  the  consequences,  and  annex  pain  to  goodness 
and  joy  to  crime — to  lie  and  injure  would  become  duty  as 
much  as  before  they  were  sins.  But  penalties  do  not  change 


Notes  on  Psalm  LL  297 

good  into  evil.  Good  is  forever  good ;  evil  forever  evil. 
God  Himself  could  not  alter  that  by  a  command.  Eternal 
hell  could  not  make  truth  wrong,  nor  everlasting  pleasure  en* 
noble  sensuality. 

Do  you  fancy  that  men  like  David,  shuddering  iu  sight  of 
evil,  dreaded  a  material  hell  ?  I  venture  to  say,  into  true 
penitence  the  idea  of  punishment  never  enters.  If  it  did,  it 
would  be  almost  a  relief;  but  oh  !  those  moments  in  which 
a  selfish  act  has  appeared  more  hideous  than  any  pain  which 
the  fancy  of  a  Dante  could  devise  !  when  the  idea  of  the 
strife  of  self-will  in  battle  with  the  loving  will  of  God  pro- 
longed forever  has  painted  itself  to  the  imagination  as  the 
real  infinite  hell !  when  self-concentration  and  the  extinC' 
tion  of  love  in  the  soul  has  been  felt  as  the  real  damnation  of 
the  devil-nature ! 

And  recollect  how  sparingly  Christianity  appeals  to  the 
prudential  motives.  Use  them  it  does,  because  they  are  mo' 
tives,  but  rarely.  Retribution  is  a  truth ;  and  Christianity, 
true  to  nature,  warns  of  retribution.  But,  except  to  rouse 
men  sunk  in  forgetfulness,  or  faltering  with  truth,  it  almost 
never  appeals  to  it :  and  never,  with  the  hope  of  eliciting 
from  such  motives  as  the  hope  of  heaven  or  the  fear  of  hell, 
high  goodness. 

To  do  good  for  reward,  the  Son  of  Man  declares  to  be  the 
sinner's  religion.  "  If  ye  lend  to  them  who  lend  to  you,  what 
thank  have  ye  ?"  and  He  distinctly  proclaims  that  alone  to 
be  spiritually  good, "  the  righteousness  of  God,"  which  "  does 
good,  hoping  for  nothing  in  return;"  adding,  as 'the  only 
motive,  "  that  ye  may  be  the  children  of  (i.  e.,  resemble)  your 
Father  which  is  in  heaven :  for  He  maketh  His  sun  to  shine 
on  the  evil  and  the  good,  and  sendeth  rain  on  the  just  and  on 
the  unjust." 

IT.  Restoration. 

First  step,  sacrifice  of  a  broken  spirit. 

Observe  the  accurate  and  even  Christian  perception  of  the 
real  meaning  of  sacrifice  by  the  ancient  spiritually-minded 
Jews. 

Sacrifice  has  its  origin  in  two  feelings  :  one  human,  one  di- 
viiie  or  inspired. 

Tnie  feeling :  something  to  be  given  to  God  :  surrendered : 
that  God  must  be  worshipped  with  our  best. 

Human  :  added  to  this,  mixed  up  with  it,  is  the  fancy  that 
this  sacrifice  pleases  God  because  of  the  loss  or  pain  which  it 
inflicts.  Then  men  attribute  to  God  their  own  revengeful 
feelings  ;  think  that  the  philosophy  of  sacrifice  consists  in  the 

13* 


298  Notes  on  Psalm  LI. 

necessity  of  punishing :  call  it  justice  to  let  the  blow  fall 
somewhere — no  matter  where:  blood  must 'flow.  Hence 
heathen  sacrifices  were  offered  to  appease  the  Deity,  to  buy 
off  His  wrath — the  purer  the  offering  the  better: — to  sjlut 
His  fury..  Instances  illustrating  the  feeling:  Iphigenia;  Zaleu- 
cus ;  two  eyes  given  to  the  law  :  barbarian  rude  notions  of 
justness  mixed  up  with  a  father's  instincts.  Polycrates  and 
Amasis ;  seal  sacrificed  to  avert  the  anger  of  heaven — sup- 
posed to  be  jealous  of  mortal  prosperity.  These  notions 
were  mixed  with  Judaism:  nay, "are  mixed  up  now  with 
Christian  conceptions  of  Christ's  sacrifice. 

Jewish  sacrifices  therefore  presented  two  thoughts — to  the 
spiritual,  true  notions ;  to  the  unspiritual,  false  ;  and  express- 
ed these  feelings  for  each.  But  men  like  David  felt  that 
what  lay  beneath  all  sacrifice  as  its  ground  and  meaning  was 
surrender  to  God's  will — that-  a  man's  best  is  himself— and 
to  sacrifice  this  is  the  true  sacrifice.  By  degrees  they  came 
to  see  that  the  sacrifice  was  but  a  form — typical ;  and  that  it 
might  be  superseded. 

Compare  this  psalm  with  Psalm  L. 

They  were  taught  this  chiefly  through  sin  and  suffering. 
Conscience,  truly  wounded,  could  not  be  appeased  by  these 
sacrifices  which  were  offered  year  by  year  continually.  The 
selfish  coward,  who  saw  in  sin  nothing  terrible  but  the  pen- 
alty, could  be  satisfied  of  course.  Believing  that  the  animal 
bore  his  punishment,  he  had  nothing  more  to  dread.  But 
they  who  felt  sin  to  be  estrangement  from  God,  who  were 
not  thinking  of  punishment,  what  relief  could  be  given  to 
them  by  being  told  that  the  penalty  of  their  sins  was  borne 
by  another  being  ?  They  felt  that  only  by  surrender  to  God 
could  conscience  be  at  rest. 

Learn  then — God  does  not  wish  pain,  but  goodness ;  not 
suffering,  but  you — yourself — your  heart. 

Even  in  the  sacrifice  of  Christ,  God  wished  only  this.  It 
was  precious  not  because  it  was  pain,  but  because  the  pain, 
the  blood,  the  death  were  the  last  and  highest  evidence  of 
entire  surrender.  Satisfaction?  Yes,  the  blood  of  Christ 
satisfied.  Why  ?  Because  God  can  glut  His  vengeance  in 
innocent  blood  more  sweetly  than  in  guilty?  Because,  like 
the  barbarian  Zaleucus,  so  long  as  the  whole  penalty  is  paid, 
He  cares  not  by  whom  ?  Or  was  it  because  for  the  first  time 
He  saw  human  nature  a  copy  of  the  Divine  nature — the  will 
of  Man  the  Son  perfectly  coincident  with  the  will  of  God  the 
Father — the  love  of  duty  for  the  first  time  exhibited  by  man 
• — obedience  entire,  "  unto  death,  even  the  death  of  the  cross?" 
Was  not  that  the  sacrifice  which  He  saw  in  His  beloved  Son 


Notes  on  Psalm  LI.  299 

wherewith  He  was  well  pleased  ?  Was  not  that  the  sacrifice 
of  Him  who,  through  the  Eternal  Spirit,  ottered  Himself  with- 
out spot  to  God  :  the  sacrifice  once  offered  which  hath  per- 
fected forever  them  that  are  sanctified  ? 

2.  Last  step,  spirit  of  liberty.  "  Thy  free  spirit " — literal- 
ly, princely.  But  the  translation  is  right.  A  princely  is  a 
free  spirit — unconstrained.  Hence  St.  James  calls  it  "  the 
royal  law  of  liberty." 

Two  classes  of  motives-  may  guide  to  acts  of  seeming 
goodness:  1.  Prudential ;  2.  Generous. 

The  agent  of  the  temperance  society  appeals  to  prudential 
motives  when  he  demonstrates  the  evils  of  intoxication  ;  en- 
lists the  aid  of  anatomy ;  contrasts  the  domestic  happiness 
and  circumstantial  comfort  of  the  temperate  home  with  that 
of  the  intemperate.  An  appeal  to  the  desire  of  happiness  and 
fear  of  misery.  A  motive,  doubtless,  and  of  unquestionable 
potency.  All  I  say  is,  that  from  this  class  of  motives  comes 
nothing  of  the  highest  stamp. 

Prudential  motives  will  move  me :  but  compare  the  rush 
of  population  from  east  to  west  for  gold  with  a  similar  rush 
in  the  time  of  the  Crusades.  A  dream  —  a  fancy ;  but  an 
appeal  to  generous  and  unselfish  emotions  —  to  enthusiasm 
which  has  in  it  no  reflex  consideration  of  personal  greed : 
in  the  one  case,  siriiply  a  transfer  of  population,  with  vices 
and  habits  unchanged  ;  in  the  other,  a  sacrifice  of  home, 
country,  all. 

Tell  men  that  salvation  is  personal  happiness,  and  damna- 
tion personal  misery,  and  that  goodness  consists  in  seeking 
the  one  and  avoiding  the  other,  and  you  will  get  religionists : 
but  poor,  stunted,  dwarfish  —  asking,  with  painful' self-con- 
sciousness, Am  I  saved  ?  Am  I  lost  ?  Prudential  considera- 
tions about  a  distant  happiness,  conflicting  with  passionate 
impulses  to  secure  a  neaf  and  present  one :  men  moving  in 
shackles — "  letting  I  dare  not  wait  upon  I  would." 

Tell  men  that  God  is  love  :  that  right  is  right,  and  wrong 
wrong :  let  them  cease  to  admire  philanthropy,  and  begin 
to  love  men  :  cease  to  pant  for  heaven,  and  begin  to  love 
God  :  then  the  spirit  of  liberty  begins. 

When  fear  has  done  its  work — whose  office  is  not  to  create 
holiness  but  to  arrest  conscience — and  self-abasement  has 
set  in  in  earnest,  then  the  free  Spirit  of  God  begins  to 
breathe  upon  the  soul  like  o  gale  from  a  healthier  climate, 
refreshing  it  with  a  more  generous  and  a  purer  love.  Pru- 
dence is  no  longer  left  in  painful  and  hopeless  struggle  with 
desire :  love  bursts  the  shackles  of  the  soul,  and  we  are  free. 


300  Obedience  the  Organ  of  Spiritual  KnowLdge* 


VII. 

OBEDIENCE  THE  ORGAN  OF  SPIRITUAL 
KNOWLEDGE. 

ASSIZE     SERMON. 

:*  it  any  man  will  do  his  will,  he  shall  know  of  the  doctrine,  whether  it  be 
of  God,  or  whether  I  speak  of  myself. " — John  vii.  1 7. 

THE  first  thing  we  have  to  do  is  to  put  ourselves  in  pos- 
session of  the  history  of  these  words. 

Jesus  taught  in  the  Temple  during  the  Feast  of  Taber- 
nacles. The  Jews  marvelled  at  His  spiritual  wisdom.  The 
cause. of  wonder  was  the  want  of  scholastic  education: 
"How  knoweth  this  man  letters,  never  having  learned?" 
They  had  no  conception  of  any  source  of  wisdom  beyond 
learning. 

He  Himself  gave  a  different  account  of  the  matter.  "  My 
doctrine  is  not  mine,  but  His  that  sent  me."  And  how  He 
came  possessed  of  it,  speaking  humanly, 'He  taught  (chap.  v. 
30):  "My  judgment  is  just,  because  I  seek  not  mine  own 
will,  but  the  will  of  the  Father  which  hath  sent  me." 

That  principle  whereby  He  attained  spiritual  judgment 
or  wisdom,  He  extends  to  all.  "If  any  man  will  do  His 
will,  he  shall  know  of  the  doctrine,  whether  it  be  of  God, 
or  whether  I  speak  of  myself."  Here,  then,  manifestly,  there 
are  two  opinions  respecting  the  origin  of  spiritual  knowledge : 

1.  The  popular  one  of  the  Jews,  relying  on  a  cultivated 
understanding. 

2.  The  principle  of  Christ,  which  relied  on  trained  affec- 
tions, and  habits  of  obedience. 

What  is  truth?  Study,  said  the  Jews.  Act,  said  Christ, 
jmd  you  shall  know.  A  very  precious  principle  to  hold  by 
;n  these  days,  and  a  very  pregnant  one  of  thought  to  us, 
who  during  the  next  few  days  must  be  engaged  in  the  con- 
templation of  crime,  and  to  whom  the  question  will  suggest 
Uself,  how  can  men's  lives  be  made  true  ? 

Religious  controversy  is  fast  settling  into  a  conflict  be- 
tween two  great  extreme  parties — those  who  believe  every 
thing,  and  those  who  believe  nothing :  the  disciples  of  credu- 
lity, and  the  disciples  of  skepticism. 

the  first  rely  on  authority.     Foremost  among  these,  and 


Obedience  the  Organ  of  Spiritual  Knowledge.  301 

the  only  self-consistent  ones,  are  the  adherents  of  the  Church 
of  Rome  ;  and  into  this  body,  by  logical  consistency,  ought 
to  merge  all — Dissenters,  Churchmen,  Bible  Christians ;  all 
who  receive  their  opinions  because  their  sect,  their  church, 
or  their  documents  assert  them,  not  because  they  are  true 
eternally  in  themselves. 

The  second  class  rely  solely  on  a  cultivated  understand- 
ing.  This  is  the  root  principle  of  Rationalism.  Enlighten, 
they  say,  and  sin  will  disappear.  Enlighten,  and  we  shall 
know  all  that  can  be  known  of  God.  Sin  is  an  error  of  the 
understanding,  not  a  crime  of  the  will.  Illuminate  the  un- 
derstanding, show  man  that  sin  is  folly,  and  sin  will  disap- 
pear. Political  economy  will  teach  public  virtue;  knowl- 
edge of  anatomy  will  arrest  the  indulgence  of  the  passions. 
Show  the  drunkard  the  inflamed  tissues  of  the  brain,  and  he 
will  be  sobered  by  fear  and  reason. 

Only  enlighten  fully,  and  spiritual  truths  will  be  tested. 
When  the  anatomist  shall  have  hit  on  a  right  method  of  dis- 
section, and  appropriated  sensation  to  this  filament  of  the 
brain,  and  the  religious  sentiment  to  that  fibre,  we  shall 
know  whether  there  be  a  soul  or  not,  and  whether  conscious- 
ness will  survive  physical  dissolution.  When  the  chemist 
shall  have  discovered  the  principle  of  life,  and  found  cause 
behind  cause,  we  shall  know  whether  the  last  cause  of  all  is 
a  personal  will  or  a  lifeless  force. 

Concerning  whom  I  only  remark  now,  that  these  disciples 
of  skepticism  easily  become  disciples  of  credulity.  It  is  in- 
structive to  see  how  they  who  sneer  at  Christian  mysteries 
as  old  wives'  fables,  bow  in  abject  reverence  before  Egyp- 
tian mysteries  of  three  thousand  years'  antiquity  ;  and  how 
they  who  have  cast  off  a  God  believe  in  the  veriest  im- 
posture, and  have  blind  faith  in  the  most  vulgar  juggling. 
Skepticism  and  credulity  meet.  Nor  is  it  difficult  to  ex- 
plain. Distrusting  every  thing,  they  doubt  their  own  con- 
clusions and  their  own  mental  powers ;  and  that  for  which 
they  can  not  account  presents  itself  to  them  as  supernatural 
and  mysterious.  Wonder  makes  them  more  credulous  than 
those  they  sneer  at. 

In  opposition  to  both  these  systems  stands  the  Christian- 
ity of  Christ. 

1.  Christ  never  taught  on  personal  authority.  "My  doc- 
trine is  not  mine."  He  taught  "  not  as  the  scribes."  They 
dogmatized  :  "  because  it  was  written  " — stickled  for  max- 
ims, and  lost  principles.  His  authority  was  the  authority  of 


truth,  not  of  personality :    He  commanded  men  to  believe, 
not  because  He  said  it,  bi 


but  He  said  it  because  it  was  true. 


302   Obedience  the  Organ  of  Spiritual  Knowledge. 

Hence  John  xii.  47,  48,  "  If  any  man  hear  my  words,  and  be- 
lieve not,  I  judge  him  not:  the  word  that  I  have  spoken, 
the  same  shall  judge  him  in  the  last  day." 

2.  He  never  taught  that  cultivation  of  the  understanding 
would  do  all,  but  exactly  the  reverse.  And  so  taught  His 
apostles.  St.  Paul  taught,  "The  world  by  wisdom  knew 
not  God."  His  Master  said  not  that  clear  intellect  will  give 
you  a  right  heart,  but  that  a  right  heart  and  a  pure  life  will 
clarify  the  intellect.  Not,  become  a  man  of  letters  and  learn- 
ing, and  you  will  attain  spiritual  freedom :  but,  Do  rightly, 
and  you  will  judge  justly  :  obey,  and  you  will  know.  "My 
judgment  is  just,  because  I  seek  not  mine  own  will  but  the 
will  of  the  Father  which  sent  me."  "  If  any  man  will  do  His 
will,  he  shall  know  of  the  doctrine,  whether  it  be  of  God,  or 
whether  I  speak  of  myself." 

I.  The  knowledge  of  the  truth,  or  Christian  knowledge. 
H.  The  condition  on  which  it  is  attainable. 

I.  Christian  knowledge — "he  shall  know."  Its  object— 
"  the  doctrine."  Its  degree — certainty — "  shall  know" 

Doctrine  is  now,  in  our  modern  times,  a  word  of  limited 
meaning  ;  being  simply  opposed  to  practical.  For  instance, 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  would  be  called  practical :  St. 
Paul's  Epistles  doctrinal.  But  in  Scripture,  doctrine  means 
broadly,  teaching :  any  thing  that  is  taught  is  doctrine. 
Christ's  doctrine  embraces  the  whole  range  of  His  teaching 
— every  principle  and  every  precept.  Let  us  select  three 
departments  of  "doctrine"  in  which  the  principle  of  the  text 
will  be  found  true — "  If  any  man  will  do  His  will,  he  shall 
know  of  the  doctrine,  whether  it  be  of  God,  or  whether  I 
speak  of  myself." 

1.  It  holds  good  in  speculative  truth.  If  any  man  will  do 
God's  will,  he  shall  know  what  is  truth  and  what  is  error. 
Let  us  see  how  willfulness  and  selfishness  hinder  impartial- 
ity. How  comes  it  that  men  are  almost  always  sure  to  ar- 
rive at  the  conclusions  reached  by  their  own  party  ?  Surely 
because  fear,  interest,  vanity,  or  the  desire  of  being  reckoned 
sound  and  judicious,  or  party  spirit,  bias  them.  Personal 
prospects,  personal  antipathies,  these  determine  most  men's 
creed.  How  will  you  remove  this  hindrance  ?  By  increased 
cultivation  of  mind  ?  Why,  the  Romanist  is  as  accomplished 
as  the  Protestant,  and  learning  is  found  in  the  Church  and 
out  of  it.  You  are  not  sure  that  high  mental  cultivation  will 
lead  a  man  either  to  Protestantism  or  to  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land. Surely,  then,  by  removing  self-will,  and  so  only,  can 
the  hindrance  to  right  opinions  be  removed.  Take  away  the 


Obedience  the  Organ  of  Spiritual  Knowledge.  303 

last  trace  of  interested  feeling,  and  the  way  is  cleared  for 
men  to  come  to  an  approximation  towards  unity,  even  in 
judgment  on  points  speculative;  and  so  he  that  will  do 
God's  will  shall  know  of  the  doctrine. 

2.  In  practical  truths  the  principle  is  true.  It  is  more 
true  to  say  that  our  opinions  depend  upon  our  lives  and 
habits,  than  to  say  that  our  lives  depend  upon  our  opinions, 
which  is  only  now  and  then  true.  The  fact  is,  men  think  in 
a  certain  mode  on  these  matters  because  their  life  is  of  a 
certain  character,  and  their  opinions  are  only  invented  after- 
wards as  a  defense  for  their  life. 

For  instance,  St.  Paul  speaks  of  a  maxim  among  the  Co- 
rinthians, "  Let  us  eat  and  drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die." 
They  excused  their  voluptuousness  on  the  ground  of  its  con- 
sistency with  their  skeptical  creed.  Life  was  short.  Death 
came  to-morrow.  There  was  no  hereafter.  Therefore  it  was 
quite  consistent  to  live  for  pleasure.  But  who  does  not  see 
that  the  creed  was  the  result,  and  not  the  cause  of  the  life  ? 
Who  does  not  see  thatt/w-«£  they  ate  and  drank,  and  then  be- 
lieved to-morrow  we  die  ?  "  Getting  and  spending,  we  lay 
waste  our  powers."  Eating  and  drinking,  we  lose  sight  of 
the  life  to  come.  When  the  immortal  is  overborne  and 
smothered  in  the  life  of  the  flesh,  how  can  men  believe  in 
life  to  come  ?  Then  disbelieving,  they  mistook  the  cause  for 
the  effect.  Their  moral  habits  and  creed  were  in  perfect  con- 
sistency :  yet  it  was  the  life  that  formed  the  creed,  not  the 
creed  that  formed  the  life.  Because  they  were  sensualists, 
immortality  had  become  incredible. 

Again,  slavery  is  defended  philosophically  by  some.  The 
negro,  on  his  skull  and  skeleton,  they  say,  has  God's  intention 
of  his  servitude  written  :  he  is  the  inferior  animal,  therefore 
it  is  right  to  enslave  him.  Did  this  doctrine  precede  the 
slave-trade  ?  Did  man  arrive  at  it,  and  then  in  consequence, 
conscientiously  proceed  with  human  traffic  ?  Or  was  it  in- 
vented to  defend  a  practice  existing  already — the  offspring 
of  self-interest  ?  Did  not  men  first  make  slaves,  and  then 
search  about  for  reasons  to  make  their  conduct  plausible  to 
themselves  ? 

So,  too,  a  belief  in  predestination  is  sometimes  alleged  in 
excuse  of  crime.  But  a  man  who  suffers  his  will  to  be  over- 
powered, naturally  comes  to  believe  that  he  is  the  sport  of 
fate  :  feeling  powerless,  he  believes  that  God's  decree  has 
made  him  so.  But  let  him  but  put  forth  one  act  of  loving 
will,  and  then,  as  the  nightmare  of  a  dream  is  annihilated  by 
an  effort,  so  the  incubus  of  a  belief  in  tyrannous  destiny  is 
dissipated  the  moment  a  man  wills  to  "do  the  will  of  God, 


304  Obedience  the  Organ  of  Spiritual  Knowledge. 

Observe,  how  he  knows  the  doctrine,  directly  he  does  tho 
will. 

There  is  another  thing  said  respecting  this  knowledge  ot 
truth. .  It  respects  the  degree  of  certainty — "  he  shall  know" 
not  he  shall  have  an  opinion.  There  is  a  wide  distinction 
between  supposing  and  knowing — betwreen  fancy  and  con- 
viction— between  opinion  and  belief.  Whatever  rests  on  au- 
thority remains  only  supposition.  You  have  an  opinion 
when  you  know  what  others  think.  You  know  when  you 
feel.  In  matters  practical  you  know  only  so  far  as  you  can 
do.  Read  a  work  on  the  "  Evidences  of  Christianity,"  and 
it  may  become  highly  probable  that  Christianity,  etc.,  are 
true.  That  is  an  opinion.  Feel  God,  do  His  will,  till  the 
Absolute  Imperative  within  you  speaks  as  with  a  living 
voice,  Thou  shalt,  and  thou  shalt  not ;  and  then  you  do  not 
think,  you  know  that  there  is  a  God.  That  is  a  conviction 
and  a  belief. 

Have  we  never  seen  how  a  child,  simple  and  near  to  God, 
cuts  asunder  a  web  of  sophistry  with  a  single  direct  ques- 
tion— how,  before  its  steady  look  and  simple  argument,  some 
fashionable  utterer  of  a  conventional  falsehood  has  been 
abashed? — how  a  believing  Christian  scatters  the  forces  of 
skepticism,  as  a  morning  ray,  touching  the  mist  on  the 
mountain  side,  makes  it  vanish  into  thin  air?  And  there 
are  few  more  glorious  moments  of  our  humanity  than  those 
in  wrhich  faith  does  battle  against  intellectual  proof:  when, 
for  example,  after  reading  a  skeptical  book,  or  hearing  a 
cold-blooded  materialist's  demonstration  in  which  God,  the 
soul,  and  life  to  come,  are  proved  impossible,  up  rises  the 
heart  in  all  the  giant  might  of  its  immortality  to  do  battle 
with  the  understanding,  and  with  the  simple  argument,  "  I 
feel  them  in  my  best  and  highest  moments  to  be  true,"  anni- 
hilates the  sophistries  of  logic. 

These  moments  of  profound  faith  do  not  come  once  for 
all :  they  vary  with  the  degree  and  habit  of  obedience. 
There  is  a  plant  which  blossoms  once  in  a  hundred  years. 
Like  it,  the  soul  blossoms  only  now  and  then  in  a  space  of 
years;  but  these  moments  are  the  glory  and  the  heavenly 
glimpses  of  our  purest  humanity. 

H.  The  condition  on  which  knowledge  of  truth  is  attain- 
able. "If  any  man  will  do  His  will,  he  shall  know  of  the 
doctrine,  whether  it  be  of  God,  or  whether  I  speak  of  myself." 

This  universe  is  governed  by  laws.  At  the  bottom  of  ev- 
ery thing  here  there  is  a  law.  Things  are  in  this  way  and 
not  that :  we  call  that  a  law  or  condition.  All  departments 


Obedience  the  Organ  of  Spiritual  Knowledge.  305 

have  their  own  laws.  By  submission  to  them,  you  make 
them  your  own.  Obey  the  laws  of  the  body — such  laws  as 
say,  Be  temperate  and  chaste :  or  of  the  mind — such  laws  as 
say,  Fix  the  attention,  strengthen  by  exercise  ;  and  then  their 
prizes  are  yours — health,  strength,  pliability  of  muscle,  tena- 
ciousness  of  memory,  nimbleness  of  imagination,  etc.  Obey 
the  laws  of  your  spiritual  being,  and  it  has  its  prizes  too. 
For  instance,  the  condition  or  law  of  a  peaceful  life  is  sub- 
mission to  the  law  of  meekness:  "Blessed  are  the  meek,  for 
they  shall  inherit  the  earth."  .  The  condition  of  the  Beatific 
vision  is  a  pure  heart  and  life:  "Blessed  are  the  pure  in 
heart,  for  they  shall  see  God."  To  the  impure,  God  i»  sim- 
ply invisible.  The  condition  annexed  to  a  sense  of  God's 
presence — in  other  words,  that  without  which  a  sense  of 
God's  presence  can  not  be — is  obedience  to  the  laws  of  love: 
"  If  we  love  one  another,  God  dwelleth  in  us,  and  His  love  is 
perfected  in  us."  The  condition  of  spiritual  wisdom  and  cer- 
tainty in  truth  is  obedience  to  the  will  of  God,  surrender  of 
private  will :  "If  any  man  will  do  His  will,  he  shall  know  of 
-the  doctrine,  whether  it  be  of  God,  or  whether  I  speak  of 
myself." 

In  every  department  of  knowledge,  therefore,  there  is  an 
appointed  "organ,"  or  instrument  for  discovery  of  its  specific 
truth,  and  for  appropriating  its  specific  blessings.  In  the 
world  of  sense,  the  empirical  intellect :  in  that  world  the 
Baconian  philosopher  is  supreme.  His  Novum  Organon  is 
experience :  he  knows  by  experiment  of  touch,  sight,  sound, 
etc.  The  religious  man  may  not  contravene  his  assertions : 
he  is  lord  in  his  own  province.  But  in  the  spiritual  world, 
the  "  organ  "  of  the  scientific  man — sensible  experience — is 
powerless.  If  the  chemist,  geologist,  physiologist  come  back 
from  their  spheres  and  say,  we  find  in  the  laws  of  affinity,  in 
the  deposits  of  past  ages,  in  the  structure  of  the  human 
fratne,  no  trace  nor  token  of  a  God,  I  simply  reply,  I  never 
expected  you  would.  Obedience  and  self-surrender  is  the 
sole  organ  by  which  we  gain  a  knowledge  of  that  which  can 
not  be  seen  nor  felt.  "Eye  hath  not  seen,  nor  ear  heard, 
neither  have  entered  into  the  heart  of  man,  the  things  which 
God  hath  prepared  for  them  that  love  him."  And  just  as  by 
copying  perpetually  a  master-painter's  works  we  get  at  last 
an  instinctive  and  infallible  power  of  recognizing  his  touch, 
so  by  copying  and  doing  God's  will  we  recognize  what  is 
His :  we  know  of  the  teaching  whether  it  be  of  God,  or 
whether  it  be  an  arbitrary  invention  of  a  human  self. 

2.  Observe  the  universality  of  the  law.  "If  any  man  will 
do  His  will,  he  shall  know  of  the  doctrine,  whether  it  be  of 


306  Obedience  the  Organ  of  Spiritual  Knowledge. 

God,  or  whether  I  speak  of  myself."  The  law  was  true  of 
the  man  Christ  Jesus  Himself!  He  tells  us  it  is  true  of  all 
other  men. 

In  God's  universe  there  are  no  favorites  of  heaven  who 
may  transgress  the  laws  of  the  universe  with  impunity — 
none  who  can  take  fire  in  the  hand  and  not  be  burnt — no 
enemies  of  heaven  who,  if  they  sow  corn,  will  reap  nothing 
but  tares.  The  law  is  just  and  true  to  all :  "  Whatsoever  a 
man  soweth,  that  shall  he  also  reap." 

In  God's  spiritual  universe  there  are  no  favorites  of  heaven 
who  can  attain  knowledge  and  spiritual  wisdom  apart  from 
obedjence.  There  are  none  reprobate  by  an  eternal  decree, 
who  can  surrender  self,  and  in  all  things  submit  to  God,  and 
yet  fail  of  spiritual  convictions.  It  is  not  therefore  a  rare, 
partial  condescension  of  God,  arbitrary  and  causeless,  which 
gives  knowledge  of  the  truth  to  some,  and  shuts  it  out  from 
others,  but  p,  vast,  universal,  glorious  law.  The  light  light- 
eth  every  man  that  cometh  into  the  world.  "  If  'any  man 
will  do  His  will,  he  shall  know." 

See  the  beauty  of  this  Divine  arrangement.  If  the  cer- 
tainty of  truth  depended  upon  the  proof  of  miracles,  prophe- 
cy, or  the  discoveries  of  science,  then  truth  would  be  in  the 
reach  chiefly  of  those  who  can  weigh  evidence,  investigate 
history,  and  languages,  study  by  experiment ;  whereas  as  it 
is,  "The  meek  will  He  guide  in  judgment,  and  the  meek  will 
He  teach  His  way."  "Thus  saith  the  high  and  lofty  One 
what  inhabiteth  eternity,  whose  name  is  Holy  ;  I  dwell  in  the 
high  and  holy  place,  with  him  also  that  is  of  a  contrite  and 
humble  spirit."  The  humblest  and  the  weakest  may  know 
more  of  God,  of  moral  evil  and  of  good,  by  a  single  act  of 
charity,  or  a  prayer  of  self-surrender,  than  all  the  sages  can 
teach :  ay,  or  all  the  theologians  can  dogmatize  upon. 

They  know  nothing,  perhaps,  these  humble  ones,  of  the  evi- 
dences, but  they  are  sure  that  Christ  is  their  Redeemer, 
They  can  not  tell  what  "  matter  "  is,  but  they  know  that  they 
are  spirits.  They  know  nothing  of  the  "  argument  from  de- 
sign," but  they  feel  God.  The  truths  of  God  are  spiritually 
discerned  by  them.  They  have  never  learned  letters,  but 
they  have  reached  the  Truth  of  Life. 

3.  Annexed  to  this  condition,  or  a  part  of  it,  is  earnestness. 
"If  any  man  will  do  His  will."  Now  that  word  "will"  is 
not  the  will  of  the  future  tense,  but  will  meaning  volition : 
if  any  man  wills,  resolves,  has  the  mind  to  do  the  will  of 
God.  So  then  it  is  not  a  chance  fitful  obedience  that  leads 
us  to  the  truth,  nor  an  obedience  paid  while  happiness  lasts 
and  no  longer,  but  an  obedience  rendered  in  entireness  and 


Obedience  the  Organ  of  Spiritual  Knowledge.  307 

in  earnest.  It  is  not  written,  "  If  any  man  does  His  will," 
but  if  any  man  has  the  spirit  and  desire.  If  we  are  in  ear- 
nest, we  shall  persevere  like  the  Syrophenician  woman,  even 
though  the  ear  of  the  universe  seem  deaf,  and  Christ  Himself 
appear  to  bid  us  back.  If  we  are  not  in  earnest,  difficulties 
will  discourage  us.  Because  Avill  is  wanting,  we  shall  be 
asking  still  in  ignorance  and  doubt,  What  is  truth  ? 

All  this  will  seem  to  mat  y  people  time  misspent.  They  go 
to  church  because  it  is  the  custom,  and  all  Christians  believe 
it  is  the  established  religion.  But  there  are  hours,  and  they 
come  to  us  all  at  some  period  of  life  or  other,  when  the  hand 
of  Mystery  seems  to  lie  heavy  on  the  soul — when  some  life- 
shock  scatters  existence,  leaves  it  a  blank  and  dreary  waste 
henceforth  forever,  and  there  appears  nothing  of  hope  in  all 
the  expanse  which  stretches  out,  except  that  merciful  gate  of 
death  which  opens  at  the  end — hours  when  the  sense  of  mis- 
placed or  ill-requited  affection,  the  feeling  of  personal  worth- 
lessness,  the  uncertainty  and  meanness  of  all  human  aims,  and 
the  doubt  of  all  human  goodness,  unfix  the  soul  from  all  its 
old  moorings,  and  leave  it  drifting,  drifting  over  the  vast  in- 
finitude, with  an  awful  sense  of  solitariness.  Then  the  man 
whose  faith  rested  on  outward  authority  and  not  on  inward 
life,  will  find  it  give  way:  the  authority  of  the  priest,  the  au- 
thority of  the  Church,  or  merely  the  authority  of  a  document 
proved  by  miracles  and  backed  by  prophecy,  the  soul — con- 
scious life  hereafter — God — will  be  an  awful  desolate  Perhaps. 
Well  in  such  moments  you  doubt  all — whether  Christianity 
be  true :  whether  Christ  was  man,  or  God,  or  a  beautiful  fable. 
You-  ask  bitterly,  like  Pontius  Pilate,  What  is  truth  ?  In 
such  an  hour  what  remains?  I  reply,  obedience.  Leave 
those  thoughts  for  the  present.  Act — be  merciful  and  gentle 
— honest ;  force  yourself  to  abound  in  little  services ;  try  to 
do  good  to  others ;  be  true  to  the  duty  that  you  know. 
That  must  be  right,  whatever  else  is  uncertain.  And  by  all 
the  laws-of  the  human  heart,  by  the  word  of  God,  you  shall 
not  be  left  to  doubt.  Do  that  much  of  the  will  of  God  which 
is  plain  to  you,  and  "  You  shall  know  of  the  doctrine,  wheth-_ 
3r  it  be  of  God." 


308  Religious  Depression. 


VIII. 
RELIGIOUS  DEPRESSION. 

"As  the  hart  panteth  after  the  water-brooks,  so  panteth  my  soul  after 
thee,  O  God.  My  soul  thirsteth  for  God,  for  the  living  God :  when  shall  I 
come  and  appear  before  God  ?  My  tears  have  been  my  meat  day  and  night, 
while  they  continually  say  unto  me,' Where  is  thy  God  ?" — Psalm  xlii.  1-3. 

THE  value  of  the  public  reading  of  the  Psalms  in  our  serv- 
ice is,  that  they  express  for  us  indirectly  those  deeper  feel- 
ings which  there  would  be  a  sense  of  indelicacy  in  express- 
ing directly. 

Example  of  Joseph :  asking  after  his  father,  and  blessing 
his  brothers,  as  it  were,  under  the  personality  of  another. 

There  are  feelings  of  which  we  do  not  speak  to  each  oth- 
er ;  they  are  too  sacred  and  too  delicate.  Such  are  most  of 
our  feelings  to  God.  If  we  do  speak  of  them,  they  lose  their 
fragrance  :  become  coarse  :  nay,  there  is  even  a  sense  of  in- 
delicacy and  exposure. 

Now  the  Psalms  afford  precisely  the  right  relief  for  this 
feeling :  wrapped  up  in  the  forms  of  poetry,  metaphor,  etc., 
that  which  might  seem  exaggerated  is  excused  by  those  who 
do  not  feel  it ;  while  they  who  do  can  read  them,  applying 
them,  without  the  suspicion  of  uttering  their  own  feelings. 
Hence  their  soothing  power,  and  hence,  while  other  portions 
of  Scripture  may  become  obsolete,  they  remain  the  most  pre- 
cious parts  of  the  Old  Testament.  For  the  heart  of  man  is 
the  same  in  all  ages. 

This  forty-second  Psalm  contains  the  utterance  of  a  sor- 
row of  which  men  rarely  speak.  There  is  a  grief  worse  than 
lack  of  bread  or  loss  of  friends.  Men  in  former  times  called 
it  spiritual  desertion.  But  at  times  the  utterances  of  this 
solitary  grief  are,  as  it  were,  overheard,  as  in  this  Psalm. 
Read  verses  6,  7.  And  in  a  more  august  agony,  "  My  God. 
my  God,  why  hast  thou  forsaken  me  ?" 

I.  Causes  of  David's  despondency. 
IL  The  consolation. 

I.  Causes  of  David's  despondency. 

1.  The  thirst  for  God.     "  My  soul  thirsteth  for  God,  for 

the  living  God :  when  shall  I  come  and  appear  before  God?" 

There  is  a  desire  in  the  human  heart  best  described  as  the 


Religious  Depression.  309 

cravings  of  infinitude.  We  are  so  made  that  nothing  which 
has  limits  satisfies.  Hence  the  sense  of  freedom  and  relief 
which  comes  from  all  that  suggests  the  idea  of  boundless- 
ness :  the  deep  sky,  the  dark  night,  the  endless  circle,  the  il- 
limitable ocean. 

Hence,  too,  our  dissatisfaction  with  all  that  is  or  can  be 
done.  There  never  was  the  beauty  yet  than  which  we  could 
not  conceive  something  more  beautiful.  None  so  good  as  to 
be  faultless  in  our  eyes.  No  deed  done  by  us,  but  we  feel 
we  have  it  in  us  to  do  a  better.  The  heavens  are  not  clean 
in  our  sight,  and  the  angels  are  charged  with  folly. 

Therefore  to  never  rest  is  the  price  paid  for  our  greatness. 
Could  we  rest,  we  must  become  smaller  in  soul.  Whoever 
is  satisfied  with  what  he  does  has  reached  his  culminating 
point :  he  will  progress  no  more.  Man's  destiny  is  to  be  not 
dissatisfied,  but  forever  unsatisfied. 

Infinite  goodness — a  beauty  beyond  what  eye  hath  seen 
or  heart  imagined,  a  justice  which  shall  have  no  flaw,  and  a 
righteousness  which  shall  have  no  blemish — to  crave  for 
that,  is  to  be  "  athirst  for  God." 

2.  The  temporary  loss  of  the  sense  of  God's  personality. 
"  My  soul  is  athirst  for  the  living  God." 

Let  us  search  our  own  experience.  What  we  want  is,  we 
shall  find — not  infinitude,  but  a  boundless  One;  not  to  feel 
that  love  is  the  law  of  this  universe,  but  to  feel  One  whose 
name  is  love. 

For  else,  if  in  this  world  of  order  there  be  no  One  in  whose 
bosom  that  order  is  centred,  and  of  whose  Being  it  is  the  ex- 
pression ;  in  this  world  of  manifold  contrivance,  no  personal 
affection  which  gave  to  the  skies  their  trembling  tenderness, 
and  to  the  snow  its  purity,  then  order,  affection,  contrivance, 
wisdom,  are  only  horrible  abstractions,  and  we  are  in  the 
dreary  universe  alone. 

Foremost  in  the  declaration  of  this  truth  was  the  Jewish 
religion.  .It  proclaimed — not  "Let  us  meditate  on  the 
Adorable  Light,  it  shall  guide  our  intellects" — which  is  the 
most  sacred  verse  of  the  Hindoo  sacred  books — but  "  Thus 
saith  the  Lord,  I  am,  that  I  am."  In  that  word  "I  am"  is 
declared  personality  ;  and  it  contains,  too,  in  the  expression, 
i4  Thus  saith"  the  real  idea  of  a  revelation,  viz.,  the  volunta- 
ry approach  of  the  Creator  to  the  creature. 

Accordingly,  these  Jewish  Psalms  are  remarkable  for  that 
personal  tenderness  towards  God — those  outbursts  of  pas- 
sionate individual  attachment  which  are  in  every  page.  A 
person,  asking  and  giving  heart  for  heart — inspiring  love,  be- 
cause feeling  it — that  was  the  Israelite's  Jehovah. 


3io  Religious  Depression. 

Now  distinguish  this  from  the  God  of  the  philosopher  and 
the  God  of  the  mere  theologian. 

The  God  of  the  mere  theologian  is  scarcely  a  living  God — 
He  did  live  ;  but  for  some  eighteen  hundred  years  we  are 
credibly  informed  that  no  trace  of  His  life  has  been  seen. 
The  canon  is  closed  The  proofs  that  He  was  are  in  the 
things  that  He  has  made,  and  the  books  of  men  to  whom  He 
spake ;  but  He  inspires  and  works  wonders  no  more.  Ac- 
cording to  the  theologians,  He  gives  us  proofs  of  design  in- 
stead of  God — doctrines  instead  of  the  life  indeed. 

Different,  too,  from  the  God  of  the  philosopher.  The 
tendency  of  philosophy  has  been  to  throw  back  the  personal 
Being  farther  and  still  farther  from  the  time  when  every 
branch  and  stream  was  believed  a  living  power,  to  the  pe- 
riod when  "principles"  were  substituted  for  this  belief; 
then  "  laws ;"  and  the  philosopher's  God  is  a  law  into  which 
all  other  laws  are  resolvable. 

Quite  differently  to  this  speaks  the  Bible  of  God.  Not  as  a 
law,  but  as  the  life  of  all  that  is — the  Being  who  feels,  and  is 
felt — is  loved,  and  loves  again — feels  my  heart  throb  into  His 
— counts  the  hairs  of  my  head :  feeds  the  ravens  and  clothes 
the  lilies  :  hears  my  prayers,  and  interprets  them  through  a 
Spirit  which  has  affinity  with  my  spirit. 

It  is  a  dark  moment  when  the  sense  of  that  personality  is 
lost :  more  terrible  than  the  doubt  of  immortality.  For  of 
the  two — eternity  without  a  personal  God, or  God  for  seven- 
ty years  without  immortality — no  one  after  David's  heart 
would  hesitate,  "  Give  me  God  for  life,  to  know  and  be 
known  by  Him."  No  thought  is  more  hideous  than  that  of 
an  eternity  without  Him.  "  My  soul  is  athirst  for  God." 
The  desire  for  immortality  is  second  to  the  desire  for  God. 

3.  The  taunts  of  scoffers.  "As  the  hart  panteth  after  the 
water-brooks,  so  panteth  my  soul  after  thee,  O  God."  Now 
the  hart  here  spoken  of  is  the  hart  hunted,  at  bay,  the  big 
tears  rolling  from  his  eyes,  and  the  moisture  standing  black 
upon  his  side.  Let  us  see  what  the  persecution  was.  "Where 
is  now  thy  God  ?"  (ver.  3).  This  is  ever  the  way  in  religious 
perplexity:  the  unsympathizing  world  taunts  or  misunder- 
stands. In  spiritual  grief  they  ask,  Why  is  he  not  like  oth- 
ers ?  In  bereavement  they  call  your  deep  sorrow  unbelief. 
In  misfortune  they  comfort  you,  like  Job's  friends,  by  calling 
it  a  visitation.  Or  like  the  barbarians  at  Melita  when  the 
viper  fastened  on  Paul's  hand,  no  doubt  they  call  you  an  in- 
fidel, though  your  soul  be  crying  after  God.  Specially  in 
that  dark  and  awful  hour,  when  He  called  on  God,  "  Eloi, 
Eloi,"  they  said,  "  Let  be :  let  us  see  whether  Elias  will  come 
to  save  Him." 


Religious  Depression.  311 

Now  this  is  sharp  to  bear.  It  is  easy  to  say  Christian  for- 
titude should  be  superior  to  it;  but  in  darkness  to  have  no 
sympathy ;  when  the  soul  gropes  for  God,  to  have  the  hand 
of  man  relax  its  grasp  !  Forest-flies,  small  as  they  are,  drive 
the  noble  war-horse  mad  :  therefore  David  says,  "As  a  sword 
in  my  bones,  mine  enemies  reproach  me :  while  they  say 
daily  unto  me,  Where  is  thy  God?"  (ver.  10).  Now,  ob- 
serve, this  feeling  of  forsakenness  is  no  proof  of  being  forsak- 
en. Mourning  after  an  absent  God  is  an  evidence  of  love  as 
strong  as  rejoicing  in  a  present  one.  Nay,  further,  a  man 
may  be  more  decisively  the  servant  of  God  and  goodness 
while  doubting  His  existence,  and  in  the  anguish  of  his  soul 
crying  for  light,  than  while  resting  in  a  common  creed,  and 
coldly  serving  Him.  There  has  been  One  at  least  whose  ap- 
parent forsakenness  and  whose  seeming  doubt  bears  the 
stamp  of  the  majesty  of  faith.  "  My  God,  my  God,  why 
hast  thou  forsaken  me  ?" 

II.  David's  consolation. 

1.  And  first,  in  hope  (see  verse  5)  :  distinguish  between  the 
feelings  of  faith  that  God  is  present,  and  the  hope  of  faith 
that  He  will  be  so. 

There  are  times  when  a  dense  cloud  veils  the  sunlight: 
you  can  not  see  the  sun,  nor  feel  him.  Sensitive  tempera- 
ments feel  depression,  and  that  unaccountably  and  irresisti- 
bly. •  No  effort  can  make  you  feel.  Then  you  hope.  Be- 
hind the  cloud  the  sun  is;  from  thence  he  will  come;  the 
day  drags  through,  the  darkest  and  longest  night  ends  at 
last.  Thus  we  bear  the  darkness  and  the  otherwise  intolera- 
ble cold,  and  many  a  sleepless  night.  It  does  not  shine  now, 
but  it  will. 

So  too,  spiritually.  There  are  hours  in  which  physical  de- 
rangement darkens  the  windows  of  the  soul ;  days  in  which 
shattered  nerves  make  life  simply  endurance;  months  and 
years  in  which  intellectual  difficulties,  pressing  for  solution, 
shut  out  God.  Then  faith  must  be  replaced  by  hope. 
"  What  I  do  thou  knowest  not  now ;  but  thou  shalt  know 
hereafter."  "  Clouds  and  darkness  are  round  about  Him :  but 
righteousness  and  truth  are  the  habitation  of  His  throne." 
"My  soul,  hope  thou  in  God  :  for  I  shall  yet  praise  Him,  who 
is  the  health  of  my  countenance  and  my  God." 

2,  This  hope  was  in  God. 

The  mistake  we  make  is  to  look  for  a  source  of  comfort  in 
ourselves :  self-contemplation,  instead  of  gazing  upon  God. 
In  other  words,  we  look  for  comfort  precisely  where  comfort 
never  can  be. 


3 1 2  Religious  Depression. 

For  first,  it  is  impossible  to  derive  consolation  from  our 
own  feelings,  because  of  their  mutability:  to-day  we  are 
well,  and  our  spiritual  experience,  partaking  of  these  circum- 
stances, is  bright;  but  to-morrow  some  outward  circum- 
stances change — the  sun  does  not  shine,  or  the  wind  is  chill, 
and  we  are  low,  gloomy,  and  sad.  Then  if  our  hopes  were 
unreasonably  elevated,  they  will  now  be  unreasonably  de- 
pressed ;  and  so  our  experience  becomes  flux  and  reflux,  ebb 
and  flow;  like  the  sea,  that  emblem  of  instability. 

Next,  it  is  impossible  to  get  comfort  from  our  own  acts ; 
for  though  acts  are  the  test  of  character,  yet  in  a  low  state 
no  man  can  judge  justly  of  his  own  acts.  They  assume  a 
darkness  of  hue  which  is  reflected  on  them  by  the  eye  that 
contemplates  them.  It  would  be  well  for  all  men  to  remem- 
ber that  sinners  can  not  judge  of  sin — least  of  all,  can  we  es- 
timate our  own  sin. 

Besides,  we  lose  time  in  remorse.  I  have  sinned ;  well,  by 
the  grace  of  God  I  must  endeavor  to  do  better  for  the  future. 
But  if  I  mourn  for  it  overmuch  all  to-day,  refusing  to  be  com- 
forted, to-morrow  I  shall  have  to  mourn  the  wasted  to-day; 
and  that  again  will  be  the  subject  of  another  fit  of  remorse. 

In  the  wilderness,  had  the  children  of  Israel,  instead  of 
gazing  on  the  serpent,  looked  down  on  their  own  wounds  to 
watch  the  process  of  the  granulation  of  the  flesh,  and  see  how 
deep  the  wound  was,  and  whether  it  was  healing  slowly  or 
fast,  cure  would  have  been  impossible :  their  only  chance, was 
to  look  off  the  wounds.  Just  so,  when  giving  up  this  hope- 
less and  sickening  work  of  self-inspection,  and  turning  from 
ourselves  in  Christian  self-oblivion,  we  gaze  en  God,  then  first 
the  chance  of  consolation  dawns. 

He  is  not  affected  by  our  mutability ;  our  changes  do  not 
alter  Him.  When  we  are  restless,  He  remains  serene  and 
calm;  when  we  are  low,  selfish,  mean,  or  dispirited,  He  is 
still  the  unalterable  I  AM.  The  same  yesterday,  to-day,  and 
forever,  in  whom  is  no  variableness,  neither  shadow  of  turn- 
ing. What  God  is  in  Himself,  not  what  we  may  chance  te 
feel  Him  in  this  or  that  moment  to  be,  that  is  our  hope, 
"My  soul,  hope  thou  in  God." 


Faith  of  the  Centurion.  313 


IX. 
FAITH  OF  THE  CENTURION. 

"When  Jesus  heard  it,  he  marvelled,  and  said  to  them  that  followed, 
Verily  I  say  unto  you,  I  have  not  found  so  great  faith,  no,  not  in  Israel." — 
Matt.  viii.  10. 

THAT  upon  which  the  Son  of  God  fastened  as  worthy  of 
admiration  was  not  the  centurion's  benevolence,  nor  his  per- 
severance, but  his  faith.  And  so  speaks  the  whole  New  Tes- 
tament, giving  a  special  dignity  to  faith.  By  faith  we  are 
justified.  By  faith  man  removes  mountains  of  difficulty. 
The  Divinest  attribute  in  the  heart  of  God  is  love,  and  the 
mightiest,  because  the  most  human,  principle  in  the  breast 
of  man  is  faith.  Love  is  heaven,  faith  is  that  which  appro- 
priates heaven. 

Faith  is  a  theological  term  rarely  used  in  other  matters. 
Hence  its  meaning  is  obscured.  But  faith  is  no  strange,  new, 
peculiar  power,  supernaturally  infused  by  Christianity,  but 
the  same  principle  by  which  we  live  from  day  to  day — one 
of  the'commonest  in  our  daily  life. 

We  trust  our  senses,  and  that  though  they  often  deceive 
i«s.  We  trust  men ;  a  battle  must  often  be  risked  on  the  in- 
telligence of  a  spy.  A  merchant  commits  his  ships,  with  all 
his  fortunes  on  board,  to  a  hired  captain,  whose  temptations 
are  enormous.  Without  this  principle  society  could  not  hold 
together  for  a  day.  It  would  be  a  mere  sand-heap. 

Such,  too, .is  religious  faith  ;  we  trust  on  probabilities  ;  and 
this  though  probabilities  often  are  against  us.  We  can  not 
prove  God's  existence.  The  balance  of  probabilities,  scien- 
tifically speaking,  are  nearly  equal  for  a  living  person  or  a 
lifeless  cause  :  immortality,  etc.,  in  the  same  way.  But  faith 
throws  its  own  convictions  into  the  scale  and  decides  the  pre- 
ponderance. 

Faith,  then,  is  that  which,  when  probabilities  are  equal, 
ventures  on  God's  side,  and  on  the  side  of  right,  on  the  guar- 
anty of  a  something  within  which  makes  the  thing  seem  to 
be  true  because  it  is  loved. 

It  is  so  defined  by  St.  Paul :  "  Faith  is  the  substance  of 
things  hoped  for,  the  evidence  of  things  unseen."  The  hope 
is  the  ground  for  faith  to  rest  on  We  consider, 

14 


3 1 4  Faith  of  the  Centurion. 

I.  The  faith  which  was  commended. 
II.  The  causes  of  the  commendation. 

I.  The  faith  which  was  commended. 

First  evidence  of  its  existence,  his  tenderness  to  his  serv< 
ant. 

Of  course  this  good  act  might  have  existed  separate  from 
religion.  Romans  were  benevolent  to  their  domestics  ages  be- 
fore the  law  had  been  enacted  regulating  the  relationship  be- 
tween patron  and  client. 

But  we  are  forbidden  to  view  it  so,  when  we  remember 
that  he  was  a  proselyte.  Morality  is  not  religion,  but  it  is 
ennobled  and  made  more  delicate  by  religion. 

How  ?  By  instinct  you  may  be  kind  to  dependents.  But 
if  it  be  only  by  instinct,  it  is  but  the  same  kind  of  tenderness 
you  show  to  your  hound  or  horse.  Disbelief  in  God,  and 
right,  and  immortality,  degrades  the  man  you  are  kind  to,  to 
the  level  of  the  beast  you  feel  for  Both  are  mortal,  and  for 
both  your  kindness  is  finite  and  poor. 

But  the  moment  faith  comes,  dealing  as  it  does  with  things 
infinite,  it  throws  something  of  its  own  infinitude  on  the  per- 
sons loved  by  the  man  of  faith,  upon  his  affections  and  his 
acts:  it  raises  them. 

Consequently  you  find  the  centurion  "  building  syna- 
gogues," "  caring  for  our  (i.  e.,  the  Jewish)  nation,"  as  the 
repository  of  the  truth  —  tending  his  servants.  And  this 
last,  observe,  approximated  his  moral  goodness  to  the  Chris- 
tian standard  !  for  therein  does  Christianity  differ  from  mere 
religiousness,  that  it  is  not  a  worship  of  the  high,  but  a 
lifting  up  of  the  low — not  hero-worship,  but  Divine  conde-_ 
scension. 

Thus,  then,  was  his  kindness  an  evidence  of  his  faith. 

Second  proof.  His  humility :  "  Lord,  I  am  not  worthy  that 
thou  shouldest  come  under  my  roof." 

Now  Christ  does  not  call  this  humility,  though  it  was  hu* 
mility.  He  says,  I  have  not  found  so  great  faith.  Let  us 
see  why.  How  is  humbleness  the  result  of,  or  rather  identi- 
cal with,  faith  ? 

Faith  is  trust.  Trust  is  dependence  on  another ;  the  spirit 
which  is  opposite  to  independence  or  trust  in  self.  Hence 
where  the  spirit  of  proud  independence  is,  faith  is  not. 

Now  observe  how  this  differs  from  our  ordinary  and  mod- 
ern modes  of  thinking.  The  first  thing  taught  a  young  man 
is  that  he  must  be  independent.  Quite  right,  in  the  Christian 
sense  of  the  word,  to  owe  no  man  any  thing :  to  resolve  to 
get  his  own  living,  and  not  be  beholden  to  charity,  which  fos- 


Faith  of  the  Centurion.  3 1 5 

ters  idleness  :  to  depend  on  his  own  exertions,  and  not  on 
patronage  or  connection.  But  what  is  commonly  meant  by 
independence  is  to  rejoice  at  being  bound  by  no  ties  to  other 
human  beings — to  owe  no  allegiance  to  any  will  except  our 
own — to  be  isolated  and  unconnected  by  any  feeling  of  inter- 
communion or  dependence ;  a  spirit  whose  very  life  is  jeal- 
ousy and  suspicion  :  which  in  politics  is  revolutionary,  and  in 
religion  atheism.  This  is  the  opposite  of  Christianity,  and 
the  opposite  of  the  Christian  freedom  whose  name  it  usurps. 
For  true  freedom  is  to  be  emancipated  from  all  false  lords,  in 
order  to  owe  allegiance  to  all  true  lords — to  be  free  from  the 
slavery  of  all  lusts,  so  as  voluntarily  to  serve  God  and  right. 
Faith  alone  frees. 

And  this  was  the  freedom  of  the  centurion :  that  he  chose 
his  master.  He  was  not  fawning  on  the  emperor  at  Rome, 
nor  courting  the  immoral  ruler  at  Caesarea  who  had  titles 
and  places  to  give  away,  but  he  bent  in  lowliest  homage  of 
heart  before  the  Holy  One.  His  freedom  was  the  freedom 
of  uncoerced  and  voluntary  dependence — the  freedom  and 
humility  of  faith. 

3.  His  belief  in  an  invisible,  living  Will.  "  Speak  the 
word  only."  Remark  how  different  this  is  from  a  reliance 
on  the  influence  of  the  senses.  He  asked  not  the  presence 
of  Christ,  but  simply  an  exertion  of  His  will.  He  looked 
not  like  a  physician  to  the  operation  of  unerring  laws,  or  the 
result  of  the  contact  of  matter  with  matter.  He  believed  in 
Him  who  is  the  life  indeed.  He  felt  that  the  Cause  of  causes 
is  a  person.  Hence  he  could  trust  the  Living  Will  out  of 
sight.  This  is  the  highest  form  of  faith. 

Here,  however,  I  observe — the  centurion  learned  this 
through  his  own  profession.  "  I  am  a  man  under  authority, 
having  soldiers  under  me."  The  argument  ran  thus.  I  by 
the  command  of  will  obtain  the  obedience  of  my  dependents. 
Thou  by  will  the  obedience  of  Thine :  sickness  and  health 
are  Thy  servants.  Evidently  he  looked  upon  this  universe 
with  a  soldier's  eye  :  he  could  not  look  otherwise.  To  him 
this  world  was  a  mighty  camp  of  living  forces  in  which  au- 
thority was  paramount.  Trained  in  obedience  to  military 
law,  accustomed  to  render  prompt  submission  to  those  above 
him,  and  to  extract  it  from  those  below  him,  he  read  law 
everywhere ;  and  law  to  him  meant  nothing,  unless  it  meant 
the  expression  of  a  personal  will.  It  was  this  training 
through  which  faith  took  its  form. 

The  Apostle  Paul  tells  us  that  the  invisible  things  of  God 
from  the  creation  of  the  world  are  clearly  seen  ;  and,  we  may 
add,  from  every  part  of  the  creation  of  the  world,  "The  heav- 


316  Faith  of  the  Centurion. 

ens  declare  the  glory  of  God ;"  but  so  also  does  the  butter- 
cup and  the  raindrop. 

The  invisible  things  of  God  from  life  are  clearly  seen — • 
and,  we  may  add,  from  every  department  of  life.  There  is 
no  profession,  no  trade,  no  human  occupation  which  does  not 
in  its  own  way  educate  for  God. 

The  soldier,  through  law,  reads  a  personal  will;  and  he 
might  from  the  same  profession,  in  the  unity  of  an  army, 
made  a  living  and  organized  unity  by  the  variety  of  its  parts, 
have  read  the  principle  of  God's  and  the  Church's  unity, 
through  the  opportunities  that  profession  affords  for  self- 
control,  fo»  generous  deeds.  When  the  Gospel  was  first  an- 
nounced on  earth,  it  was  proclaimed  to  the  shepherds  and 
Magians  in  a  manner  appropriate  to  their  modes  of  life. 

Shepherds,  like  sailors,  are  accustomed  to.  hear  a  supernat- 
ural power  in  the  sounds  of  the  air,  in  the  moaning  of  the 
night-winds,  in  the  sighing  of  the  storm;  to  see  a  more  than 
mortal  life  in  the  clouds  that  wreathe  around  the  headland. 
Such  men,  brought  up  among  the  sights  and  sounds  of  na- 
ture, are  proverbially  superstitious.  No  wonder,  therefore, 
that  the  intimation  came  to  them,  as  it  were,  on  the  winds  in 
the  melodies  of  the  air :  "  a  multitude  of  the  heavenly  host 
praising  God,  and  saying,  Glory  to  God  in  the  highest,  and 
on  earth  peace,  good-will  toward  men." 

But  the  Magians  being  astrologers,  accustomed  to  read 
the  secrets  of  life  and  death  in  the  clear  star-lit  skies  of 
Persia,  are  conducted  by  a  meteoric  star. 

Each  in  his  own  way ;  each  in  his  own  profession  ;  each 
through  that  little  spot  of  the  universe  given  to  him.  For 
not  only  is  God  everywhere,  but  all  of  God  is  in  every  point. 
Not  His  wisdom  here,  and  His  goodness  there :  the  whole 
truth  may  be  read,  if  we  had  eyes,  and  heart,  and  time 
enough,  in  the  laws  of  a  daisy's  growth.  God's  beauty,  His 
love,  His  unity:  nay,  if  you  observe  how  each  atom  exists 
not  for  itselt  alone,  but  for  the  sake  of  every  other  atom  in 
the  universe,  in  that  atom  or  daisy  you  may  read  the  law  of 
the  Cross  itself.  The  crawling  of  a  spider  before  now  has 
taught  perseverance,  and  led  to  a  crown.  The  little  moss, 
brought  close  to  a  traveller's  eye  in  an  African  desert,  who 
had  lain  down  to  die,  roused  him  to  faith  in  that  love  which 
had  so  curiously  arranged  the  minute  fibres  of  a  thing  so 
small,  to  be  seen  once  and  but  once  by  a  human  eye,  and 
carried  him  in  the  strength  of  that  heavenly  repast,  like  Eli- 
jah of  old,  a  journey  of  forty  days  and  forty  nights,  to  the 
sources  of  the  Nile  ;  yet  who"  could  have  suspected  divinity 
in  a  spider,  or  theology  in  a  moss  ? 


Faith  of  the  Centurion.  317 

II.  The  causes  of  Christ's  astonishment. 
The  reasons  why  he  marvelled  may  .be  reduced  under  two 
heads. 

1.  The    centurion   was   a   Gentile;  therefore   unlikely  to 
know  revealed  truth. 

2.  A  soldier,  and  therefore  exposed  to  a  recklessness,  and 
idleness,  and  sensuality  which  are  the  temptations  of  that 
profession.     But  he  turned  his  loss  to  glorious  gain. 

The  Saviour's  comment,  therefore,  contained  the  advan- 
tage of  disadvantages,  and  the  disadvantage  of  advantages. 
The  former,  "  Many  shall  come  from  the  east  and  the  west, 
and  shall  sit  down  with  Abraham,  and  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  in 
the  kingdom  of  heaven ;"  the  latter,  "  The  children  of  the 
kingdom  shall  be  cast  out  into  outer  darkness ;  there  shall 
be  weeping  and  gnashing  of  teeth." 

There  are  spirits  which  are  crushed  by  difficulties,  while 
others  would  gain  strength  from  them.  The  greatest  men 
have  been  those  who  have  cut  their  way  to  success  through 
difficulties.  And  such  have  been  the  greatest  triumphs  of 
art  and  science :  such,  too,  of  religion.  Moses,  Elijah,  Abra- 
ham, the  Baptist,  the  giants  of  both  Testaments,  were  not 
men  nurtured  in  the  hot-house  of  religious  advantages. 
Many  a  man  would  have  done  good  if  he  had  not  a  super- 
abundance of  the  means  of  doing  it.  Many  a  spiritual  giant 
is  buried  under  mountains  of  gold. 

Understand,  therefore,  the  real  amount  of  advantage 
which  there  is  in  religious  privileges.  Necessary  especially 
for  the  feeble,  as  crutches  are  necessary ;  but,  like  crutches, 
they  often  enfeeble  the  strong.  For  every  advantage  which 
facilitates  performance  and  supersedes  toil,  a  corresponding 
price  is  paid  in  loss.  Civilization  gives  us  telescopes  and 
microscopes ;  but  it  takes  away  the  unerring  acuteness  with 
which  the  savage  reads  the  track  of  man  and  beast  upon  the 
ground  at  his  feet :  it  gives  us  scientific  surgery,  and  impairs 
the  health  which  made  surgery  superfluous. 

So,  ask  you  where  the  place  of  religious  might  is  ?  Not 
the  place  of  religious  privileges — not  where  prayers  are 
daily,  and  sacraments  monthly — not  where  sermons  are  so 
abundant  as  to  pall  upon  the  pampered  taste,  but  on  the  hill- 
side with  the  Covenanter ;  in  the  wilderness  with  John  the 
Baptist ;  in  our  own  dependencies  where  the  liturgy  is  rarely 
heard,  and  Christian  friends  meet  at  the  end  of  months : — 
there  amidst  manifold  disadvantages,  when  the  soul  is  thrown 
upon  itself,  a  few  kindred  spirits,  and  God,  grow  up  those 
heroes  of  faith,  like  the  centurion,  whose  firm  conviction  wins 
admiration  even  from  the  Son  of  God  Himself. 


3 1 8  The  Restoration  of  the  Erring. 

Lastly,  see  how  this  incident  testifies  to  the  perfect  hu- 
manity of  Christ.  The  Saviour  "  marvelled  :" — that  wonder 
was  no  fictitious  semblance  of  admiration.  It  was  a  real  gen- 
uine wonder.  He  had  not  expected  to  find  such  faith.  The 
Son  of  God  increased  in  wisdom  as  well  as  stature.  He  knew 
more  at  thirty  than  at  twenty.  There  were  tilings  He  knew 
at  twenty  which  He  had  not  known  before.  In  the  last  year 
of  His  life  He  went  to  the  fig-tree  expecting  to  find  fruit,  and 
was  disappointed.  In  all  matters  of  eternal  truth,  principles 
which  are  not  measured  by  more  or  less  true,  His  knowledge 
was  absolute ;  but  it  would  seem  that  in  matters  of  earthly 
fact  which  are  modified  by  time  and  space,  His  knowledge 
was,  like  ours,  more  or  less  dependent  upon  experience. 

Now  we  forget  this;  we  are  shocked  at  the  thought  of  the 
partial  ignorance  of  Christ,  as  if  it  were  irreverence  to  think 
it ;  we  shrink  from  believing  that  He  really  felt  the  force  of 
temptation,  or  that  the  forsakenness  on  the  Cross  and  the 
momentary  doubt  have  parallels  in  our  human  life.  In  other 
words,  we  make  that  Divine  Life  a  mere  mimic  representa- 
tion of  griefs  that  were  not  real,  and  surprises  that  were 
feigned,  and  sorrows  that  were  theatrical. 

But  thus  we  lose  the  Saviour.  For  it  is  well  to  know  that 
He  was  divine ;  but  if  we  lose  that  truth,  we  should  still 
have  a  God  in  heaven.  But  if  there  has  been  on  this  earth 
no  real,  perfect  human  life,  no  love  that  never  cooled,  no  faith 
that  never  failed,  which  may  shine  as  a  loadstar  across  the 
darkness  of  our  experience,  a  light  to  light  amidst  all  convic- 
tions of  our  own  meanness  and  all  suspicions  of  others'  little- 
ness, why,  we  may  have  a  religion,  but  we  have  not  a  Christi- 
anity. For  if  we  lose  Him  as  a  Brother,  we  can  not  feel  Him 
as  a  Saviour. 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  THE  ERRING. 

"  Brethren,  if  a  man  be  overtaken  in  a  fault,  ye  which  are  spiritual,  restore 
srch  a  one  in  the  spirit  of  meekness ;  considering  thyself,  lest  thou  also  be 
tempted.  Bear  ye  one  another's  burdens,  and  so  fulfill  the  law  of  Christ. " — 
Gal.  vi.  1,2. 

IT  would  be  a  blessed  thing  for  our  Christian  society  if  we 
could  contemplate  sin  from  the  same  point  of  view  from 
which  Christ  and  His  apostles  saw  it.  '  But  in  this  matter 
society  is  ever  oscillating  between  two  extremes — undue  lax- 
ity and  undue  severity. 


The  Restoration  of  the  Erring.  3 1 9 

In  one  age  of  the  Church — the  days  of  Donatism,  for  in- 
stance— men  refuse  the  grace  of  repentance  to  those  who  have 
erred :  holding  that  baptismal  privileges  once  forfeited  can 
not  be  got  back;  that  for  a  single  distinct  lapse  there  is  no 
restoration.  , 

In  another  age,  the  Church,  having  found  out  its  error,  and 
discovered  the  danger  of  setting  up  an  impossible  standard, 
begins  to  confer  periodical  absolutions  and  plenary  indul- 
gences, until  sin,  easily  forgiven,  is  as  easily  committed. 

And  so  too  with  societies  and  legislatures.  In  one  period 
Puritanism  is  dominant  and  morals  severe.  There  are  no 
small  faults.  The  statute-book  is  defiled  with  the  red  mark 
of  blood,  set  opposite  innumerable  misdemeanors.  In  an 
age  still  earlier  the  destruction  of  a  wild  animal  is  punished 
like  the  murder  of  a  man.  Then  in  another  period  we  have 
such  a  medley  of  sentiments  and  sickliness  that  we  have  lost 
all  our  bearings,  and  can  not  tell  what  is  vice  and  what  is 
goodness.  Charity  and  toleration  degenerate  into  that  feeble 
dreaminess  which  refuses  to  be  roused  by  stern  views  of  li{J3. 

This  contrast,  too,  may  exist  in  the  same  age,  nay,  in  the 
same  individual.  One  man  gifted  with  talent,  or  privileged 
by  rank,  outrages  all  decency:  the  world  smiles,  calls  it 
eccentricity,  forgives,  and  is  very  merciful  and  tolerant. 
Then  some  one  unshielded  by  these  advantages,  endorsed 
neither  by  wealth  nor  birth,  sins — not  to  one-tenth,  nor  one- 
ten-thousandth  part  ,of  the  same  extent :  society  is  seized 
with  a  virtuous  indignation,  rises  up  in  wrath,  asks  what  is 
to  become  of  the  morals  of  the  community  if  these  things 
are  committed,  and  protects  its  proprieties  by  a  rigorous 
exclusion  of  the  offender,  cutting  oif  the  bridge  behind  him 
against  his  return  forever. 

Now  the  Divine  character  of  the  New  Testament  is  shown 
in  nothing  more  signally  than  in  the  stable  ground  from 
which  it  views  this  matter,  in  comparison  with  the  shifting 
and  uncertain  standing-point  from  whence  the  world  sees  it. 
It  says,  never  retracting  nor  bating,  "  The  wages  of  sin  is 
death."  It  speaks  sternly,  with  no  weak  sentiment, "  Go,  sin 
no  more,  lest  a  worse  thing  happen  unto  thee."  But  then 
it  accepts  every  excuse,  admits  every  palliation  :  looks  upon 
this  world  of  temptation  and  these  frail  human  hearts  of  ours, 
not  from  the  cell  of  a  monk  or  the  study  of  a  recluse,  but  in 
a  large,  real  way ;  accepts  the  existence  of  sin  as  a  fact,  with- 
out affecting  to  be  shocked  or  startled  ;  assumes  that  it  must 
needs  be  that  offenses  come,  and  deals  with  them  in  a  large 
noble  way,  as  the  results  of  a  disease  which  must  be  met 
•—which  should  be,  and  which  can  be,  cured. 


320  The  Restoration  of  the  Erring. 

I.  The  Christian  view  of  other  men's  sin. 
II.  The  Christian  power  of  restoration. 

I.  The  first  thing  noticeable  in  the  apostle's  view  of  sin 
is,  that  he  looks  upon  it  as  if  it  might  be  sometimes  the 
result  of  a  surprise.  "  If  a  man  be  overtaken  in  a  fault." 
In  the  original  it  is  anticipated^  taken  suddenly  in  front.  As 
if  circumstances  had  been  beforehand  with  the  man :  as  if 
sin,  supposed  to  be  left  far  behind,  had  on  a  sudden  got  in 
front,  tripped  him  up,  or  led  him  into  ambush. 

All  sins  are  not  of  this  character.  'There  are  some  which 
are  in  accordance  with  the  general  bent  of  our  disposition, 
and  the  opportunity  of  committing  them  was  only  the  first 
occasion  for  manifesting  what  was  in  the  heart :  so  that  if 
they  had  not  been  committed  then,  they  probably  would  or 
must  have  been  at  some  other  time;  and  looking  back  to 
them  we  have  no  right  to  lay  the  blame  on  circumstances1 — 
we  are  to  accept  the  penalty  as  a  severe  warning  meant  to 
show  what  was  in  our  hearts. 

There  are  other  sins  of  a  different  character.  It  seems 
as  if  it  were  not  in  us  to  commit  them.  They  were,  so  to 
speak,  unnatural  to  us:  you  were  going  quietly  on  your 
way,  thinking  no  evil,  suddenly  temptation,  for  which  you 
were  not  prepared,  presented  itself,  and  before  you  knew 
where  you  were,  you  were  in  the  dust,  fallen. 

As,  for  instance,  when  a  question  is  suddenly  put  to  a 
man  which  never  ought  to  have  been  put,  touching  a  secret 
of  his  own  or  another's.  Had  he  the  presence  of  mind  or 
adroitness,  he  might  turn  it  aside,  or  refuse  to  reply.  But 
being  unprepared  and  accosted  suddenly,  he  says  hastily 
that  which  is  irreconcilable  with  strict  truth ;  then,  to  sub- 
stantiate and  make  it  look  probable,  misrepresents  or  invents 
something  else ;  and  so  he  has  woven  round  himself  a  mesh 
which  will  entangle"  his  conscience  through  many  a  weary 
day  and  many  a  sleepless  night. 

It  is  shocking,  doubtless,  to  allow  ourselves  even  to  admit 
that  this  is  possible;  yet  no  one  knowing  human  nature 
from  men,  and  not  from  books,  will  deny  that  this  might 
befall  even  a  brave  and  true  man.  St.  Peter  was  both ;  yet 
this  was  his  history.  In  a  crowd,  suddenly,  the  question  was 
put  directly,  "This  man  also  was  with  Jesus  of  Nazareth." 
Then  came  a  prevarication — a  lie;  and  yet  another.  This 
was  a  sin  of  surprise.  He  was  overtaken  in  a  fault. 

Every  one.  of  us  admits  the  truth  of  this  in  his  own  case. 
Looking  back  to  past  life,  he  feels  that  the  errors  which 
have  most  terribly  determined  his  destiny  were  the  result 


The  Restoration  of  the  Erring.  321 

of  mistake.  Inexperience,  a  hasty  promise,  excess  of  trust, 
incaution,  nay,  even  a  generous  devotion,  have  been  fear- 
fully, and,  as  it  seems  to  us,  inadequately  chastised.  There 
may  be  some  undue  tenderness  to  ourselves  when  we  thus 
palliate  the  past :  still,  a  great  part  of  such  extenuation  is 
only  justice. 

Now  the  Bible  simply  requires  that  we  should  judge 
others  by  the  same  rule  by  which  we  judge  ourselves.  The 
law  of  Christ  demands  that  what  we  plead  in  our  own  case, 
we  should  admit  in  the  case  of  others.  Believe  that  in  this 
or  that  case  which  you  judge  so  harshly,  the  heart,  in  its 
deeps,  did  not  consent  to  sin,  nor  by  preference  love  what  is 
hateful;  simply  admit  that  such  an  one  may  have  been 
overtaken  in  a  fault.  This  is  the  large  law  of  charity. 

1.  Again,  the  apostle  considers  fault  as  that  which  has 
left  a  burden  on  the  erring  spirit.     "Bear  ye  one  another's    X 
burdens." 

For  we  can  not  say  to  the  laws  of  God,  I  was  overtaken. 
We  live  under  stern  and  unrelenting  laws,  which  permit  no 
excuse,  and  never  heard  of  a. surprise.  They  never  send  a 
man  who  has  failed  once  back  to  try  a  second  chance. 
i  I  There  is  no  room  for  a  mistake;  you  play  against  them  for 
your  life;  and  they  exact  the  penalty  .inexorably,  "  Every  . 
man  must  bear  his  own  burden."  Every  law  has  its  own  / 
appropriate  penalty ;  and  the  wonder  of  it  is,  that  often  the 
severest  penalty  seems  set  ngainst  the  smallest  transgression. 
We  suffer  more  for  our  vices  than  our  crimes ;  we  pay  dearer 
for  our  imprudences  than  even  for  our  deliberate  wickedness. 

Let  us  examine  this  a  little  more  closely.  One  burden 
laid  on  fault  is  that  chain  of  entanglement  which  seems  to 
drag  down  to  fresh  sins.  One  step  necessitates  many  others. 
One  fault  leads  to  another,  and  crime  to  crime.  The  soul 
gravitates  downward  beneath  its  burden.  It  was  profound 
knowledge  indeed  which  prophetically  refused  to  limit  Peter's 
sin  to  once.  "  Verily  I  say  unto  thee  ....  thou  shalt  deny 
Me  thrice." 

We  will  try  to  describe  that  sense  of  burden.  A  fault 
has  the  power  sometimes  of  distorting  life  till  all  seems 
hideous  and  unnatural.  A  man  who  has  left  his  proper 
nature,  and  seems  compelled  to  say  and  do  things  unnatural 
and  in  false  show,  who  has  thus  become  untrue  to  himself, 
to  him  life  and  the  whole  universe  becomes  untrue.  He  can 
grasp  nothing ;  he  does  not  stand  on  fact ;  he  is  living  as  in 
a  dream — himself  a  dream.  All  is  ghastly,  unreal,  spectral. 
A  burden  is  on  him  as  of  a  nightmare.  He  moves  about  in 
nothingness  and  shadows,  as  if  he  were  not.  His  own  exist- 

14* 


322  The  Restoration  of  the  Erring. 

ence  swiftly  passing  might  seem  a  phantom  life,  were  it  not 
for  the  corroding  pang  of  anguish  in  his  soul,  for  that  at 
least  is  real ! 

2.  Add   to   this,  the   burden  of  the1  heart   weighing   on 
itself. 

It  has  been  truly  said  that  the  human  heart  is  like  the 
millstone,  which,  if  there  be  wheat  beneath  it,  will  grind  to 
purposes  of  health ;  if  not,  will  grind  still,  at  the  will  of  the 
wild  wind,  but  on  itself.  So  does  the  heart  wear  out  itself 
against  its  own  thought.  One  fixed  idea — one  remembrance, 
and  no  other  —  one  stationary,  wearing  anguish.  This  is 
remorse,  passing  into  despair ;  itself  the  goad  to  fresh  and 
wilder  crimes. 

The  worst  of  such  a  burden  is  that  it  keeps  down  the  soul 
from  good.  Many  an  ethereal  spirit,  which  might  have 
climbed  the  heights  of  holiness,  and  breathed  the  rare  and 
difficult  air  gf  the  mountain-top,  where  the  heavenliest  spir- 
ituality alone  can  live,  is  weighed  down  by  such  a  burden 
to  the  level  of  the  lowest.  If  you  know  such  an  one,  mark 
his  history ;  without  restoration,  his  career  is  done.  That 
soul  will  not  grow  henceforth. 

3.  The  burden  of  a  secret. 

Some  here  know  the  weight  of  an  uncommunicated  sin. 
They  know  how  it  lies  like  ice  upon  the  heart.  They  know 
how  dreadful  a  thing  the  sense  of  hypocrisy  is ;  the  knowl- 
edge of  inward  depravity,  while  all  without  looks  pure  as 
snow  to  men. 

How  heavy  this  weight  may  be,  we  gather  from  these 
indications.  First,  from  this  strange,  psychological  fact.  A 
man  with  a  guilty  secret  will  tell  out  the  tale  of  his  crimes 
as  under  the  personality  of  another;  a  mysterious  necessity 
seems  to  force  him  to  give  it  utterance — as  in  the  old  fable 
of  him  who  breathed  out  his  weighty  secret  to  the  reeds.  A 
remarkable  instance  of  this  is  afforded  in  the  case  of  that 
murderer,  who,  from  the  richness  of  his  gifts  and  the  enor- 
mity of  his  crime,  is  almost  a  historical  personage,  who, 
having  become  a  teacher  of  youth,  was  in  the  habit  of  nar- 
rating to  his  pupils  the  anecdote  of  his  crime  writh  all  the 
circumstantial  particularity  of  fact,  but  all  the  wrhile  under 
the  guise  of  a  pretended  "dream.  Such  men  tread  forever 
on  the  very  verge  of  a  confession  :  they  seem  to-  take  a  fear- 
ful pleasure  in  talking  of  their  guilt,  as  if  the  heart  could 
not  bear  its  own  burden,  but  must  give  it  outness. 

Again,  is  it  evidenced  by  the  attempt  to  get  relief  in  pro- 
fuse and  general  acknowledgments  of  guilt.  They  adopt 
the  language  of  religion ;  they  call  themselves  "  vile  dust 


The  Restoration  of  the  Erring.  323 

and  miserable  sinners."  The  world  takes  generally  what 
they  mean  particularly.  But  they  get  no  relief,  they  only 
deceive  themselves ;  for  they  have  turned  the  truth  itself 
into  a  falsehood,  using  true  words  which  they  know  convey 
a  false  impression,  and  getting  praise  for  humility  instead  of 
punishment  for  guilt.  They  have  used  all  the  effort,  and 
suffered  all  the  pang  which  it  would  have  cost  them  to  get 
real  relief,  and  they  have  not  got  it ;  and  the  burden  unac- 
knowledged remains  a  burden  still. 

The  third  indication  we  have  of  the  heaviness  of  this  bur- 
den is  the  commonness  of  the  longing  for  confession^-  None 
but  a  minister  of  the  Gospel  can  estimate  this :  heonly  who, 
looking  round  his  congregation,  can  point  to  person  after 
person  whose  wild  tale  of  guilt  or  sorrow  he  is  cognizant  of 
— who  can  remember  how  often  similar  griefs  were  trem- 
bling upon  lips  which  did  not  unburden  themselves — whose 
heart  being  the  receptacle  of  the  anguish  of  many,  can  judge 
what  is  in  human  hearts :  he  alone  can  estimate  how  much 
there  is  of  sin  and  crime  lying  with  the  weight  and  agony 
of  concealment  on  the  spirits  of  our  brethren. 

The  fourth  burden  is  an  intuitive  consciousness  of  the  hid- 
den sins  of  others7  hearts. 

To  two  states  of  soul  it  is  given  to  detect  the  presence  of 
evil :  states  the  opposite  of  each  other — innocence  and  guilt. 

It  was  predicted  of  the  Saviour  while  yet  a  child,  that  by 
Him  the  thoughts  of  many  hearts  should  be  revealed ;  the 
fulfillment  of  this  was  the  history  of  His  life.  He  went 
through  the  world,  by  His  innate  purity  detecting  the  pres- 
ence of  evil,  as  He  detected  the  touch  of  her  who  touched 
His  garment  in  the  crowd. 

Men,  supposed  spotless  before,  fell  down  before  Him, 
crying,  "  Depart  from  me,  for  I  am  a  sinful  man,  O  Lord !" 
This,  in  a  lower  degree,  is  true  of  all  innocence :  you  would 
think  that  oue  who  can  deeply  read  the  human  heart  and 
track  its  windings  must  be  himself  deeply  experienced  in 
evil.  But  it  is  not  so— at  least  not  always.  Purity  can 
detect  the  presence  of  the  evil  which  it  does  not  understand  : 
just  as  the  dove  which  has  never  seen  a  hawk  trembles  at 
its  presence ;  and  just  as  a  horse  rears  uneasily  when  the 
wild  beast  unknown  and  new  to  it  is  near,  so  innocence 
understands,  yet  understands  not  the  meaning  of  the  unholy 
look,  the  guilty  tone,  the  sinful  manner.  It  shudders  and 
shrinks  from  it  by  a  power  given  to  it,  like  that  which  God 
has  conferred  on  the  unreasoning  mimosa.  Sin  gives  the 
same  power,  but  differently.  Innocence  apprehends  the  ap- 
proach of  evil  by  the  instinctive  tact  of  contrast ;  guilt,  bj 


324  The  Restoration  of  the  Erring. 

the  instinctive  consciousness  of  similarity.  It  is  the  pro. 
found  truth  contained  in  the  history  of  the  Fall.  The  eyea 
are  opened ;  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil  has  come. 
The  soul  knows  its  own  nakedness,  but  it  knows  also  the 
nakedness  of  all  other  souls  which  have  sinned  after  the  si- 
militude of  its  own  sin. 

/  Very  marvellous  is  that  test-power  of  guilt :  it  is  vain  to 
|think  01  eluding  its  fine  capacity  of  penetration.  Intimations 
of  evil  are  perceived  and  noted,  when  to  other  eyes  all  seems 
pure.  The  dropping  of  an  eye,  the  shunning  of  a  subject, 
the  tremulousness  of  a  tone,,  the  peculiarity  of  a  subterfuge, 
will  tell  the  tale.  "These  are  tendencies  like  mine,  and  here 
is  a  spirit  conscious  as  my  own  is  conscious." 

This  dreadful  burden  the  Scriptures  call  the  knowledge 
of  good  and  evil :  can  we  not  all  remember  the  salient  sense 
of  happiness  which  we  had  when  all  was  innocent — when 
crime  was  the  tale  of  some  far  distant  hemisphere,  and  the 
guilt  we  heard  of  was  not  suspected  in  the  hearts  of  the  beings 
around  us  ?  and  can  we  not  recollect,  too,  how  by  our  own 
sin,  or  the  cognizance  of  others'  sin,  there  came  a  something 
which  hung  the  heavens  with  shame  and  guilt,  and  all 
around  seemed  laden  with  evil  ?  This  is  the  worst  burden 
that  comes  from  transgression :  loss  of  faith  in  human  good- 
ness ;  the  being  sentenced  to  go  through  life  haunted  with  a 
presence  from  which  we  can  not  escape  ;  the  presence  of 
evil  in  the  hearts  of  all  that  we  approach. 

II.  The  Christian  power  of  restoration :  "  Ye  which  are 
spiritual,  restore  such  an  one." 

First,  then,  restoration  is  possible.  That  is  a  Christian 
fact.  Moralists  have  taught  us  what  sin  is ;  they  have  ex- 
plained how  it  twines  itself  into  habit ;  they  have  shown  us 
its  ineffaceable  character.  It  was  reserved  for  Christianity 
to  speak  of  restoration.  Christ,  and  Christ  only,  has  revealed 
that  he  who  has  erred  may  be  restored,  and  made  pure  and 
clean  and  whole  again. 

Next,  however,  observe  that  this  restoration  is  accomplished 
by  men.  Causatively,  of  course,  and  immediately,  restoration 
is  the  work  of  Christ  and  of  God  the  Spirit.  Mediately  and 
inBtrumentally,  it  is  the  work  of  men.  "Brethren,  ....  re- 
store such  an  one."  ftod  has  given  to  man  the  power  of 
elevating  his  brother  man.  He  has  conferred  on  His  Church 
the  power  of  the  keys  to  bind  and  loose,  "  Whosesoever  sins 
ye  remit,  they  are  remitted ;  and  whosesoever  sins  ye  retain, 
they  are  retained."  It  is  therefore  in  the  power  of  man,  by 
his  conduct,  to  restore  his  brother,  or  to  hinder  his  restora 


The  Restoration  of  the  Erring.  325 

tion,  He  may  loose  him  from  his  sins,  or  retain  their  power 
upon  his  soul. 

Now  the  words  of  the  text  confine  us  to  two  modes  in 
which  this  is  done :  by  sympathy  and  by  forgiveness.  "  Bear 
ye  one  another's  burdens." 

By  sympathy.  We  Protestants  have  one  unvarying  sneer 
ready  for  the  system  of  the  Romish  confessional.  They  con- 
fess, we  say,  for  the  sake  of  absolution,  that  absolved  they 
may  sin  again.  A  shallow,  superficial  sneer,  as  all  sneers 
are.  In  that  craving  of  the  heart  which  gives  the  system  of 
the  confessional  its  dangerous  power,  there  is  something  far 
more  profound  than  any  sneer  can  fathom.  It  is  not  the 
desire  to  sin  again  that  makes  men  long  to  unburden  their 
conscience,  but  it  is  the  yearning  to  be  true,  which  lies  at 
the  bottom,  even  of  the  most  depraved  hearts,  to  appear 
what  they  are,  and  to  lead  a  false  life  no  longer  ;  and  besides 
this,  it  is  the  desire  of  sympathy.  For  this  comes  out  of  that 
dreadful  sense  of  loneliness  which  is  the  result  of  sinning  ; — 
the  heart  severed  from  God,  feels  severed  from  all  other 
hearts  :  goes  alone  as  if  it  had  neither  part  nor  lot  with  other 
men  ;  itself  a  shadow  among  shadows.  And  its  craving  is 
for  sympathy  :  it  wants  some  human  heart  to  know  what  it 
feels.  Thousands  upon  thousands  of  laden  hearts  around  us 
are  crying,  Come  and  bear  my  burden  with  me  ;  and  observe 
here,  the  apostle  says,  "  Bear  ye  one  another's  burdens." 
Nor  let  the  priest  bear  the  burdens  of  all:  that  were  most 
unjust.  Why  should  the  priest's  heart  be  the  common  re- 
ceptacle of  all  the  crimes  and  wickedness  of  a  congregation  ? 
"  Bear  ye  one  another's  burdens." 

Again,  by  forgiveness.  There  is  a  truth  in  the  doctrine 
of  absolution.  God  has  given  to  man  the  .power  to  absolve 
his  brother,  and  so  restore  him  to  himself.  The  forgiveness 
of  man  is  an  echo  and  an  earnest  of  God's  forgiveness.  He 
whom  society  has  restored  realizes  the  possibility  of  restora- 
tion to  God's  favor.  Even  the  mercifulness  of  one  good 
man  sounds  like  a  voice  of  pardon  from  heaven :  just  as  the 
power  and  the  exclusion  of  men  sound  like  a  knell  of  hope- 
lessness, and  do  actually  bind  the  sin  upon  the  soul.  The 
man  whom  society  will  not  forgive  nor  restore  is  driven  into 
recklessness.  This  is  the  true  Christian  doctrine  of  absolu- 
tion, as  expounded  by  the  Apostle  Paul,  2  Cor.  ii.  7-10  :  the 
degrading  power  of  severity,  the  restoring  power  of  pardon, 
vested  in  the  Christian  community,  the  voice  of  the  minister 
being  but  their  voice. 

Now,  then,  let  us  inquire  into  the  Christianity  of  our  so-. 
ciety.  Restoration  is  the  essential  work  of  Christianity 


326  The  Restoration  of  the  Erring. 

The  Gospel  is  the  declaration  of  God's  sympathy  and  God's 
pardon.  In  these  two  particulars,  then,  what  is  our  right  to 
be  called  a  Christian  community  ? 

Suppose  that  a  man  is  overtaken  in  a  fault.  What  does 
he,  or  what  shall  he  do  ?  Shall  he  retain  it  unacknowledged, 
or  go  through  life  a  false  man  ?  God  forbid.  Shall  he  then 
acknowledge  it  to  his  brethren,  that  they  by  sympathy  and 
merciful  caution  may  restore  him  ?  Well,  but  is  it  not  cer- 
tain that  it  is  exactly  from  those  to  whom  the  name  of 
"  brethren  "  most  peculiarly  belongs  that  he  will  not  receive 
assistance  ?  Can  a  man  in  mental  doubt  go  to  the  members 
of  the  same  religious  communion  ?  Does  he  not  know  that 
they  precisely  are  the  ones  who  will  frown  upon  his  doubts, 
and  proclaim  his  sins?  Will  a  clergyman  unburden  his 
mind  to  his  brethren  in  the  ministry  ?  Are  they  not  in  their 
official  rigor  the  least  capable  of  largely  understanding  him  ? 
If  a  woman  be  overtaken  in  a  fault,  will  she  tell  it  to  a  sis- 
ter-woman ?  Or  does  she  not  feel  instinctively  that  her  sis- 
ter-woman is  ever  the  most  harsh,  the  most  severe,  and  the 
most  ferocious  judge  ? 

Well,  you  sneer  at  the  confessional ;  you  complain  that 
mistaken  ministers  of  the  Church  of  England  are  restoring  it 
amongst  us.  But  who  are  they  that  are  forcing  on  the  con- 
fessional? who  drive  laden  and  broken  hearts  to  pour  out 
their  long  pent-up  sorrows  into  any  ear  that  will  receive 
them?  I  say  it  is  we:  we  by  our  uncharitableness ;  we  by 
our  want  of  sympathy  and  unmerciful  behavior;  we  by  the 
unchristian  way  in  which  we  break  down  the  bridge  behind 
the  penitent,  and  say,  "  On,  on  in  sin — there  is  no  returning." 

Finally,  the  apostle  tells  us  the  spirit  in  which  this  is  to 
be  done,  and  assigns  a  motive  for  the  doing  it.  The  mode 
is,  "  in  the  spirit  of  meekness."  For  Satan  can  not  cast  out 
Satan.  Sin  can  not  drive  out  sin.  For  instance,  my  anger 
can  not  drive  out  another  man's  covetousness  ;  my  petulance 
or  sneer  can  not  expel  another's  extravagance.  The  meek- 
ness of  Christ  alone  has  power.  The  charity  which  desires 
another's  goodness  above  his  well-being,  that  alone  succeeds 
iu  the  work  of  restoration. 

The  motive  is,  "  considering  thyself,  lest  thou  also  be 
tempted."  For  sin  is  the  result  of  inclination  or  weakness, 
combined  with  opportunity.  It  is  therefore  in  a  degree  the 
offspring  of  circumstances.  Go  to  the  hulks,  the  jail,  the 
penitentiary,  the  penal  colony,  statistics  will  almost  mark 
out  for  you  beforehand  the  classes  which  have  furnished  the 
jnmates,  and  the  exact  proportion  of  the  delinquency  of  each 
class.  You  will  not  find  the  wealthy  there,  nor  the  noble. 


Christ  the  Son.  327 

nor  those  guarded  by  the  fences  of  social  life,  but  the  poor, 
and  the  uneducated,  and  the  frail,  and  the  defenseless.  Can 
you  gravely  surmise  that  this  regular  tabulation  depends 
upon  the  superior  virtue  of  one  class  compared  with  others  : 
Or  must  you  admit  that  the  majority  at  least  of  those  who 
have  not  fallen  are  safe  because  they  were  not  tempted  ? 
Well,  then,  when  St.  Paul  says,  "  considering  thyself,  lest 
thou  also  be  tempted,"  it  is  as  if  he  had  written,  Proud  Phar- 
isee of  a  man,  complacent  in  thine  integrity,  who  thankest 
God  that  thou  art  "not  as  other  men  are,  extortioners, 
unjust,  or  as  this  publican,"  hast  thou  gone  through  the  ter-  / 
rible  ordeal  and  come  off  with  unscathed  virtue?  Or  art 
thou  in  all  these  points  simply  untried  ?  Proud  Pharisee  of 
a  woman,  who  passest  by  an  erring  sister  with  a  haughty 
look  of  conscious  euperiority,  dost  thou  know  what  tempta- 
tion is,  with  strong  feeling  and  mastering  opportunity  ? 
Shall  the  rich-cut  crystal  which  stands  on  the  table  of  the 
wealthy  man,  protected  from  dust  and  injury,  boast  that  it 
has  escaped  the  flaws,  and  the  cracks,  and  the  fractures 
which  the  earthen  jar  has  sustained,  exposed  and  subjected 
to  rough  and  general  uses  ?  Oh  man  or  woman  !  thou  who 
wouldst  be  a  Pharisee,  consider,  oh  consider  thyself,  lest  ; 
thou  also  be  tempted. 


XL 
CHRIST  THE  SON. 

"God,  who  at  sundry  times  and  in  divers  manners  spake  in  time  past  unto 
the  fathers  by  the  prophets,  hath  in  these  last  days  spoken  unto  us  by  his 
Son."— Heb/i.  1,  2. 

Two  critical  remarks. 

1.  "Sundry  times" — more  literally,  sundry  portions — sec- 
tions, not  of  time,  but  of  the  matter  of  the  revelation.     God 
gave  His  revelation  in  parts,  piecemeal,  as  you  teach  a  child 
to  spell  a  word — letter  by  letter,  syllable  by  syllable — ad- 
ding all  at  last  together.     God  had  a  Word  to  spell — His  own 
name.     By  degrees  He  did  it.     At  last  it  came  entire.     The 
Word  was  made  flesh. 

2.  "  His  Son,"  more   correctly,  "  a   Son  "—for  this  is  the 
very  argument.     Not  that  God  now  spoke  by  Christ,  but 
that  whereas  once  He  spoke  by  prophets,  now  He  spoke  bv 
a  Son.     The  filial  dispensation  was  the  last. 

This  epistle  was  addressed  to  Christians  ou  the  verge  of 


328  Christ  the  Son. 

apostasy.  See  those  passages :  "  It  is  impossible  for  those 
who  were  once  enlightened,  and  have  tasted  of  the  heavenly 
gift,  and  were  made  partakers  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  have 
tasted  the  good  word  of  God,  and  the  powers  of  the  world 
to  come,  if  they  shall  fall  away,  to  renew  them  again  unto  re- 
pentance ;  seeing  they  crucify  to  themselves  the  Son  of  God 
afresh,  and  put  Him  to  an  open  shame."  "  Cast  not  away 
your  confidence."  "  We  are  made  partakers  of  Christ,  if  we 
hold  the  beginning  of  our  confidence  steadfast  unto  the  end." 

Observe  what  the  danger  was.  Christianity  had  disap- 
pointed them — they  had  not  found  in  it  the  rest  they  antici- 
pated. They  looked  back  to  the  Judaism  they  had  left,  and 
saw  a  splendid  temple-service,  a  line  of  priests,  a  visible  tem- 
ple witnessing  of  God's  presence,  a  religion  which  was  un- 
questionably fertile  in  prophets  and  martyrs.  They  saw 
these  pretensions  and  wavered. 

But  this  was  all  on  the  eve  of  dissolution.  The  Jewish 
earth  and  heavens,  i.  e.,  the  Jewish  Commonwealth  and 
Church,  were  doomed  and  about  to  pass  away.  The  writer 
of  this  epistle  felt  that  their  hour  was  come  ;*  and  if  their  re- 
ligion rested  on  nothing  better  than  this,  he  knew  that  in 
the  crash  religion  itself  would  go.  To  return  to  Judaism 
was  to  go  down  to  atheism  and  despair.  , 

Reason  alleged — they  had  contented  themselves  with  a 
superficial  view  of  Christianity ;  they  had  not  seen  how  it 
was  interwoven  with  all  their  own  history,  and  how  it  alone 
explained  that  history. 

Therefore  in  this  epistle  the  writer  labors  to  show  that 
Christianity  was  the  fulfillment  of  the  idea  latent  in  Judaism : 
that  from  the  earliest  times,  and  in  every  institution,  it  was 
implied.  In  the  monarchy,  in  prophets,  in  sabbath-days,  in 
psalms,  in  the  priesthood,  and  in  temple-services,  Christianity 
lay  concealed ;  and  the  dispensation  of  a  Son  was  the  realiza- 
tion of  what  else  was  shadow.  He  therefore  alone  who  ad- 
hered to  Christ  was  the  true  Jew,  and  to  apostatize  from 
Christianity  was  really  to  apostatize  from  true  Judaism. 

I  am  to  show,  then,  that  the  manifestation  of  God  through 
a  Son  was  implied,  not  realized,  in  the  earlier  dispensation. 

"Sundry  portions"  of  this  truth  are  instanced  in  the  epis- 
tle. The  mediatorial  dispensation  of  Moses — the  gift  of 
Canaan — the  Sabbath,  etc.  At  present  I  select  these : 

I.  The  preparatory  Dispensation. 
II.  The  filial  and  final  Dispensation. 

L  It  was  implied,  not  fulfilled  in  the  kingly  office.     Three 
*  See  chap.  xii.  2C,  27. 


Christ  the  Son.  329 

• 

Psalms  are  quoted,  all  referring  to  kingship.  In  the  2d 
Psalm  it  was  plain  that  a  true  idea  of  a  king  was  only  fulfill- 
ed in  one  who  was  a  son  of  God.  The  Jewish  king  was  king 
only  so  far  as  he  held  from  God :  as  His  image,  the  repre- 
sentative of  the  Fountain  of  law  and  majesty.  To  Him  God 
hath  said,  "  Thou  art  my  son,  this  day  have  I  begotten  thee." 
The  45th  Psalm  is  a  bridal  hymn,  composed  on  the  marriage 
of  a  Jewish  king.  Startling  language  is  addressed  to  him. 
He  is  called  God — Lord.  "  Thy  throne,  O  God,  is  for  ever 
and  ever."  The  bride  is  invited  to  worship  him  as  it  were  a 
God  :  "  He  is  thy  Lord,  and  worship  thou  Him."  No  one  is 
surprised  at  this  who  remembers  that  Moses  was  said  to  be 
made  a  God  to  Aaron.  Yet  it  is  startling,  almost  blasphem- 
ous, unless  there  be  a  deeper  meaning  implied — the  divine 
character  of  the  real  king. 

In  the  110th  Psalm  a  new  idea  is  added.  The  true  king 
must  be  a  priest.  "  Thou  art  a  priest  forever,  after  the  or- 
der of  Melchizedek.  This  was  addressed  to  the  Jewish  king ; 
but  it  implied  that  the  ideal  king,  of  which  he  was  for  the 
time  the  representative,  more  or  less  truly,  is  one  who  at  the 
same  time  sustains  the  highest  religious  character,  and  the 
highest  executive  authority. 

Again,  David  was  emphatically  the  type  of  the  Jewish  re- 
gal idea.  David  is  scarcely  a  personage,  so  entirely  does  he 
pass  in  Jewish  forms  of  thought  into  an  ideal  sovereign — 
"the  sure  mercies  of  David."  David  is  the  name,  therefore, 
for  the  David  which  was  to  be.  Now  David  was  a  wander- 
er, kingly  still,  ruling  men  and  gaining  adherents  by  force  of 
inward  royalty.  Thus  in  the  Jewish  mind  the  kingly  office 
disengaged  itself  from  outward  pomp  and  hereditary  right 
as  mere  accidents,  and  became  a  personal  reality.  The  king 
was  an  idea. 

Further  still.  The  epistle  extends  this  idea  to  man.  The 
psalm  had  ascribed  (Ps.  viii.  6)  kingly  qualities  and  rule  to 
manhood — rule  over  the  creation.  Thus  the  idea  of  a  king 
belonged  properly  to  humanity ;  to  the  Jewish  king  as  the 
representative  of  humanity. 

Yet  even  in  collective  humanity  the  royal  character  is  not 
realized.  "  We  see  not,"  says  the  epistle,  "  all  things  as  yet 
put  under  him  " — man. 

Collect,  then,  these  notions.  The  true  king  of  men  is  a 
Son  of  God  :  one  who  is  to  his  fellow-men,  God  and  Lord,  as 
the  Jewish  bride  was  to  feel  her  royal  husband  to  be  to  her 
— one  who  is  a  priest — one  who  may  be  poor  and  exiled,  yet 
not  less  royal. 

Say,  then,  whence  is  this  idea  fulfilled  by  Judaism  V     To 


330  Christ  the  Son. 

which  of  the  Jewish  kings  can  it  be  applied,  except  with  in? 
finite  exaggeration  ?  To  David  ?  Why,  the  Redeemer 
shows  the  insuperable  difficulty  of  this.  "  How  then  doth 
David  in  Spirit  call  him,"  i.  e.,  the  king  of  whom  he  was 
writing,  "  Lord,  saying,  the  Lord  said  unto  my  Lord,  sit  thou 
on  my  right  hand,  until  I  make  thy  enemies  thy  footstool  ?" 
David  writing  of  himself,  yet  speaks  there  in  the  third  per- 
son, projecting  himself  outward  as  an  object  of  contempla- 
tion, an  idea. 

Is  it  fulfilled  in  the  human  race  ?  "  We  see  not  yet  all 
things  put  under  him."  Then  the  writer  goes  on :  "  But  we 
see  Jesus,  who  was  made  a  little  lower  than  the  angels  for 
the  suffering  of  death,  crowned  with  glory  and  honor ;  that 
He  by  the  grace  of  God  should  taste  death  for  every  man." 
In  Jesus  of  Nazareth  alone  all  these  fragments,  these  sundry 
portions  of  the  revealed  idea  of  royalty  met. 

II.  Christianity  was  implied  in  the  race  of  prophets. 

The  second  class  of  quotations  refer  to  the  prophets'  life 
and  history  (Heb.  ii.  11-14;  Psalm  xxii.  22;  Psalm  xviii.  2 ; 
Isaiah  xii.  2  ;  Isaiah  viii.  IS).  Remember  what  the  prophets 
were.  They  were  not  merely  predictors  of  the  future. 
Nothing  destroys  the  true  conception  of  the  prophets'  office 
more  than  those  popular  books  in  which  their  mission  is  cer- 
tified by  curious  coincidences.  For  example,  if  it  is  predict- 
ed that  Babylon  shall  be  a  desolation,  the  haunt  of  wild 
beasts,  etc.,  then  some  traveller  has  seen  a  lion  standing  on 
Birs  Nimroud ;  or  if  the  fisherman  is  to  dry  his  nets  on  Tyre, 
simply  expressing  its  destruction  thereby,  the  commentator 
is  not  easy  till  he  finds  that  a  net  has  been  actually  seen  dry- 
ing on  a  rock.  But  this  is  to  degrade  the  prophetic  office  to 
a  level  with  Egyptian  palmistry :  to  make  the  prophet  like 
an  astrologer,  or  a  gypsy  fortune-teller — one  who  can  pre- 
dict destinies  and  draw  horoscopes.  But,  in  truth,  the  first 
office  of  the  prophet  was  with  the  present.  He  read  eternal 
principles  beneath  the  present  and  the  transitory,  and  in 
doing  this,  of  course,  he  prophesied  the  future;  for  a  princi- 
ple true  to-day  is  true  forever.  But  this  was,  so  to  speak, 
an  accident  of  his  office,  not  its  essential  feature.  If,  for 
instance,  he  read  in  the  voluptuousness  of  Babylon  the  se- 
cret of  Babylon's  decay,  he  also  read  by  anticipation  the 
doom  of  Corinth,  of  London,  of  all  cities  in  Babylon's 
state ;  or  if  Jerusalem's  fall  was  predicted,  in  it  all  such 
judgment  comings  were  foreseen ;  and  the  language  is  true 
of  the  fall  of  the  world :  as  truly,  or  more  so,  than  that  of , 
Jerusalem.  A  philosopher  saying  in  the  present  tense  the 


Christ  the  Son.  331 

law  by  which  comets  move,  predicts  all  possible jcometary 
movements. 

Now  the  prophet's  life,  almost  more  than  his  words,  was 
predictive.  The  writer  of  this  epistle  lays  down  a  great  prin- 
ciple respecting  the  prophet :  "  Both  he  that  sanctifieth  and 
they  who  are  sanctified  are  all  of  one."  It  was  the  very 
condition  of  his  inspiration  that  he  should  be  one  with  the 
people.  So  far  from  making  him  superhuman,  it  made  him 
more  man.  He  felt  with  more  exquisite  sensitiveness  all  that 
belongs  to  man,  else  he  could  not  have  been  a  prophet.  His 
insight  into  things  was  the  result  of  that  very  weakness,  sen- 
sitiveness, and  susceptibility  so  tremblingly  alive.  He  burned 
with  their  thoughts,  and  expressed  them.  He  was  obliged 
by  the  very  sensitiveness  of  his  humanity  to  have  a  more 
entire  dependence  and  a  more  perfect  sympathy  than  other 
men.  The  sanctifying  prophet  wr.s  one  with  those  whom  he 
sanctified.  Hence  he  uses  those  expressions  quoted  from 
Isaiah  and  the  Psalms  above. 

He  was  more  man,  just  because  more  divine — more  a  son 
of  man,  because  more  a  son  of  God.  He  was  peculiarly  the 
suffering  Israelite :  His  countenance  marred  more  than  the 
sons  of  men.  Hence  we  are  told  the  prophets  searched 
"  what,  or  what  manner  of  time,  the  Spirit  of  Christ  which 
was  in  them  did  signify,  when  it  testified  beforehand  the 
sufferings  of  Christ,  and  the  glory  that  should  follow." 
Observe,  it  was  a  spirit  in  them,  their  own  lives  witnessing 
mysteriously  of  what  the  perfect  Humanity  must  be  suf- 
fering. 

Thus,  especially,  the  53d  chapter  of  Isaiah  was  spoken  orig- 
inally of  the  Jewish  nation — of  the  prophet  as  peculiarly  the 
Israelite ;  and  it  is  no  wonder  the  eunuch  asked  Philip  in  per- 
plexity, "  Of  whom  doth  the  prophet  say  this — of  himself  or 
some  other  man  ?"  The  truth  is,  he  said  it  of  himself,  but 
prophetically  of  Humanity ;  true  of  him,  most  true  of  the 
highest  Humanity.  Here,  then,  was  a  new  "  portion"  of  the 
revelation.  The  prophet  rebuked  the  king,  often  opposed 
the  priest,  but  was  one  with  the  people.  "  He  that  sancti- 
fieth and  they  who  are  sanctified  are  all  of  one." 

If,  then,  One  had  come  claiming  to  be  the  Prophet  of  the 
race,  and  was  a  sufferer,  claiming  to  be  the  Son  of  God,  and 
yet  peculiarly  man ;  the  son  of  man  :  the  son  of  man  just  be- 
cause the  Son  of  God :  more  Divine,  because  more  human : 
then  this  was  only  what  the  whole  race  of  Jewish  prophets 
should  have  prepared  them  for.  God  had  spoken  by  the 
prophets.  That  God  had  now  spoken  by  a  Son  in  whom  the 
idea  of  the  true  prophet  was  realized  in  its  entireriess. 


332  Christ  the  Son. 

ILL  The  priesthood  continued  this  idea  latent.  The  writer 
of  this  epistle  saw  three  elements  in  the  priestly  idea :  1.  That 
he  should  he  ordained  for  men  in  things  pertaining  to  God; 
2.  That  he  should  offer  gifts  and  sacrifices ;  3.  That  lie  should 
he  called  by  God,  not  be  a  mere  sel<-asserter. 

1.  Ordained  for  men.  Remark  here  the  true  idea  con- 
tained in  Judaism,  and  its  difference  from  the  heathen  no- 
tions. In  Heathenism  the  priest  was  of  a  different  race — sep- 
arate from  his  fellows.  In  Judaism  he  was  ordained  for  men ; 
their  representative ;  constituted  in  their  behalf  The  Jew- 
ish priest  represented  the  holiness  of  the  nation ;  he  went  into 
the  Holy  of  Holies,  showing  it.  But  this  great  idea  was  only 
implied."  not  fulfilled  in  the  Jewish  priest.  He  was  only  by  a 
fiction  the  representative  of  holiness.  Holy  he  was  not.  He 
only  entered  into  a  fictitious  Holy  of  Holies.  If  the  idea 
were  to  be  ever  real,  it  must  be  in  One  who  should  be  act* 
ually  what  the  Jewish  priest  was  by  a  figment,  and  who 
should  carry  our  humanity  into  the  real  Holy  of  Holies — the 
presence  of  God ;  thus  becoming  our  Invisible  and  Eternal 
Priest 

:  it  was  implied  that  his  call  must  be  Divine.  But  in 
the  110th  Psalm  a  higher  call  is  intimated  than  that  Divine 
call  which  was  madelo  the  Aaronic  priesthood  by  a  regular 
succession,  or,  as  it  is  called  in  the  epistle, "  the  law  of  a  car- 
nal commandment"  Melehizedek's  call  is  spoken  o£  The 
king  is  called  a  priest  after  his  order.  Xot  a  derived  or  he- 
reditary priesthood;  not  one  transmissible,  beginning  and 
ending*  in  himself  (Heb.  vii  1-3),  but  a  priesthood,  in  other 
words,  of  character,  of  inward  right :  a  call  internal,  hence 
more  Divine ;  or,  as  the  writer  calls  it,  a  priest  "  after  the 
power  of  an  endless  life,"  This  was  the  idea  for  which  the 
Jewish  psalms  themselves  ought  to  have  prepared  the  Jew. 

Again,  the  priests  offered  gifts  and  sacrifices.    Distinguish : 


Gifts  were  thank-offerings  T  first-fruits  of 


etc.,  a  man's  best ;  testimonies  of  infinite  gratefulness,  and 
expressions  of  it.  But  sacrifices  were  different :  they  implied 
a  sense  of  un worthiness:  that  sense  which  conflicts  with  the 
idea  of  any  right  to  offer  gifts. 

Now  the  Jewish  Scriptures  themselves  had  explained  this 
subject,  and  this  instinctive  feeling  of  nnworthiness  for  which 
sacrifice  found  an  expression.  Prophets  and  psalmists  had 
felt  that  no  sacrifice  was  perfect  which  did  not  reach  the  con- 
science (Ps.  11  16, 17),  for  instance;  also  Heb.  x.  8-12.  Xo 
language  could  more  clearly  show  that  the  spiritual  Jew  dis- 
cerned that  entire  surrender  to  the  Divine  WiH  is  the  only 
perfect  sacrifice,  the  ground  of  all  sacrifices,  and  that  whic* 


Worldliness.  333 

alone  imparts  to  it  a  significance.  Not  the  mere  sacrifice  of 
victims.  .  .  .  "Then  said  I,  Lo,  I  come  to  do  Thy  will,  O 
God."  Tliat  is  the  sacrifice  which  God  wills. 

I  say  it  firmly  —  all  other  notions  of  sacrifice  are  false. 
Whatsoever  introduces  the  conception  of  vindictiveness  or 
retaliation — whatever  speaks  of  appeasing  fury  —  whatever 
estimates  the  value  of  the  Saviour's  sacrifice  by  the  "penalty 
paid" — whatever  differs  from  these  notions  of  sacrifice  con- 
tained in  psalms  and  prophets — is  borrowed  from  the  bloody 
shambles  of  Heathenism,  and  not  from  Jewish  altars. 

This-  alone  makes  the  worshipper  perfect  as  pertaining  to 
the  conscience.  He  who  can  offer  it  in  its  entireness,  He 
alone  is  the  world's  Atonement ;  He  in  whose  heart  the  Law 
was,  and  who  alone  of  all  mankind  was  content  to  do  it,  His 
sacrifice  alone^can  be  the  sacrifice  all-sufficient  in  the  Father's 
sight  as  the  proper  sacrifice  of  humanity :  He  who  through 
the  Eternal  Spirit  offered  Himself  without  spot  to  God,  He 
alone  can  give  the  Spirit  which  enables  us  to  present  our 
bodies  a  living  sacrifice,  holy  and  acceptable  to  God.  He  is 
the  only  High-priest  of  the  universe. 


XII. 
WORLDLINESS. 

"If  any  man  love  the  world,  the  love  of  the  Father  is  not  in,  him.  For 
all  that  is  in  the  world,  the  lust  of  the  flesh,  and  the  lust  of  the  eyes,  and  the 
pride  of  life,  is  not  of  the  Father,  but  is  of  the  world.  And  the  world  passeth 
away,  and  the  lust  thereof:  but  he  that  doeth  the  will  of  God  abideth  for- 
ever.''—1  John  ii.  15-17. 

RELIGION  differs  from  morality  in  the  value  which  it 
places  on  the  affections.  Morality  requires  that  an  act  be 
done  on  principle.  Religion  goes  deeper,  and  inquires  into 
the  state  of  the  heart.  The  Church  of  Ephesus  was  unsus- 
pected in  her  orthodoxy,  and  unblemished  in  her  zeal :  but  to 
the  ear  of  him  who  saw  the  apocalyptic  vision,  a  voice  spake, 
"I  have  somewhat  against  thee  in  that  thou  hast  left  thy 
first  love." 

In  the  eye  of  Christianity  he  is  a  Christian  who  loves  the 
Father.  He  who  loves  the  world  may  be  in  his  way  a  good 
man,  respecting  whose  eternal  destiny  we  pronounce  no 
opinion :  but  one  of  the  children  of  the  kingdom  he  is  not. 

Now  the  boundary-lines  of  this  love  of  the  world,  or 
worldliness,  are  exceedingly  difficult  to  define.  Bigotry  pro- 


334  Worldliness. 

nounces  many  things  wrong  which  are  harmless :  laxity  per- 
mits many  which  are  by  no  means  innocent :  and  it  is  a 
question  perpetually  put,  a  question  miserably  perplexing  to 
those  whose  religion  consists  more  in  avoiding  that  which  is 
wrong  than  in  seeking  that  which  is  right,  What  is  world- 
Ihess  ? 

To  that  question  we  desire  to  find  to-day  an  answer  in  the 
text ;  premising  this,  that  our  object  is  to  put  ourselves  in 
possession  of  principles.  For  otherwise  we  shall  only  deal 
with  this  matter  as  empirics ;  condemning  this  and  approving 
that  by  opinion,  but  on  no  certain  and  intelligible  ground: 
we  shall  but  float  on  the  unstable  sea  of  opinion. 

We  confine  ourselves  to  two  points. 

I.  The  nature  of  the  forbidden  world. 
n.  The  reason  for  which  it  is  forbidden. 

I.  The  nature  of  the  forbidden  world.  The  first  idea  sug- 
gested by  "  the  world  "  is  this  green  earth,  with  its  days  and 
nights,  its  seasons,  its  hills  and  its  valleys,  its  clouds  and 
brightness.  This  is  not  the  world  the  love  of  which  is  pre- 
hibited ;  for  to  forbid  the  love  of  this  would  be  to  forbid  the 
love  of  God. 

There  are  three  ways  in  which  we  learn  to  know  Him. 
First,  by  the  working  of  our  minds :  love,  justice,  tender- 
ness. If  we  would  know  what  they  mean  in  God,  we  must 
gain  the  conception  from  their  existence  in  ourselves.  But 
inasmuch  as  humanity  is  imperfect  in  us,  if  we  were  to  learn 
of  God  only  from  His  image  in  ourselves,  we  should  run  the 
risk  of  calling  the  evil  good,  and  the  imperfect  divine. 
Therefore  He  has  given  us,  besides  this,  the  representation  of 
Himself  in  Christ,  where  is  found  the  meeting-point  of  the 
Divine  and  the  human,  and  in  whose  life  the  character  of 
Deity  is  reflected  as  completely  as  the  sun  is  seen  in  the 
depth  of  the  still,  untroubled  lake. 

But  there  is  a  third  way  in  which  we  attain  the  idea  of 
God.  This  world  is  but  manifested  Deity — God  shown  to 
eye,  and  ear,  and  sense.  This  strange  phenomenon  of  a 
world,  what  is  it?  All  we  know  of  it— all  we  know  of  mat- 
ter— is,  that  it  is  an  assemblage  of  powers  which  produce  in 
us  certain  sensations ;  but  what  those  powers  are  in  them- 
selves we  know  not.  The  sensation  of  color,  form,  weight, 
we  have ;  but  what  it  is  which  gives  those  sensations — in 
the  language  of  the  schools,  what  is  the  substratum  which 
supports  the  accidents  or  qualities  of  Being — we  can  not  tell. 
Speculative  Philosophy  replies,  It  is  but  our  own  selves  be- 
coming conscious  of  themselves.  We,  in  our  own  being,  are 


Worldliness.  335 

the  cause  01  all  phenomena.  Positive  Philosophy  replies, 
What  the  Being  of  the  world  is  we  can  not  tell,  we  only 
know  what  it  seems  to  us.  Phenomena — appearance — be 
yond  this  we  can  not  reach.  Being  itself  is — and  forever 
must  be,  unknowable.  Religion  replies,  That  something  is 
God.  The  world  is  but  manifested  Deity.  That  which  lies 
beneath  the  surface  of  all  appearance,  the  cause  of  all  mani- 
festation, is  God.  So  that  to  forbid  the  love  of  all  this 
world  is  to  forbid  the  love  of  that  by  which  God  is  known 
to  us.  The  sounds  and  sights  of  this  lovely  world  are  but 
the  drapery  of  the  robe  in  which  the  Invisible  has  clothed 
Himself.  Does  a  man  ask  what  this  world  is,  and  why  man 
is  placed  in  it  ?  It  was  that  the  invisible  things  of  Him  from 
the  creation  of  the  world  jnight  be  clearly  seen.  Have  we 
ever  stood  beneath  the  solemn  vault  of  heaven  when  the 
stars  were  looking  down  in  their  silent  splendor,  and  not  felt 
an  overpowering  sense  of  His  eternity  ?  When  the  white 
lightning  has  quivered  in  the  sky,  has  that  told  us  nothing 
of  power,  or  only  something  of  electricity  ?  Rocks  and 
mountains,  are  they  here  to  give  us  the  idea  of  material  mass- 
iveness,  or  to  reveal  the  conception  of  the  Strength  of  Israel  ? 
When  we  take  up  the  page  of  past  history,  and  read  that 
wrong  never  prospered  long,  but  that  nations  have  drunk 
one  after  another  the  cup  of  terrible  retribution,  can  we  dis- 
miss all  that  as  the  philosophy  of  history,  or  shall  we  say 
that  through  blood,  and  war,  and  desolation  we  trace  the 
footsteps  of  a  presiding  God,  and  find  evidence  that  there 
sits  at  the  helm  of  this  world's  affairs  a  strict,  and  rigorous, 
and  most  terrible  justice?  To  the  eye  that  can  see,  to  the 
heart  that  is  not  paralyzed,  God  is  here.  The  warnings 
which  the  Bible  utters  against  the  things  of  this  world  bring 
no  charge  against  the  glorious  world  itself.  The  world  is 
the  glass  through  which  we  see  the  Maker.  But  what  men 
do  is  this :  They  put  the  dull  quicksilver  of  their  own  selfish- 
ness behind  the  glass,  and  so  it  becomes  not  the  transparent 
medium  through  which  God  shines,  but  the  dead  opaque 
which  reflects  back  themselves.  Instead  of  lying  with  open 
eye  and  heart  to  receive,  we  project  ourselves  upon  the  world 
and  give.  So  it  gives  us  back  our  own  false  feelings  and  na- 
ture. Therefore  it  brings  forth  thorns  and  thistles;  there- 
fore it  grows  weeds — weeds  to  us;  therefore  the  lightning 
burns  with  wrath,  and  the  thunder  mutters  vengeance.  By 
all  which  it  comes  to  pass  that  the  very  manifestation  of  God 
has  transformed  itself: — the  lust  of  the  flesh,  and  the  lust  of 
the  eye,  and  the  pride  of  life  ;  and  all  that  is  in  the  world  is 
no  longer  of  the  Father,  but  is  of  the  world. 


336  Worldliness. 

By  the  world  again  is  sometimes  meant  the  men  that  ere 
in  the  world.  And  thus  the  command  would  run,  Love  not 
men,  but  love  God.  It  has  been  so  read.  The  Pharisees 
read  it  so  of  old.  The  property  which  natural  affection  de- 
manded for  the  support  of  parents,  upon  that  they  wrote 
"  Corban,"  a  gift  for  God,  and  robbed  men  that  they  might 
give  to  God.  Yet  no  less  than  this  is  done  whenever  human 
aifection  is  called  idolatry.  As  if  God  were  jealous  of  our 
love  in  the  human  sense  of  jealousy ;  as  if  we  could  love  God 
the  more  by  loving  man  the  less ;  as  if  it  were  not  by  loving 
our  brother  whom  we  have  seen,  that  wre  approximate  to- 
wards the  love  of  God  whom  we  have  not  seen.  This  is  but 
the  cloak  for  narrowness  of  heart.  Men  of  withered  affec- 
tions excuse  their  lovelessness  by  talking  largely  of  the  affec- 
tion due  to  God.  Yet,  like  the  Pharisees,  the  love  on  which 
Corban  is  written  is  never  given  to  God,  but  really  retained 

f*  t  r* 

for  self. 

No,  let  a  man  love  his  neighbor  as  himself.  Let  him  love 
his  brother,  sister,  wife,  with  all  the  intensity  of  his  heart's 
affection.  This  is  not  St.  John's  forbidden  world. 

By  the  world  is  often  understood  the  worldly  occupation, 
trade  or  profession  which  a  man  exercises.  And  according- 
ly, it  is  no  uncommon  thing  to  hear  this  spoken  of  as  some- 
thing which,  if  not  actually  anti-religious,  is,  so  far  as  it  goes, 
time  taken  away  from  the  religious  life.  But  when  the  man 
from  whom  the  legion  had  been  expelled  asked  Jesus  for  the 
precepts  of  a  religious  existence,  the  reply  sent  him  back  to 
home.  His  former  worldliness  had  consisted  in  doing  his  world- 
ly duties  ill — his  future  religiousness  was  to  consist  in  doing 
those  same  duties  better.  A  man's  profession  or  trade  is  not 
only  not  incompatible  with  religion  (provided  it  be  a  lawful 
one),  it  is  his  religion.  And  this  is  true  even  of  those  call- 
ings which  at  first  sight  appear  to  have  in  them  something 
hard  to  reconcile  with  religiousness.  For  instance,  the  pro- 
fession of  a  lawyer.  He  is  a  worldling  in  it  if  he  use  it  for 
some  personal  greed,  or  degrade  it  by  chicanery.  But  in  it- 
self it  is  an  occupation  which  sifts  right  from  wrong  ;  which, 
in  the  entangled  web  of  human  life,  unwinds  the  meshes  of 
error.  He  is  by  profession  enlisted  on  the  side  of  the  right 
— directly  connected  with  God,  the  central  point  of  justice 
and  truth.  A  nobler  occupation  need  no  man  desire  than  to 
be  a  fellow-worker  with  God.  Or  take  the  soldier's  trade — 
in  this  world  generally  a  trade  of  blood,  and  revenge,  and 
idle  licentiousness.  Rightly  understood,  what  is  it  ?  A  sol- 
dier's whole  life,  whether  he  will  or  not,  is  an  enunciation  of 
the  greatest  of  religious  truths,  the  voluntary  sacrifice  of 


Worldliness.  337 

one  for  the  sake  of  many.  In  the  detail  of  his  existence,  how 
abundant  are  the  opportunities  for  the  voluntary  recognition 
of  this.  Opportunities  such  as  that  when  the  three  strong 
men  brake  through  the  lines  of  the  enemy  to  obtain  the  wa* 
ter  for  their  sovereign's  thirst — opportunities  as  when  that 
same  heroic  sovereign  poured  the  untasted  water  on  the 
ground,  and  refused  to  drink  because  it  was  his  soldiers'  lives 
— he  could  not  drink  at  such  a  price.  Earnestness  in  a  law- 
ful calling  is  not  worldliness.  A  profession  is  the  sphere  of 
our  activity.  There  is  something  sacred  in  work.  To  work 
in  the  appointed  sphere  is  to  be  religious — as  religious  as  to 
pray.  This  is  not  the  forbidden  world. 

Now  to  define  what  worldliness  is.  Remark,  first,  that  it 
is  determined  by  the  spirit  of  a  life,  not  the  objects  with  which 
the  life  is  conversant.  It  is  not  the  "flesh,"  nor  the  "eye," 
nor  "  life,"  which  are  forbidden,  but  it  is  the  "  litst  of  the 
flesh,"  and  the  "  lust  of  the  eye,"  and  the  "pride  of  life."  It 
is  not  this  earth,  nor  the  men  who  inhabit  it,  nor  the  sphere 
of  our  legitimate  activity,  that  we  may  not  love,  but  the  way 
in  which  the  love  is  given  which  constitutes  worldliness. 
Look  into  this  a  little  closer.  The  lust  of  the  flesh.  Here  is 
affection  for  the  outward :  pleasure,  that  which  affects  the 
senses  only  :  the  flesh,  that  enjoyment  which  comes  from  the 
emotions  of  an  hour,  be  it  coarse  or  be  it  refined.  The  pleas- 
ure of  wine  or  the  pleasure  of  music,  so  far  as  it  is  only  a 
movement  of  the  flesh.  Again,  the  lust  of  the  eye.  Here  is 
affection  for  the  transient,  for  the  eye  can  only  gaze  on  form 
and  color — and  these  are  things  that  do  not  last.  Once 
more — the  pride  of  life.  Here  is  affection  for  the  unreal. 
Men's  opinion — the  estimate  which  depends  upon  wealth, 
rank,  circumstances. 

Worldliness  then  consists  in  these  three  things :  Attach- 
ment to  the  outward — attachment  to  the  transitory — attach- 
ment to  the  unreal :  in  opposition  to  love  for  the  inward,  the 
eternal,  the  true  :  and  the  one  of  these  affections  is  necessari- 
ly expelled  by  the  other.  If  a.  man  love  the  world,  the  love 
of  the  Father  is  not  in  him.  But  let  a  man  once  feel  the 
power  of  the  kingdom  that  is  within,  and  then  the  love  fades 
of  that  emotion  whose  life  consists  only  in  the  thrill  of  a 
nerve,  or  the  vivid  sensation  of  a  feeling :  he  loses  his  happi- 
ness, and  wins  his  blessedness.  Let  a  man  get  but  one  glimpse 
of  the  King  in  His  beauty,  and  then  the  forms  and  shapes  of 
things  here  are  to  him  but  the  types  of  an  invisible  loveli- 
ness :  types  which  he  is  content  should  break  and  fade.  Let 
but  a  man  feel  truth — that  goodness  is  greatness — that  there 
is  no  other  greatness — and  then  the  degrading  reverence 

15 


338  Worldliness. 

with  which  the  titled  of  this  world  bow  before  wealth,  and 
the  ostentation  with  which  the  rich  of  this  world  profess 
their  familiarity  with  title :  all  the  pride  of  life,  what  is  it  to 
him  ?  The  love  of  the  inward — everlasting,  real — the  love, 
that  is,  of  the  Father,  annihilates  the  love  of  the  world. 

II.  We  pass  to  the  reasons  for  which  the  love  of  the  world 
is  forbidden. 

The  first  reason  assigned  is,  that  the  love  of  the  world  is 
incompatible  with  the  love  of  God.  If  any  man  love  the 
world,  the  love  of  the  Father  is  not  in  him.  Now  what  we 
observe  in  this  is,  that  St.  John  takes  it  for  granted  that  we 
must  love  something.  If  not  the  love  of  the  Father,  then  of 
necessity  the  love  of  the  world.  Love  misplaced,  or  love 
rightly  placed — you  have  your  choice  between  these  two : 
you  have  not  your  choice  between  loving  God  or  nothing. 
No  man  is  sufficient  for  himself.  Every  man  must  go  out  of 
himself  for  enjoyment.  Something  in  this  universe  besides 
himself  there  must  be  to  bind  the  affections  of  every  man. 
There  is  that  within  us  which  compels  us  to  attach  ourselves 
to  something  outward.  The  choice  is  not  this :  love,  or  be 
without  love.  You  can  not  give  the  pent-up  steam  its  choice 
of  moving  or  not  moving.  It  must  move  one  way  or  the 
other :  the  right  way  or  the  wrong  way.  Direct  it  rightly, 
and  its  energy  rolls  the  engine-wheels  smoothly  on  their 
track  :  block  up  its  passage,  and  it  bounds  away,  a  thing  of 
madness  and  ruin.  Stop  it  you  can  not ;  it  will  rather  burst. 
So  it  is  with  our  hearts.  There  is  a  pent-up  energy  of  love, 
gigantic  for  good  or  evil.  Its  right  way  is  in  the  direction 
of  our  Eternal  Father ;  and  then^let  it  boil  and  pant  as  it 
will,  the  course  of  the  man  is  smooth.  Expel  the  love  of 
God  from  the  bosom — what  then  ?  Will  the  passion  that  is 
within  cease  to  burn  ?  Nay.  Tie  the  man  down — let  there 
be  no  outlet  for  his  affections — let  him  attach  himself  to  noth- 
ing, and  become  a  loveless  spirit  in  this  universe,  and  then 
there  is  what  we  call  a  broken  heart :  the  steam  bursts  the 
machinery  that  contains  it.  Or  else  let  him  take  his  course, 
unfettered  and  free,  and  then  we  have  the  riot  of  worldliness 
— a  man  with  strong  affections  thrown  off  the  line,  tearing 
himself  to  pieces,  and  carrying  desolation  along  with  him. 
Let  us  comprehend  our  own  nature,  ourselves,  and  our  des- 
tinies. God  is  our  rest,  the  only  one  that  can  quench  the 
fever  of  our  desire.  God  in  Christ  is  what  we  want.  When 
men  quit  that,  so  that  "  the  love  of  the  Father  is  not  in  them," 
then  they  must  perforce  turn  aside  :  the  nobler  heart  to  break 
with  disappointment — the  meaner  heart  to  love  the  world 


Wov  Id  lines  s.  339 

instead,  and  sate  and  satisfy  itself,  as  best  it  may,  on  things 
that  perish  in  the  using.  Herein  lies  the  secret  of  our  being, 
in  this  world  of  the  affections.  This  explains  why  our  no- 
blest feelings  lie  so  close  to  our  basest — why  the  noblest  so 
easily  metamorphose  themselves  into  the  basest.  The  hejirt 
which  was  made  large  enough  for  God  wastes  itself  upon  the 
world. 

The  second  reason  which  the  apostle  gives  for  not  squan- 
dering affection  on  the  world  is  its  transitoriness.  Now  this 
transitoriness  exists  in  two  shapes.  It  is  transitory  in  itself 
— the  world  passeth  away.  It  is  transitory  in  its  power  of 
exciting  desire — the  lust  thereof  passeth  away. 

It  is  a  twice-told  tale  that  the  world  is  passing  away  from 
us,  and  there  is  very  little  new  to  be  said  on  the  subject. 
God  has  written  it  on  every  page  of  His  creation  that  there 
is  nothing  here  which  lasts.  Our  affections  change.  The 
friendships  of  the  man  are  not  the  friendships  of  the  boy. 
Our  very  selves  are  altering.  The  basis  of  our  being  may 
remain,  but  our  views,  tastes,  feelings  are  no  more  our  former 
self  than  the  oak  is  the  acorn.  The  very  face  of  the  visible 
world  is  altering  around  us :  we  have  the  gray  mouldering 
ruins  to  tell  of  what  was  once.  Our  laborers  strike  their 
ploughshares  against  the  foundations  of  buildings  which 
once  echoed  to  human  mirth — skeletons  of  men,  to  whom 
life  once  was  dear — urns  and  coins  that  remind  the  antiqua- 
rian of  a  magnificent  empire.  To-day  the  shot  of  the  enemy 
defaces  and  blackens  monuments  and  venerable  temples 
which  remind  the  Christian  that  into  the  deep  silence  of 
eternity  the  Roman  world,  which  was  in  its  vigor  in  tho 
days  of  John,  has  passed  away.  And  so  things  are  going. 
It  is  a  work  of  weaving  and  unweaving.  All  passes.  Names 
that  the  world  heard  once  in  thunder  are  scarcely  heard  at 
the  end  of  centuries :  good  or  bad,  they  pass.  A  few  years 
ago,  and  we  were  not.  A  few  centuries  farther,  and  we 
reach  the  age  of  beings  of  almost  another  race.  Nimrod 
was  the  conqueror  and  scourge  of  his  far-back  age.  Tubal 
Cain  gave  to  the  world  the  iron  which  was  the  foundation 
of  every  triumph  of  men  over  nature.  We  have  their 
names  now.  But  the  philologist  is  uncertain  whether  the 
name  of  the  first  is  real  or  mythical,  and  the  traveller  exca- 
vates the  sand-mounds  of  Nineveh  to  wonder  over  the  rec- 
ords which  he  can  not  decipher.  Tyrant  and  benefactor, 
both  are  gone.  And  so  all  things  are  moving  on  to  the  last 
fire  which  shall  wrap  the  world  in  conflagration,  and  make 
all  that  has  been  the  recollection  of  a  dream.  This  is  the 
history  of  the  world,  and  all  that  is  in  it.  It  passes  while  we 


34°  Worldline^s. 

look  at  it.  Like  as  when  you  watch  the  melting  tints  of  the 
evening  sky — purple-crimson,  gorgeous  gold,  a  few  pulsa- 
tions of  quivering  light,  and  it  is"  all  gone:  "We  are  such 
stuff  as  dreams  are  made  of." 

Jhe  other  aspect  of  this  transitoriness  is,  that  the  lust  of 
the  world  passeth  away.  By  which  the  apostle  seems  to  re- 
mind us  of  that  solemn  truth  that,  fast  as  the  world  is  fleet 
ing  from  us,  faster  still  does  the  taste  for  its  enjoyments  fleet ; 
fast  as  the  brilliancy  fades  from  earthly  things,  faster  still 
does  the  eye  become  wearied  of  straining  itself  upon  them. 

Now  there  is  one  way  in  which  this  takes  place — by  a  man 
becoming  satiated  with  the  world.  There  is  something  in 
earthly  rapture  which  cloys.  And  when  we  drink  deep  of 
pleasure,  there  is  left  behind  something  of  that  loathing 
which  follows  a  repast  on  sweets.  When  a  boy  sets  out  in 
life,  it  is  all  fresh— freshness  in  feeling — zest  in  his  enjoy- 
ment— purity  in  his  heart.  Cherish  that,  my  young  breth- 
ren, while  you  can ;  lose  it,  and  it  never  comes  again.  It  is 
not  an  easy  thing  to  cherish  it,  for  it  demands  restraint  in 
pleasure,  and  no  young  heart  loves  that.  Religion  has  only 
calm,  sober,  perhaps  monotonous  pleasures  to  offer  at  first. 
The  deep  rapture  of  enjoyment  comes  in  after-life.  And 
that  will  not  satisfy  the  young  heart.  Men  will  know  what 
pleasure  is,  and  they  drink  deep.  Keen  delight — feverish 
enjoyment — that  is  what  you  long  for:  and  these  emotions 
lose  their  delicacy  and  their  relish,  and  will  only  come  at  the 
bidding  of  gross  excitements.  The  ecstasy  which  once  rose 
to  the  sight  of  the  rainbow  in  the  sky,  or  the  bright  brook, 
or  the  fresh  morning,  comes  languidly  at  last  only  in  the 
crowded  midnight  room,  or  the  excitement  of  commercial 
speculation,  or  beside  the  gaming-table,  or  amidst  the  fever 
of  politics.  It  is  a  spectacle  for  men  and  angels,  when  a 
man  has  become  old  in  feeling  and  worn-out  before  his  time. 
Know  we  none  such  among  our  own  acquaintance?  Have 
the  young  never  seen  those  aged  ones  who  stand  amongst 
them  in  their  pleasures,  almost  as  if  to  warn  them  of  what 
they  themselves  must  come  to  at  last?  Have  they  never 
marked  the  dull  and  sated  look  that  they  cast  upon  the 
whole  scene,  as  upon  a  thing  which  they  would  fain  enjoy 
and  can  not  ?  Know  you  what  you  have  been  looking  on  ? 
A  sated  worldling — one  to  whom  pleasure  was  rapture  once, 
as  it  is  to  you  now.  Thirty  years  more,  that  look  and  that 
place  will  be  yours :  and  that  is  the  way  the  world  rewards 
its  veterans;  it  chains  them  to  it  after  the  "lust  of  the 
world  "  has  passed  away. 

Or  this  may  be  done  by  a  discovery  of  the  unsatisfactory 


Worldliness.  341 

ness  of  the  world.  That  is  a  discovery  not  made  by  every 
man.  But  there  are  some  at  least  who  have  learned  it  bit- 
terly, and  that  without  the  aid  of  Christ.  Some  there  are 
who  would  not  live  over  this  past  life  again  even  if  it  were 
possible.  Some  there  are  who  would  gladly  have  done  with 
the  whole  thing  at  once,  and  exchange— oh !  how  joyfully—- 
the garment  for  the  shroud.  And  some  there  are  who  cling 
to  life,  not  because  life  is  dear,  but  because  the  future  is 
dark,  and  they  tremble  somewhat  at  the  thought  of  entering 
it.  Clinging  to  life  is  no  proof  that  a  man  is  still  longing 
for  the  world.  We  often  cling  to  life  the  more  tenaciously 
as  years  go  on.  The  deeper  the  tree  has  struck  its  roots  into 
the  ground,  the  less  willing  is  it  to  be  rooted  up.  But  there 
is  many  a  one  who  so  hangs  on  just  because  he  has  not  the 
desperate  hardihood  to  quit  it,  nor  faith  enough  to  be  "  will- 
ing to  depart."  The  world  and  he  have  understood  each 
other ;  he  has  seen  through  it ;  he  has  ceased  to  hope  any 
thing  from  it.  The  love'  of  the  Father  is  not  in  him,  but 
"  the  lust  of  the  world  "  has  passed  away. 

Lastly,  a  reason  for  unlearning  the  love  of  the  world  is  the 
solitary  permanence  of  Christian  action.  In  contrast  with 
the  fleetingness  of  this  world,  the  apostle  tells  us  of  the  sta- 
bility of  labor.  "He  that  doeth  the  will  of  God  abideth  for- 
ever." And  let  us  mark  this.  Christian  life  is  action  :  not 
a  speculating,  not  a  debating,  but  a  doing.  One  thing,  and 
only  one,  in  this  world  has  eternity  stamped  upon  it.  Feel- 
ings pass ;  resolves  and  thoughts  pass ;  opinions  change. 
What  you  have  done  lasts — lasts  in  you.  Through  ages, 
through  eternity,  what  you  have  done  for  Christ,  that,  and 
only  that,  you  are.  "  They  rest  from  their  labors,"  saith  the 
Spirit,  "  and  their  works  do  follow  them."  If  the  love  of  the 
Father  be  in  us,  where  is  the  thing  done  which  we  have  to 
show  ?  You  think  justly — feel  rightly — yes — but  your 
work  ? — produce  it.  Men  of  wealth,  men  of  talent,  men  of 
leisure,  what  are  you  doing  in  God's  world  for  God  ? 

Observe,  however,  to  distinguish  between  the  act  and  the 
actor :  It  is  not  the  thing  done,  but  the  doer  who  lasts. 
The  thing  done  often  is  a  failure.  The  cup  given  in  the 
name  of  Christ  may  be  given  to  one  unworthy  of  it ;  but 
think  ye  that  the  love  with  which  it  was  given  has  passed 
away  ?  Has  it  not  printed  itself  indelibly  in  the  character 
by  the  very  act  of  giving  ?  Bless,  and  if  the  Son  of  peace 
be  there,  your  act  succeeds ;  but  if  not,  your  blessing  shall 
return  unto  you  again.  In  other  words,  the  act  may  fail,  but 
the  doer  of  it  abideth  forever. 

We  close  this  subject  with  two  practical  truths.     Let  us 


342  Worldliness. 

learn  from  earthly  changefulness  a  lesson  of  cheerful  active 
ty.  The  world  has  its  way  of  looking  at  all  this,  but  it  is 
not  the  Christian's  way/  There  has  been  nothing  said  to- 
day that  a  worldly  moralist  has  not  already  said  a  thousand 
times  far  better.  The  fact  is  a  world-fact.  The  application 
is  a  Christian  one.  Every  man  can  be  eloquent  about  the 
nothingness  of  time.  But  the  application  !  "  Let  us  eat 
and  drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die?"  That  is  one  application. 
Let  us  sentimentalize  and  be  sad  in  this  fleeting  world,  and 
talk  of  the  instability  of  human  greatness,  and  the  transi- 
toriness  of  human  affection  ?  Those  are  the  only  two  appli- 
cations the  world  knows.  They  shut  out  the  recollection 
and  are  merry,  or  they  dwell  on  it  and  are  sad.  Christian 
brethren,  dwell  on  it  and  be  happy.  This  world  is  not 
yours ;  thank  God  it  is  not.  It  is  dropping  away  from  you 
like  worn-out  autumn  leaves ;  but  beneath  it,  hidden  in  it, 
there  is  another  world  lying  as  the  flower  lies  in  the  bud. 
That  is  your  world,  which  must  burst  forth  at  last  into  eter- 
nal luxuriance.  All  you  stand  on,  see,  and  love,  is  but  the 
husk  of  something  better.  Things  are  passing  ;  our  friends 
are  dropping  off  from  us ;  strength  is  giving  way  ;  our  relish 
for  earth  is  going,  and  the  world  no  longer  wears  to  our 
hearts  the  radiance  that  once  it  wore.  We  have  the  same 
sky  above  us,  and  the  same  scenes  around  us ;  but  the  fresh- 
ness that  our  hearts  extracted  from  every  thing  in  boyhood, 
and  the  glory  that  seemed  to  rest  once  on  earth  and  life  have 
faded  aAvay  forever.  Sad  and  gloomy  truths  to  the  man  who 
is  going  down  to  the  grave  with  his  work  undone.  Not  sad 
to  the  Christian,  but  rousing,  exciting,  invigorating.  If  it  be 
the  eleventh  hour,  we  have  no  time  for  folding  of  the  hands : 
we  will  work  the  faster.  Through  the  changefulness  of  life 
— through  the  solemn  tolling  of  the  bell  of  Time,  which  tells 
us  that  another,  and  another,  and  another,  are  gone  before 
us — through  the  noiseless  rush  of  a  world  which  is  going  down 
with  gigantic  footsteps  into  nothingness.  Let  not  the  Chris- 
tian slack  his  hand  from  work,  for  he  that  doeth  the  will  of 
God  may  defy  hell  itself  to  quench  his  immortality. 

Finally,  The  love  of  this  world  is  only  unlearned  by  the 
love  of  the  Father.  It  were  a  desolate  thing,  indeed,  to  for- 
bid the  love  of  earth,  if  there  were  nothing  to  fill  the  vacant 
space  in  the  heart.  But  it  is  just  for  this  purpose,  that  a 
sublimer  affection  may  find  room,  that  the  lower  is  to  be  ex- 
pelled. And  there  is  only  one  way  in  which  that  higher  love 
is  learned.  The  cross  of  Christ  is  the  measure  of  the  love  of 
God  to  us,  and  the  measure  of  the  meaning  of  man's  existence. 

The  measure  is  the  love  of  God.     Through  the  death-kneU 


The  Sydenham  Palace,  Etc.  343 

of  a  passing  universe  God  seems  at  least  to  speak  to  us  in 
wrath.  There  is  no  doubt  of  what  God  means  in  the  Cross. 
He  means  love.  The  measure  of  the  meaning  of  man's  exist 
'ence.  Measure  all  by  the  Cross.  Do  you  want  success? 
The  Cross  is  failure.  Do  you  want  a  name?  The  Cross  is 
infamy.  Is  it  to  be  gay  and  happy  that  you  live  ?  The  Cross 
is  pain  and  sharpness.  Do  you  live  that  the  will  of  God  may 
be  done — in  you  and  by  you,  in  life  and  death  ?  Then,  and 
only  then,  the  Spirit  of  the  Cross  is  in  you.  When  once  a 
man  has  learned  that,  the  power  of  the  world  is  gone ;  and 
no  man  need  bid  him,  in  denunciation  or  in  invitation,  not  to 
love  the  world.  He  can  not  love  the  world,  for  he  has  got 
an  ambition  above  the  world.  He  has  planted  his  foot  upon 
the  Rock,  and  when  all  else  is  gone,  he  at  least  abides  forever. 


XIII. 

THE  SYDENHAM  PALACE,  AND  THE  RELIGIOUS 
NON-OBSERVANCE  OF  THE  SABBATH. 

"One  man  esteemeth  one  day  above  another:  another  esteemeth  every 
day  alike.  Let  every  man  be  fully  persuaded  in  his  own  mind.  He  that 
regardeth  the  day,  regardeth  fy  unto  the  Lord ;  and  he  that  regardeth  not  the 
day,  to  the  Lord  lie  doth  not  regard  it.  He  that  eateth,  eateth  to  the  Lord, 
for  he  giveth  God  thanks ;  and  he  that  eateth  not,  to  the  Lord  he  eateth  not, 
and  giveth  God  thanks. " — Rom.  xiv.  5,  6. 

THE  selection  of  this  text  is  suggested  by  one  of  the  cur- 
rent topics  of  the  day.  Lately  projects  have  been  devised, 
one  of  which  in  importance  surpasses  all  the  rest,  for  provid 
ing  places  of  public  recreation  for  the  people :  and  it  has 
been  announced,  with  the  sanction  of  government,  that  such 
a  place  will  be  held  open  during  a  part  at  least  of  the  day  of 
rest.  By  a  large  section  of  sincerely  religious  persons  this 
announcement  has  been  received  with  considerable  alarm 
and  strenuous  opposition.  It  has  seemed  to  them  that  such 
a  desecration  would  be  a  national  crime :  for,  holding  the  sab- 
bath to  be  God's  sign  between  Himself  and  His  people,  they 
can  not  but  view  the  desecration  ot  the  sign  as  a  forfeiture 
of  His  covenant,  and  an  act  which  will  assuredly  call  down 
national  judgments.  By  the  secular  press,  on  the  contrary, 
this  proposal  has  been  defended  with  considerable  power.  It 
has  been  maintained  that  the  sabbath  is  a  Jewish  institu 
tion;  in  its  strictness,  at  all  events,  not  binding  on  a  Chris- 
tian community.  It  has  been  urged  with  much  force  thaj 


344  The  Sydenham  Palace,  and  the 

we  can  not  consistently  refuse  to  concede  to  the  pool  man 
publicly,  that  right  of  recreation  which  privately  the  rich 
man  has  long  taken  without  rebuke,  and  with  no  protest  on 
the  part  of  the  ministers  of  Christ.  And  it  has  been  said 
that  such  places  of  recreation  will  tend  to  humanize,  which 
if  not  identical  with  Christianizing  the  population,  is  at  least 
a  step  towards  it. 

Upon  such  a  subject,  where  truth  unquestionably  does  not 
lie  upon  the  surface,  it  can  not  be  out  of  place  if  a  minister 
of  Christ  endeavors  to  direct  the  minds  of  his  congregation 
towards  the  formation  of  an  opinion  ;  not  dogmatically,  but 
humbly,  remembering  always  that  his  own  temptation  is, 
from  his  very  position  as  a  clergyman,  to  view  such  matters, 
not  so  much  in  the  broad  light  of  the  possibilities  of  actual 
life,  as  with  the  eyes  of  a  recluse ;  from  a  clerical  and  eccle- 
siastical, rather  than  from  a  large  and  human  point  of  view. 
For  no  minister  of  Christ  has  a  right  to  speak  oracularly. 
All  that  he  can  pretend  to  do  is  to  give  his  judgment,  as  one 
that  has  obtained  mercy  of  the  Lord  to  be  faithful.  And  on 
large  national  subjects  there  is  perhaps  no  class  so  ill  quali- 
fied to  form  a  judgment  with  breadth  as  we,  the  clergy  of 
the  Church  of  England,  accustomed  as  we  are  to  move  in  the 
narrow  circle  of  those  who  listen  to  us  with  forbearance  and 
deference,  and  mixing  but  little  in  real  life,  till  in  our  clois- 
tered and  inviolable  sanctuaries  we  are  apt  to  forget  that  it 
is  one  thing  to  lay  down  rules  for  a  religious  clique,  and  an- 
other to  legislate  for  a  great  nation. 

In  the  Church  of  Rome  a  controversy  had  arisen  in  the 
time  of  St.  Paul,  respecting  the  exact  relation  in  which  Chris- 
tianity stood  to  Judaism;  and,  consequently,  the  obligation 
of  various  Jewish  institutions  came  to  be  discussed  :  among 
the  rest  the  sabbath-day.  One  party  maintained  its  abroga- 
tion, another  its  continued  obligation.  "  One  man  esteemeth 
one  day  above  another ;  another  esteemeth  every  day  alike." 
Now  it  is  remarkable  that,  in  his  reply,  the  Apostle  Paul,  al- 
though his  own  views  upon  the  question  were  decided  and 
strong,  passes  no  judgment  of  censure  upon  the  practice  of 
either  of  these  parties,  but  only  blames  the  uncharitable 
spirit  in  which  the  one  "judged  their  brethren"  as  irrelig- 
ious, and  the  other  "  set  at  naught "  their  stricter  brethren  as 
superstitious.  He  lays  down,  however,  two  principles  for  the 
decision  of  the  matter :  the  first  being  the  rights  of  Christian 
conviction,  or  the  sacredness  of  the  individual  conscience — 
"Let  every  man  be  fully  persuaded  in  his  own  mind;'*  the 
second,  a  principle  unsatisfactory  enough,  and  surprising,  no 
doubt,  to  both,  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  religious  observ- 


Religious  Non-Observance  of  the  Sabbath.    345 

ance,  and  also  such  a  thing  as  a  religious  non-observance  of 
the  day — "  He  that  regardeth  the  day,  regardeth  it  unto  the 
Lord:  and  he  that  regardeth  not  the  day,  to  the  Lord  he 
doth  not  regard  it."  I  shall  consider, 

I.  St.  Paul's  own  view  upon  the  question. 
II.  His  modifications  of  that  view,  in  reference  to  separate 

cases. 

I.  St.  Paul's  own  view.  No  one,  I  believe,  who  would 
read  St.  Paul's  own  writings  with  unprejudiced  mind  could 
fail  to  come  to  the  conclusion  that  he  considered  the  sabbath 
abrogated  by  Christianity :  not  merely  as  modified  in  itd 
stringency,  but  as  totally  repealed. 

For  example,  see  Colossians  ii.  16,  17:  observe,  he  counts 
the  sabbath-day  among  those  institutions  of  Judaism  which 
were  shadows,  and  of  which  Christ  was  the  realization,  the 
substance  or  "  body ;"  and  he  bids  the  Colossians  remain  in- 
diiferent  to  the  judgment  which  would  be  pronounced  upon 
their  non-observance  of  such  days.  "Let  no  man  judge  you 
with  respect  to  ....  the  sabbath-days." 

He  is  more  decisive  still  in  the  text.  For  it  has  been  con- 
tended that  in  the  former  passage,  "  sabbath-days "  refers 
simply  to  the  Jewish  sabbaths,  which  were  superseded  by 
the  Lord's  day,  and  that  the  apostle  does  not  allude  at  all  to 
the  new  institution,  which  it  is  supposed  had  superseded  it. 
Here,  however,  there  can  be  no  such  ambiguity.  "  One  man 
esteemeth  every  day  alike;"  and  he  only  says,  "let  him  be 
fully  persuaded  in  his  own  mind."  "Every"  day  must  in- 
clude first  days  as  well  as  last  days  of  the  week:  Sundays  as 
well  as  Saturdays.  And  again,  he  even  speaks  of  scrupulous 
adherence  to  particular  days,  as  if  it  were  giving  up  the  very 
principle  of  Christianity:  "Ye  observe  days,  and  months, 
and  times,  and  years.  I  am  afraid  of  you,  lest  I  have  bestow 
ed  upon  you  labor  in  vain."  So  that  his  objection  was  not 
to  Jewish  days,  but  to  the  very  principle  of  attaching  intrin- 
sic sacredness  to  any  days.  All  forms  and  modes  of  particu- 
larizing the  Christian  life  he  reckoned  as  bondage  under  the 
elements  or  alphabet  of  the  law.  And  this  is  plain  from  the 
nature  of  the  case.  He  struck  not  at  a  day,  but  at  a  princi- 
ple. Else,  if  writh  all  this  vehemence  and  earnestness,  he  only 
meant  to  establish  a  new  set  of  days  in  the  place  of  the  old, 
there  is  no  intelligible  principle  for  which  he  is  contending, 
and  that  earnest  apostle  is  only  a  champion  for  one  day  in- 
stead of  another — an  asserter  of  the  eternal  sanctities  of  Sun- 
day, instead  of  the  eternal  sanctities  of  Saturday.  Incredi- 
ble indeed. 

15* 


346  The  Sydenham  Palace,  and  the 

Let  us  then  understand  the  principle  on  which  he  declared 
the  repeal  of  the  sabbath.  He  taught  that  the  blood  of 
Christ  cleansed  all  things;  therefore  there  was  nothing  spe* 
dally  clean.  Christ  had  vindicated  all  for  God ;  therefore 
there  was  no  one  thing  more  God's  than  another.  For  to  a&- 
sert  one  thing  as  God's  more  than  another,  is  by  implication 
to  admit  that  other  to  be  less  God's. 

The  blood  of  Christ  had  vindicated  God's  parental  right  to 
all  humanity;  therefore  there  could  be  no  peculiar  people, 
"  There  is  neither  Jew  nor  Greek,  circumcision  nor  uncircum- 
cision,  Barbarian,  Scythian,  bond,  nor  free :  but  Christ  is  all, 
and  in  all."  It  had  proclaimed  God's  property  in  all  places; 
therefore  there  could  be  no  one  place  intrinsically  holier  than 
another.  No  human  dedication,  no  human  consecration" 
could  localize  God  in  space.  Hence  the  first  martyr  quoted 
from  the  prophet :  "  Howbeit  the  Most  High  dwelleth  not  in 
temples  made  with  hands ;  as  saith  the  prophet,  heaven  is 
my  throne,  and  earth  is  my  footstool ;  what  house  will  ye 
build  for  me  ?  saith  the  Lord." 

Lastly,  the  Gospel  of  Christ  had  sanctified  all  time :  hence 
no  time  could  be  specially  God's.  For  to  assert  that  Sunday 
is  more  God's  day  than  Monday,  is  to  maintain  by  implica- 
tion Monday  is  His  less  rightfully. 

Here,  however,  let  it  be  observed,  it  is  perfectly  possible, 
and  not  at  all  inconsistent  with  this,  that  for  human  conveni- 
ence, and  even  human  necessities,  just  as  it  became  desirable 
to  set -apart  certain  places  in  which  the  noise  of  earthly  busi- 
ness should  not  be  heard  for  spiritual  worship,  so  it  should 
become  desirable  to  set  apart  certain  days  for  special  wor- 
ship. But  then  all  such  were  defensible  on  the  ground  of 
wise  and  Christian  expediency  alone.  They  could  not  be 
placed  on  the  ground  of  a  Divine  statute  or  command.  They 
rested  on  the  authority  of  the  Church  of  Christ ;  and  the 
power  which  had  made  could  unmake  them  again. 

Accordingly  in  early,  we  can  not  say  exactly  how  early 
times,  the  Church  of  Christ  felt  the  necessity  of  substituting 
something  in  place  of  the  ordinances  which  had  been  repeal- 
ed. And  the  Lord's  day  arose :  not  a  day  of  compulsory 
rest ;  not  such  a  day  at  nil  as  modern  Sabbatarians  suppose ; 
not  a  Jewish  sabbath  ;  rather  a  day  in  many  respects  abso- 
lutely contrasted  with  the  Jewish  sabbath. 

For  the  Lord's  day  sprung,  not  out  of  a  transference  of  the 
Jewish  sabbath  from  Saturday  to  Sunday,  but  rather  out  of 
the  idea  of  making  the  week  an  imitation  of  the  life  of  Christ. 
With  the  early  Christians,  the  great  conception  was  that  of 
following  their  crucified  and  risen  Lord:  they  set, as  it  were, 


Religious  N on-Observance  of  the  Sabbath.    347 

the  clock  of  Time  to  the  epochs  of  his  history.  Friday  repre- 
sented the  Death  in  which  all  Christians  daily  die,  and  Sun- 
day the  Resurrection  in  which  all  Christians  daily  rise  to 
higher  life.  What  Friday  and  Sunday  were  to  the  week, 
that  Good  Friday  and  Easter  Sunday  were  to  the  year. 
And  .thus,  in  larger  or  smaller  cycles,  all  time  represented  to 
the  early  Christians  the  mysteries  of  the  Cross  and  the  Risen 
Life  hidden  in  humanity.  And  as  the  sunflower  turns  from 
morning  till  evening  to  the  sun,  so  did  the  early  Church  turn 
forever  to  her  Lord,  transforming  week  and  year  into  a  sym- 
bolical representation  of  His  spiritual  life. 

Carefully  distinguish  this,  the  true  historical  view  of  the 
origin  of  the  Lord's  day,  from  a  mere  transference  of  a  Jew- 
ish sabbath  from  one  day  to  another.  For  St.  Paul's  teach- 
ing is  distinct  and  clear,  that  the  sabbath  is  annulled,  and  to 
urge  the  observance  of  the  day  as  indispensable  to  salvation 
was,  according  to  him,  to  Judaize  :  "  to  turn  again  to  the 
weak  and  beggarly  -elements,  whereunto  they  desired  to  be 
in  bondage." 

II.  The  modifications  of  this  view. 

1.  The  first  modification  has  reference  to  those  who  con- 
scientiously observed  the  day.  He  that  observeth  the  day, 
observeth  it  to  the  Lord.  Let  him  act,  then,  on  that  convic- 
tion :  "  Let  him  be  fully  persuaded  in  his  own  mind."  There 
is  therefore  a  religious  observance  of  the  sabbath-day  possi- 
ble. 

We  are  bound  by  the  spirit  of  the  fourth  commandment, 
so  far  as  we  are  in  the  same  spiritual  state  as  they  to  whom 
it  was  given.  The  spiritual  intent  of  Christianity  is  to  wor- 
ship God  every  day  in  the  spirit.  But  had  this  law  been 
given  in  all  its  purity  to  the  Jews,  instead  of  turning  every 
week-day  into  a  sabbath,  they  would  have  transformed  every 
sabbath  into  a  week-day :  with  no  special  day  fixed  for  wor- 
ship, they  would  have  spent  every  day  without  worship. 
Their  hearts  were  too  dull  for  a  devotion  so  spiritual  and 
pure.  Therefore  a  law  was  given,  specializing  a  day,  in  or- 
der to  lead  them  to  the  broader  truth  that  every  day  is 
God's. 

Now,  so  far  as  we  are  in  the  Jewish  state,  the  fourth  com- 
mandment, even  in  its  rigor  and  strictness,  is  wisely  used  by 
us ;  nay,  we  might  say,  indispensable.  For  who  is  he  who 
needs  not  the  day  ?  He  is  the  man  so  rich  in  love,  so  con- 
formed to  the  mind  of  Christ,  so  elevated  into  the  gublime 
repose  of  heaven,  that  he  needs  no  carnal  ordinances  at  all, 
nor  the  assistance  of  one  day  in  seven  to  kindle  spiritual 


348  The  Sydenham  Palace,  and  the 

feelings,  seeing  he  is,  as  it  were,  all  his  life  in  heaven  al< 
ready. 

And  doubtless,  such  the  Apostle  Paul  expected  the 
Church  of  Christ  to  be.  Anticipating  the  Second  Advent 
at  once ;  not  knowing  the  long  centuries  of  slow  progress 
that  were  to  come,  his  heart  would  have  sunk  within  him 
could  he  have  been  told  that  at  the  end  of  eighteen  centu- 
ries the  Christian  Church  would  be  still  observing  days, 
and  months,  and  times,  and  years,  and  still  more,  needing 
them. 

Needing  them,  I  say.  For  the  sabbath  was  made  for 
man.  Gcd  made  it  for  men  in  a  certain  spiritual  state,  be- 
cause they  needed  it.  The  need  therefore  is  deeply  hidden 
in  human  nature.  He  who  can  dispense  with  it  must  be 
holy  and  spiritual  indeed.  And  he  who,  still  unholy  and 
unspiritual,  would  yet  dispense  with  it,  is  a  man  who  would 
fain  be  wiser  than  his  Maker.  We,  Christians  as  we  are, 
still  need  the  law :  both  in  its  restraints,  and  in  its  aids  to 
our  weakness. 

No  man,  therefore,  who  knows  himself,  but  will  gladly  and 
joyfully  use  the  institution.  No  man  who  knows  the^need 
of  his  brethren  will  wantonly  desecrate  it,  or  recklessly  hurt 
even  their  scruples  respecting  its  observance.  And  no  such 
man  can  look  with  aught  but  grave  and  serious  apprehen- 
sions on  such  an  innovation  upon  English  customs  of  life  and 
thought,  as  the  proposal  to  give  public  and  official  counte- 
nance to  a  scheme  which  will  invite  millions,  I  do  not  say  to 
an  irreligious,  but  certainly  an  unreligious  use  of  the  day  of 
rest. 

This  then  is  the  first  modification  of  the  broad  view  of  a 
repealed  sabbath.  Repealed  though  it  be,  there  is  such  a 
thing  as  a  religious  observance  of  it.  And  provided  that 
those  who  are  stricter  than  we  in  their  views  of  its  obliga- 
tion, observe  it  not  from  superstition,  nor  in  abridgment 
of  Christian  liberty,  nor  from  moroseness,  we  are  bound  in 
Christian  charity  to  yield  them  all  respect  and  honor.  Let 
them  act  out  their  conscientious  convictions.  Let  not  him 
that  observeth  not  despise  him  that  observeth. 

The  second  modification  of  the  broad  view  is,  that  there  is 
such  a  thing  as  a  religious  non-observance  of  the  sabbath.  1 
lay  a  stress  on  the  word  religious.  For  St.  Paul  does  not  say 
that  every  non-observance  of  the  sabbath  is  religious,  but 
that  he  who  not  observing  it,  observeth  it  not  to  the  Lord, 
is,  because  acting  on  conscientious  conviction,  as  acceptable 
as  the  others,  who,  in  obedience  to  what  they  believe  to  be 
His  will,  observe  it. 


Religious  Non-Observance  of  the  Sabbath.    349 

He  pays  his  non-observance  to  the  Lord,  who  feeling  that 
Christ  has  made  him  free,  striving  to  live  all  his  days  in  the 
spirit,  and  knowing  that  that  which  is  displeasing  to  God  is 
not  work  nor  recreation,  but  selfishness  and  worldliness,  re- 
fuses to  be  bound  by  a  Jewish  ordinance  which  forbade  la- 
bor and  recreation,  only  with  a  typical  intent. 

But  he  who,  not  trying  to  serve  God  on  any  day,  gives 
Sunday  to  toil  or  pleasure,  certainly  observes  not  the  day : 
but  his  non-observance  is  not  rendered  to  the  Lord.  He  may 
be  free  from  superstition  :  but  it  is  not  Christ  who  has  made 
him  free.  Nor  is  he  one  of  whom  St.  Paul  would  have  said 
that  his  liberty  on  the  sabbath  is  as  acceptable  as  his  broth- 
er's conscientious  scrupulosity. 

Here,  then,  we  are  at  issue  with  the  popular  defense  of 
public  recreations  on  the  sabbath-day  :  not  so  much  with  re- 
spect to  the  practice,  as  with  respect  to  the  grounds  on-which 
the  practice  is  approved.  They  claim  liberty :  but  it  is  not 
Christian  liberty.  Like  St.  Paul,  they  demand  a  license  for 
non-observance  ;  only,  it  is  not  "  non-observance  to  the  Lord." 
For  distinguish  well.  The  abolition  of  Judaism  is  not  neces- 
sarily the  establishment  of  Christianity  :  to  do  away  with  the 
sabbath-day  in  order  to  substitute  a  nobler,  truer,  more  con- 
tinuous sabbath,  even  the  sabbath  of  all  time  given  up  to 
God,  is  well ;  but  to  do  away  with  the  special  rights  of  God 
to  the  sabbath,  in  order  merely  to  substitute  the  rights  of 
pleasure,  or  the  rights  of  mammon,  or  even  the  license  of 
profligacy  and  drunkenness,  that,  methinks,  is  not  St.  Paul's 
"  Christian  liberty !" 

The  second  point  on  which  we  join  issue  is  the  assump- 
tion that  public  places  of  recreation,  which  humanize,  will 
therefore  Christianize  the  people.  It  is  taken  for  granted 
that  architecture,  sculpture,  and  the  wonders  of  nature  and 
art  which  such  buildings  will  contain,  have  a  direct  or  indi- 
rect tendency  to  lead  to  true  devotion. 

Only  in  a  very  limited  degree  is  there  truth  in  this  at  all. 
Christianity  will  humanize  :  we  are  not  so  sure  that  human- 
izing will  Christianize.  Let  us  be  clear  upon  this  matter. 
Esthetics  are  not  religion.  It  is  one  thing  to  civilize  and 
polish  :  it  is  another  thing  to  Christianize.  The  worship  of 
the  beautiful  is  not  the  worship  of  holiness  ;  nay,  I  know  not 
whether  the  one  may  not  have  a  tendency  to  disincline  from 
the  other. 

At  least,  such  was  the  history  of  ancient  Greece.  Greece 
was  the  home  of  the  arts,  the  sacred  ground  on  which  the 
worship  of  the  beautiful  was  carried  to  its  perfection.  Let 
those  who  have  read  the  history  of  her  decline  and  fall,  who 


350  The  Sydenham  Palace^  and  the 

have  peraeed  the  debasing  works  of  her  later  years,  tell  ua 
how  "music,  painting,  poetry,  the  arts,  softened  and  debilita- 
ted and  sensualized  the  nation's  heart.  Let  them  tell  us 
how,  when  Greece's  last  and  greatest  man  was  warning  in 
vain  against  the  foe  at  her  gates,  and  demanding  a  manlier 
and  a  more  heroic  disposition  to  sacrifice,  that  most  polished 
and  humanized  people,  sunk  in  trade  and  sunk  in  pleasure, 
were  squandering  enormous  sums  upon  their  buildings  and 
their  esthetics,  their  processions  and  their  people's  palaces, 
till  the  flood  came,  and  the  liberties  of  Greece  were  trampled 
down  forever  beneath  the  feet  of  the  Macedonian  conqueror. 

No  !  the  change  of  a  nation's  heart  is  not  to  be  effected 
by  the  infusion  of  a  taste  for  artistic  grace.  "  Other  founda- 
tion can  no  man  lay  than  that  is  laid,  which  is  Christ  Jesus." 
Not  art,  but  the  cross  of  Christ.  Simpler  manners,  purer 
lives:. more  self-denial;  more  earnest  sympathy  with  the 
classes  that  lie  below  us ;  nothing  short  of  that  can  lay  the 
foundations  of  the  Christianity  which  is  to  be  hereafter,  deep 
and  broad. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  dissent  from  the  views  of  those 
who  would  arrest  such  a  project  by  petitions  to  the  legis- 
lature on  these  grounds : 

1.  It  is  a  return  backward  to  Judaism  and  law.     It  may 
be  quite  true  that,  as  we  suspect,  such  non-observance  of  the 
day  is  not  to  the  Lord ;  but  only  a  scheme  of  mere  pecuni- 
ary speculation.     Nevertheless  there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  re- 
ligious non-observance  of  the  day  :  and  we  dare  not  "judge 
another  man's  servant :  to  his  own  master  he  standeth  or 
falleth."     We  dare  not  assert  the   perpetual  obligation   of 
the  sabbath,  when  an  inspired  apostle  has  declared  it  abro- 
gated.    We  dare  not  refuse  a  public  concession  of  that  kind 
of  recreation  to  the  poor  man  which  the  rich  have  long  not 
hesitated  to  take  in  their  sumptuous  mansions  and  pleasure- 
grounds,  unrebuked   by  the   ministers  of  Christ,  who  seem 
touched  to  the  quick  only  when  the  desecration  of  the  sab- 
bath is  loud  and  vulgar.    \Ve  can  not  substitute  a  statute  law 
for  a  repealed  law  of  God.     We  may  think,  and  we  do,  that 
there  is  much  which  may  lead  to  dangerous  consequences  in 
this  innovation :  but  we  dare  not  treat  it  as  a  crime. 

2.  The  second  ground  on  which  we  are  opposed  to  the  ul- 
tra-rigor of  sabbath  observance,  especially  when  it  becomes 
coercive,  is   the   danger  of  injuring  the   conscience.     It   is 
wisely  taught  by  St.  Paul  that  he  who  does  any  thing  with 
offense,  i.  e.,  with  a  feeling  that   it   is  wrong,  does  wrong. 
To  him  it  is  wrong,  even  though  it  be  not  wrong  abstractly. 
Therefore  it  is  always  dangerous  to  multiply  restrictions  and 


Religious  Non-Observance  of  the  Sabbath.    351 

requirements  beyond  what  is  essential,  because  men  feeling 
themselves  hemmed  in  break  the  artificial  barrier,  but  break- 
ing it  with  a  sense  of  guilt,  do  thereby  become  hardened  in 
conscience  and  prepared  for  transgression  against  command- 
ments which  are  divine  and  of  eternal  obligation.  Hence  it 
is  that  the  criminal  has  so  often  in  his  confessions  traced  his 
deterioration  in  crime  to  the  first  step  of  breaking  the 
sabbath-day,  and  no  doubt  with  accurate  truth.  But  what 
shall  we  infer  from  this  ?  Shall  we  infer,  as  is  so  often  done 
upon  the  platform  and  in  religious  books,  that  it  proves  the 
everlasting  obligation  of  the  sabbath  ?  Or  shall  we,  with  a 
far  truer  philosophy  of  the  human  soul,  infer,  in  the  language 
of  St.  Peter,  that  we  have  been  laying  on  him  "  a  ^oke  which 
neither  we  nor  our  fathers  were  able  to  bear  ?" — in  the  lan- 
guage of  St.  Paul,  that  "  the  motions  of  sin  were  by  the  law," 
that  the  rigorous  rule  was  itself  the  stimulating,  moving 
cause  of  the  sin  :  and  that  when  the  young  man,  worn  out 
with  his  week's  toil,  first  stole  out  into  the  fields  to  taste 
the  fresh  breath  of  a  spring  day,  he  did  it  with  a  vague, 
secret  sense  of  transgression,  and  that  having,  as  it  were, 
drawn  his  sword  in  defiance  against  the  established  code  of 
the  religious  world,  he  felt  that  from  thenceforward  there 
was  for  him  no  return,  and  so  he  became  an  outcast,  his  sword 
against  every  man,  and  every  man's  sword  against  him  ?  I 
believe  tins  to  be  the  true  account  of  the  matter ;  and  be- 
lieving it,  I  can  not  but  believe  that  the  false  Jewish  notions 
of  the  sabbath-day  which  are  prevalent  have  been  exceeding- 
ly pernicious  to  the  morals  of  the  country. 

Lastly,  I  remind  you  ol  the  danger  of  mistaking  a  "  posi- 
tive "  law  for  a  moral  one.  The  danger  is  that  proportion- 
ably  to  the  vehemence  with  which  the  law  positive  is  en- 
forced,  the  sacredness  of  moral  laws  is  neglected.  A  positive 
law,  in  theological  language,  is  a  law  laid  down  for  special 
purposes,  and  corresponds  with  statute  laws  in  things  civil. 
Thus  laws  of  quarantine  and  laws  of  excise  depend  for  their 
force  upon  the  will  of  th*e  legislature,  and  when  repealed  are 
binding  no  more.  But  a  moral  law  is  one  binding  forever, 
which  a  statute  law  may  declare,  but  can  neither  make  nor 
unmake. 

Now  when  men  are  rigorous  in  the  enforcement  and  rev- 
erence paid  to  laws  positive,  the  tendency  is  to  a  correspond- 
ing indifference  to  the  laws  of  eternal  right.  The  written 
supersedes  in  their  hearts  the  moral.  The  mental  history  of 
the  ancient  Pharisees  who  observed  the  sabbath,  and  tithed 
mint,  anise,  and  cummin,  neglecting  justice,  mercy,  and  truth, 
is  the  history  oi  a  most  dangerous  but  universal  tendency  of 


352  The  Sydenham  Palace,  Etc. 

the  human  heart.  And  so,  many  a  man  whose  heart  swells 
with  what  he  thinks  pious  horror  when  he  sees  the  letter  de- 
livered or  the  train  run  upon  the  sabbath-day,  can  pass 
through  the  streets  at  night,  undepressed  and  unshocked  by 
the  evidences  of  the  wide-spreading  profligacy  which  has 
eaten  deep  into  his  country's  heart.  And  many  a  man  who 
would  gaze  upon  the  domes  of  a  Crystal  Palace,  rising  above 
the  trees,  with  somewhat  of  the  same  feeling  with  which  he 
would  look  on  a  temple  dedicated  to  Juggernaut,  and  who 
would  fancy  that  something  of  the  spirit  of  an  ancient  proph- 
et was  burning  in  his  bosom,  when  his  lips  pronounced  the 
woe  !  woe  !  of  a  coming  doom,  would  sit  calmly  in  a  social 
circle  of  English  life,  and  scarcely  feel  uneasy  in  listening  to 
its  uncharitableness  and  its  slanders :  would  hear  without 
one  throb  of  indignation  the  common  dastardly  condemna- 
tion of  the  weak  for  sins  which  are  venial  in  the  strong ; 
would  survey  the  relations  of  the  rich  and  poor  in  this  coun- 
try, and  remain  calmly  satisfied  that  there  is  nothing  false  in 
them,  unbrotherly  and  wrong.  No,  my  brethren  !  let  us 
think  clearly  and  strongly  on  this  matter.  It  may  be  that 
God  has  a  controversy  with  this  people.  It  may  be,  as  they 
say,  that  our  Father  will  chasten  us  by  the  sword  of  the 
foreigner.  But  if  He  does,  and  if  judgments  are  in  store  for 
our  country,  they  will  fall — not  because  the  correspondence 
of  the  land  is  carried  on  upon  the  sabbath-day  :  nor  because 
Sunday  trains  are  not  arrested  iSy  the  legislature  :  nor  be 
cause  a  public  permission  is  given  to  the  working  classes  for 
a  few  hours'  recreation  on  the  day  of  rest — but  because  we 
are  selfish  men  :  and  because  we  prefer  pleasure  to  duty,  and 
traffic  to  honor ;  and  because  we  love  our  party  more  than 
our  Church,  and  our  Church  more  than  our  Christianity ; 
and  our  Christianity  more  than  truth,  and  ourselves  more 
than  all.  These  are  the  things  that  defile  a  nation  :  but  the 
labor  and  the  recreation  of  its  poor,  these  are  not  the  things 
that  defile  a  nation 


The  Early  Development  of  Jesus.          353 


XIV. 
THE  EARLY  DEVELOPMENT  OF  JESUS. 

f<  And  the  child  grew,  and  waxed  strong  in  spirit,  filled  with  wisdom;  *?>/„ 
;fae  grace  of  God  was  upon  him." — Luke  ii.  40. 

THE  ecclesiastical  year  begins  with  Advent,  then  comes 
Christmas-day.  The  first  day  of  the  natural  year  begins 
with  the  infancy  of  the  Son  of  Man.  To-day  the  Gospel 
proceeds  with  the  brief  account  of  the  early  years  of  Jesus. 

The  infinite  significance  of  the  life  of  Christ  is  not  exhaust- 
ed by  saying  that  He  was  a  perfect  man.  The  notion  of  the 
earlier  Socinians  that  He  was  a  pattern  man  (\fsi\oe  av0pa>7roe), 
commissioned  from  Heaven  with  a  message  to  teach  men 
how  to  live,  and  supernaturally  empowered  to  live  in  that 
perfect  way  Himself,  is  immeasurably  short  of  truth.  For 
perfection  merely  human  does  not  attract ;  rather  it  repels. 
It  may  be  copied  in  form  :  it  can  not  be  Imitated  in  spirit — 
for  men  only  imitate  that  from  which  enthusiasm  and  life 
are  caught — for  it  does  not  inspire  nor  fire  with  love. 

Faultless  men  and  pattern  children — you  may  admire 
them,  but  you  admire  coldly.  Praise  them  as  you  will,  no 
one  is  better  *for  their  example.  No  one  blames  them,  and 
no  one  loves  them :  they  kindle  no  enthusiasm ;  they  create 
no  likeness  of  themselves  :  they  never  reproduce  themselves 
in  other  lives — the  true  prerogative  of  all  original  life. 

If  Christ  had  been  only  a  faultless  being,  He  would  never 
have  set  up  in  the  world  a  new  type  of  character  which  at 
the  end  of  two  thousand  years  is  fresh  and  life-giving  and 
inspiring  still.  He  never  would  have  regenerated  the  world. 
He  never  would  have  "  drawn  all  men  unto  Him,"  by  being 
lifted  up  a  self-sacrifice,  making  self-devotion  beautiful.  In 
Christ  the  divine  and  human  blended :  immutability  joined 
itself  to  mutability.  There  was  in  Him  the  divine  which  re- 
mained fixed;  the  human  which  was  constantly  developing. 
One  uniform  idea  and  purpose  characterized  His  whole  lile, 
with  a  divine  immutable  unity  throughout,  but  it  was  sub- 
ject to  the  laws  of  human  growth.  For  the  soul  of  Christ 
was  not  cast  down  upon  this  world  a  perfect  thing  at  once. 
Spotless  ? — yes.  Faultless? — yes.  Tempted,  yet  in  all  points 
without  sin  ? — yes.  But  perfection  is  more  than  faultlessnoss. 
All  Scripture  coincides  in  telling  us  that  the  ripe  perfection 


354  The  Early  Development  of  Jesus. 

of  His  manhood  was  reached  step  by  step.  There  was  a 
power  and  a  life  within  Him  which  were  to  be  developed, 
which  could  only  be  developed,  like  all  human  strength  and 
goodness,  by  toil  of  brain  and  heart.  Life  up-hill  all  the 
way  :  and  every  foot-print  by  which  He  climbed  left  behind 
for  us,  petrified  on  the  hard  rock,  and  indurated  into  history 
forever,  to  show  us  when,  and  where,  and  how  He  toiled  and 
won. 

Take  a  few  passages  to  prove  that  His  perfection  was 
gained  by  degrees.  "It  became  Him  for  whom  are  all 
things,  and  by  whom  are  all  things,  in  bringing  many  sons 
to  glory,  to  make  the  Captain  of  their  salvation  perfect 
through  suffering."  Again,  "  Behold,  I  cast  out  devils,  and 
do  cures  to-day  and  to-morrow,  and  the  third  day  I  shall  be 
perfected"  "  Though  He  were  a  Son,  yet  learned  He  obedi- 
ence." And  in  the  context,  "  Jesus  increased.  .  .  .  ." 

Now  see  the  result  of  this  aspect  of  His  perfectibility.  In 
that  changeless  element  of  His  being  which  beneath  all  the 
varying  phases  of  growth  remained  divinely  faultless,  we  see 
that  which  we  can  adore.  In  the  ever-changing,  ever-grow- 
ing, subject  therefore  to  feebleness  and  endearing  mutabili- 
ty, we  see  that  which  brings  Him  near  to  us :  makes  Him 
lovable,  at  the  same  time  that  it  interprets  us  to  ourselves. 

Our  subject  is  the  early  development  of  Jesus.  In  this 
text  we  read  of  a  threefold  growth. 

I.  In  strength. 
II.  In  wisdom. 
III.  In  grace. 

First,  it  speaks  to  us  simply  of  his  early  development, 
"  The  child  grew." 

In  the  case  of  all  rare  excellence  that  is  merely  human,  it 
is  the  first  object  of  the  biographer  of  a  marvellous  man  to 
seek  for  surprising  stories  of  his  early  life.  The  appetite  for 
the  marvellous  in  this  matter  is  almost  instinctive  and  inva- 
riable. Almost  all  men  love  to  discover  the  early  wonders 
which  were  prophetic  of  after-greatness.  Apparently  the 
reason  is  that  we  are  unwilling  to  believe  that  wondrous  ex- 
cellence was  attained  by  slow,  patient  labor.  We  get  an  ox- 
cuse  for  our  own  slowness  and  stunted  growth,  by  settling  it 
once  for  all,  that  the  original  differences  between  such  men 
and  us  were  immeasurable.  Therefore  it  is,  I  conceive,  that 
we  seek  so  eagerly  for  anecdotes  of  early  precocity. 

In  this  spirit  the  fathers  of  the  primitive  Church  collected 
legends  of  the  early  life  of  Christ,  stories  of  superhuman  in- 
fancy :  what  the  infant  and  the  child  said  and  did.  Many 


The  Early  Development  of  Jesus.          355 

of  these  legends  are  absurd :  all,  as  resting  on  no  authority, 
are  rejected. 

Very  different  from  this  is  the  spirit  of  the  Bible  narra- 
tive. It  records  no  marvellous  stories  of  infantine  sagacity 
or  miraculous  power,  to  feed  a  prurient  curiosity.  Both  in 
what  it  tells  and  in  what  it  does  not  tell,  one  thing  is  plain, 
that  the  human  life  of  the  Son  of  God  was  natural.  There 
was  first  the  blade,  then  the  ear,  then  the  full  corn.  In  what 
it  does  not  say :  because,  had  there  been  any  thing  preter- 
natural to  record,  no  doubt  it  would  have  been  recorded. 
In  what  it  does  say :  because  that  little  is  all  unaffectedly 
simple.  One  anecdote,  and  two  verses  of  general  descrip- 
tion, that  is  all  which  is  told  us  of  the  Redeemer's  childhood. 

The  Child,  it  is  written,  grew.  Two  pregnant  facts.  He 
was  a  child,  and  a  child  that  grew  in  heart,  in  intellect,  in 
size,  in  grace,  in  favor  with  God.  Not  a  man  in  child's 
years.  No  hotbed  precocity  marked  the  holiest  of  infancies. 
The  Son  of  Man  grew  up  in  the  quiet  valley  of  existence — 
in  shadow,  not  in  sunshine,  not  forced.  No  unnatural,  stimu- 
lating culture  had  developed  the  mind  or  feelings :  no  pub- 
lic flattery :  no  sunning  of  His  infantine  perfections  in  the 
glare  of  the  world's  show,  had  brought  the  temptation  of 
the  wilderness,  with  which  His  manhood  grappled,  too  early 
on  His  soul.  We  know  that  He  was  childlike  as  other  chil- 
dren :  for  in  after  years  His  brethren  thought  His  fame 
strange,  and  His  townsmen  rejected  Him.  They  could  not 
believe  that  one  who  had  gone  in  and  out,  ate  and  drank  and 
worked  among  them,  was  He  whose  name  is  Wonderful. 
The  proverb,  true  of  others,  was  true  of  Him  :  "A  prophet  is 
not  without  honor,  but  in  his  own  country,  and  among  his 
own  kin,  and  in  his  own  house."  You  know  Him  in  a,  picture 
at  once,  by  the  halo  round  His  brow.  There  was  no  glory 
in  His  real  life  to  mark  Him.  He  was  in  the  world,  and  the 
world  knew  Him  not.  Gradually  and  gently  He  woke  to 
consciousness  of  life  and  its  manifold  meaning ;  found  Him- 
self in  possession  of  a  self;  by  degrees  opened  His  eyes  upon 
this  outer  world,  and  drank  in  its  beauty.  Early  He  felt 
the  lily  of  the  field  discourse  to  Him  of  the  Invisible  Loveli- 
ness, and  the  ravens  tell  of  God  His  Father.  Gradually  and 
not  at  once,  He  embraced  the  sphere  of  human  duties,  and 
He  woke  to  His  earthly  relationships  one  by  one — the  son — 
the  brother — the  citizen — the  master. 

It  is  a  very  deep  and  beautiful  and  precious  truth  that  the 
Eternal  Son  had  a  human  and  progressive  childhood.  Hap- 
py the  child  who  is  suffered  to  be  and  content  to  be  what 
God  meant  it  to  be — a  child  while  childhood  lasts.  Happy 


356  The  Early  Development  of  Jesus. 

the  parent  who  does  not  force  artificial  manners,  precocious 
feeling,  premature  religion.  Our  age  is  one  of  stimulus  and 
high  pressure.  We  live,  as  it  were,  our  lives  out  fast.  Ef- 
fect is  every  thing.  We  require  results  produced  at  once : 
something  to  show  and  something  that  may  tell.  The  folio 
of  patient  years  is  replaced  by  the  pamphlet  that  stirs  men's 
curiosity  to-day,  and  to-morrow  is  forgotten.  "  Plain  living 
and  high  thinking  are  no  more."  The  town,  with  its  fever 
and  its  excitements,  and  its  collision  of  mind  with  mind,  has 
spread  over  the  country :  and  there  is  no  country,  scarcely 
home.  To  men  who  traverse  England  in  a  few  hours  and 
spend  only  a  portion  of  the  year  in  one  place,  home  is  becom- 
ing a  vocable  of  past  ages. 

The  result  is,  that  heart  and  brain,  which  were  given  to 
last  for  seventy  years,  wear  out  before  their  time.  We  have 
our  exhausted  men  of  twenty-five,  and  our  old  men  of  forty. 
Heart  and  brain  give  way :  the  heart  hardens  and  the  brain 
grows  soft. 

Brethren  !  the  Son  of  God  lived  till  thirty  in  an  obscure 
village  of  Judea,  unknown  :  then  came  forth  a  matured  and 
perfect  man — with  mind,  and  heart,  and  frame  in  perfect 
balance  of  humanity.  It  is  a  Divine  lesson  !  I  would  I  could 
say  as  strongly  as  I  feel  deeply.  Our  stimulating  artificial 
culture  destroys  depth.  Our  competition,  our  nights  turned 
into  days  by  pleasure,  leave  no  time  for  earnestness.  We 
are  superficial  men.  Character  in  the  world  wants  root. 
England  has  gained  much  :  she  has  lost  also  much.  The 
world  wants  what  has  passed  away,  and  which  until  we  se- 
cure, we  shall  remain  the  clever  shallow  men  we  are :  a  child- 
hood and  a  youth  spent  in  the  shade — a  home. 

Now  this  growth  of  Jesus  took  place  in  three  particulars. 

I.  In  spiritual  strength.  "  The  child  waxed  strong  in  spirit." 
Spiritual  strength  consists  of  two  things — power  of  will,  and 
power  of  self-restraint.  It  requires  two^things,  therefore,  for  its 
existence — strong  feelings  and  strong  command  over  them. 

Now  it  is  here  we  make  a  great  mistake :  we  mistake 
strong  feelings  for  strong  character.  A  man  who  -bears  all 
before  him — before  whose  frown  domestics  tremble,  and 
whose  bursts  of  fury  make  the  children  of  the  house  quake — 
because  he  has  his  will  obeyed  and  his  own  way  in  all  things 
we  call  him  a  strong  man.  The  truth  is,  that  is  the  weak 
man ;  it  is  his  passions,  that  are  strong :  he,  mastered  by 
them,  is  weak.  You  must  measure  the  strength  of  a  man  by 
the  power  of  the  feelings  which  he  subdues,  not  by  the  power 
of  those  which  subdue  him. 


The  Early  Development  of  Jesus,          357 

And  hence  composure  is  very  often  the  highest  result  of 
strength.  Did  we  never  see  a  man  receive  a  flagrant  insult, 
and  only  grow  a  little  pale,  and  then  reply  quietly  ?  That 
was  a  man  spiritually  strong.  Or  did  we  never  see  a  man  in 
anguish  stand  as  if  carved  out  of  solid  rock,  mastering  him- 
self? or  one  bearing  a  hopeless  daily  trial  remain  silent,  and 
never  tell  the  world  what  it  was  that  cankered  his  home- 
peace  ?  That  is  strength.  He  who  with  strong  passions  re- 
mains chaste  :  he  who,  keenly  sensitive,  with  manly  power  of 
indignation  in  him,  can  be  provoked  and  yet  refrain  himself, 
and  forgive — these  are  strong  men,  spiritual  heroes. 

The  Child  waxed  strong.  Spiritual  strength  is  reached  by 
successive  steps ;  fresh  strength  is  got  by  every  mastery  of 
self.  It  is  the  belief  of  the  savage  that  the  spirit  of  every 
enemy  he  slays  enters  into  him  and  becomes  added  to  his 
own,  accumulating  a  warrior's  strength  for  the  day  of  battle : 
therefore  he  slays  all  he  can.  It  is  true  in  the  spiritual  war- 
fare. Every  sin  you  slay — the  spirit  of  that  sin  passes  into 
you  transformed  into  strength :  every  passion,  not  merely 
kept  in  abeyance  by  asceticism,  but  subdued  by  a  higher  im- 
pulse, is  so  much  character  strengthened.  The  strength  of 
the  passion  not  expended  is  yours  still.  Understand  then, 
you  are  not  a  man  of  spiritual  power  because  your  impulses 
are  irresistible.  They  s\veep  over  your  soul  like  a  tornado — 
lay  all  flat  before  them  ;  whereupon  you  feel  a  secret  pride 
of  strength.  Last  week  men  saw  a  vessel  on  this  coast  borne 
headlong  on  the  breakers,  and  dashing  itself  with  terrific  force 
against  the  shore.  It  embedded  itself,  a  miserable  wreck, 
deep  in  sand  and  shingle.  Was  that  brig  in  her  convulsive 
throes  strong?  or  was" it  powerless  and  helpless? 

No,  my  brethren :  God's  spirit  in  the  soul — an  inward  powei 
of  doing  the  thing  we  will  and  ought — that  is  strength,  noth- 
ing else.  All  other  force  in  us  is  only  our  weakness,  the  vio- 
lence of  driving  passion.  "  I  can  do  all  things  through  Christ 
who  strengtheneth  me :"  this  is  Christian  strength.  "  I  can 
not  do  the  things  I  would :"  that  is  the  weakness  of  an  unre- 
deemed slave. 

I  instance  one  single  evidence  of  strength  in  the  early  years 
of  Jesus  :  I  find  it  in  that  calm,  long  waiting  of  thirty  years 
before  He  began  his  work.  And  yet  all  the  evils  he  was  to  re- 
dress were  there,  provoldng  indignation,  crying  for  interfer- 
ence— the  hollowness  of  social  life — the  misinterpretations  of 
Scripture — the  forms  of  worship  and  phraseology  which  had 
hidden  moral  truth — the  injustice — the  priestcraft — the  cow- 
ardice— the  hypocrisies  :  He  had  long  seen  them  all. 

All  those  years  His  soul  burned  within  Him  with  a  Divine 


358  The  Early  Development  of  Jesus. 

zeal  and  heavenly  indignation.  A  mere  man — a  weak,  emo 
tional  man  of  spasmodic  feeling — a  hot  enthusiast,  would 
have  spoken  out  at  once,  and  at  once  been  crushed.  The 
Everlasting  Word  incarnate  bided  his  own  time  :  "  Mine  hour 
is  not  yet  come  " — matured  His  energies,  condensed  them  by 
repression — and  then  went  forth  to  speak  and  do  and  suffer — 
His  hour  was  come.  This  is  strength  :  the  power  of  a  divine 
silence :  the  strong  will  to  keep  force  till  it  is  wanted  :  the 
power  to  wait  God's  time.  "He  that  believeth,"  said  the 
wise  prophet,  "  shall  not  make  haste." 

IL  Growth  in  wisdom — "  Filled  with  wisdom."     • 

Let  us  distinguish  wisdom  from  two  things.  From  informa- 
tion, first.  It  is  one  thing  to  be  well-in  formed,  it  is  another 
thing  to  be  wise.  Many  books  read,  innumerable  facts  hived 
up  in  a  capacious  memory,  this  does  not  constitute  wisdom. 
Books  give  it  not :  sometimes  the  bitterest  experience  gives 
it  not.  Many  a  heart-break  may  have  come  as  the  result  of 
life-errors  and  life-mistakes ;  and  yet  men^may  be  no  wiser 
than  before.  Before  the  same  temptations  they  fall  again  in 
the  self-same  way  they  fell  before.  Where  they  erred  in  youth 
they  err  still  in  age.  A  mournful  truth  !  "  Ever  learning," 
said  St.  Paul,  "and  never  able  to  come  to  a  knowledge  of  the 
truth." 

Distinguish  wisdom,  again,  from  talent.  Brilliancy  of  pow- 
ers is  not  the  wisdom  for  which  Solomon  prayed.  Wisdom 
is  of  the  heart  rather  than  the  intellect :  the  harvest  of  moral 
thotightfulness,  patiently  reaped  in  through  years.  Two 
things  are  required — earnestness  and  love.  First  that  rare 
thing  earnestness — the  earnestness  which  looks  on  life  prac- 
tically. Some  of  the  wisest  of  the  race  have  been  men  Avho 
have  scarcely  stirred  beyond  home,  read  little,  felt  and 
thought  much.  "  Give  me,"  said  Solomon,  "  a  wise  and  un- 
derstanding heart."  A  heart  which  ponders  upon  life,  trying 
to  understand  its  mystery,  not  in  order  to  talk  about  it  like 
an  orator,  nor  in  order  to  theorize  about  it  like  a  philosopher; 
but  in  order  to  know  how  to  live  and  how  to  die. 

And,  besides  this,  love  is  required  for  wisdom — the  love 
which  opens  the  heart  and  makes  it  generous,  and  reveals  se« 
crets  deeper  than  prudence  or  political  economy  teaches; 
for  example,  "  It  is  more  blessed  to  give  than  to  receive." 
Prudence  did  not  calculate  that,  love  revealed  it.  Ko  man 
can  be  wise  without  love.  Prudent :  cunning :  yes ;  but  not 
wise.  Whoever  has  closed  his  heart  to  love  has  got  wisdom 
at  one  entrance  quite  shut  out.  A  large,  genial,  loving  heart 
— with  that  we  have  known  a  ploughman  wise ;  without  it 


The  Early  Development  of  Jesus.          359 

we  know  a  hundred  men  of  statesmanlike  sagacity  fools- 
profound,  but  not  wise.  There  was  a  man  who  pulled  down 
his  barns  and  built  greater,  a  most  sagacious  man,  getting  on 
in  life,  acquiring,  amassing,  and  all  for  self.  The  men  of  that 
generation  called  him,  no  doubt,  wise — God  said, "  Thou  fool.'3 
Speaking  humanly,  the  steps  by  which  the  wisdom  of  Jesus 
was  acquired  were  two. 

1.  The  habit  of  inquiry. 

2.  The  collision  of  mind  with  other  minds. 

Both  these  we  find  in  this  anecdote  :  His  parents  found 
Him  with  the  doctors  in  the  temple,  both  hearing  and  asking 
them  questions.  For  the  mind  of  man  left  to  itself  is  unpro- 
ductive: alone  in  the  wild  woods  he  becomes  a  savage. 
Taken  away  from  school  early,  and  sent  to  the  plough,  the 
country  boy  loses  by  degrees  that  which  distinguishes  him 
from  the  cattle  that  he  drives,  and  over  his  very  features  and 
looks  the  low  animal  expressions  creep.  Mind  is  necessary 
for  mind.  The  mediatorial  system  extends  through  all  God's 
dealings  with  us.  The  higher  man  is  the  mediator  between 
God  and  the  lower  man  :  only  through  man  can  man  receive 
development.  For  these  reasons,  we  call  this  event  aft  Jeru- 
salem a  crisis  or  turning-point  in  the  history  of  Him  who  was 
truly  man. 

He  had  come  from  Nazareth's  quiet  valley  and  green  slopes 
on  the  hillsides,  where  hill  and  valley,  and  cloud  and  wind, 
and  day  and  night,  had  nourished  His  child's  heart — from 
communion  with  minds  proverbially  low,  for  the  adage  was, 
"Can  any  good  thing  come  out  of  Nazareth?" — to  the  cap- 
ital of  His  country,  to  converse  with  the  highest  and  most 
cultivated  intellects.  He  had  many  a  question  to  ask,  and 
many  a  difficulty  to  solve.  As  for  instance,  such  as  this: 
How  could  the  religion  accredited  in  Jerusalem — a  religion 
of  long  prayers  and  church  services,  and  phylacteries,  and 
rigorous  sabbaths — be  reconciled  with  the  stern,  manly  right- 
eousness of  which  He  had  read  in  the  old  prophets :  a  right- 
eousness not  of  litany-makers,  but  of  men  with  swords  in  their 
hands  and  zeal  in  their  hearts,  setting  up  God's  kingdom  upon 
earth  ?  a  kingdom  of  truth,  and  justice,  and  realities — were 
they  bringing  in  that  kingdom? — And  if  not,  who  should? 
Such  questions  had  to  be  felt,  and  asked,  and  pondered  on. 
Thenceforth  we  say  therefore,  in  all  reverence,  dated  the  in- 
tellectual life  of  Jesus.  From  that  time  "  Jesus  increased 
in  wisdom" 

Not  that  they,  the  doctors  of  the  temple,  contributed  much. 
Those  ecclesiastical  pedants  had  not  much  to  tell  Him  that 
was  worth  the  telling.  They  were  thinking  about  theology. 


360  The  Early  Development  of  Jesus. 

He  about  religion.  They  about  rubrics  and  church  services, 
He  about  God  His  Father,  and  His  will.  And  yet  He  gained 
more  from  them  than  they  from  Him.  Have  we  never  ob- 
served that  the  deepest  revelations  of  ourselves  are  often 
made  to  us  by  trifling  remarks  met  with  here  and  there  in 
conversation  and  books,  sparks  which  set  a  whole  train  of 
thoughts  on  fire  ?  Nay,  that  a  false  view  given  by  an  inferior 
mind  has  led  us  to  a  true  one,  and  that  conversations  from 
which  we  had  expected  much  light,  turning  out  unsatisfac- 
torily, have  thrown  us  upon  ourselves  and  God,  and  so  be- 
come almost  the  birth-times  of  the  soul?  The  truth  is,  it  is 
not  the  amount  which  is  poured  in  that  gives  wisdom :  but 
the  amount  of  creative  mind  and  heart  working  on  and  stirred 
by  what  is  so  poured  in.  That  conversation  with  miserable 
priests  and  formalists  called  into  activity  the  One  Creative 
Mind  which  was  to  fertilize  the  whole  spiritual  life  of  man  to 
the  end  of  time :  and  Jesus  grew  in  wisdom  by  a  conversation 
with  pedants  of  the  law. 

What  Jerusalem  was  to  Him  a  town  life  is  to  us.  Knowl- 
edge develops  itself  in  the  heated  atmosphere  of  town  life. 
Where  men  meet,  and  thought  clashes  with  thought — where 
workmen  sit  round  a  board  at  work,  intellectual  irritability 
must  be  stirred  more  than  where  men  live  and  work  alone. 
The  march  of  mind,  as  they  call  it,  must  go  on.  Whatever 
evils  there  may  be  in  our  excited,  feverish,  modern  life,  it  is 
quite  certain  that  we  know  through  it  more  than  our  fore 
fathers  knew.  The  workman  knows  more  of  foreign  politics 
than  most  statesmen  knew  two  centuries  ago.  The  child  is 
versed  in  theological  questions  which  only  occupied  master- 
minds once.  But  the  question  is,  whether,  like  the  Divine 
Child  in  the  Temple,  we  are  turning  knowledge  into  wisdom, 
and  whether,  understanding  more  of  the  mysteries  of  life,  we 
are  feeling  more  of  its  sacred  law  ;  and  wrhether,  having  left 
behind  the  priests,  and  the  scribes,  and  the  doctors,  and  the 
fathers,  we  are  about  our  Father's  business,  and  becoming 
wise  to  God. 

HI.  Growth  in  grace — "  the  grace  of  God  was  upon  Him.75 
And  this  in  three  points : 

1.  The  exchange  of  an  earthly  for  a  heavenly  home. 

2.  Of  an  earthly  for  a  heavenly  parent. 

3.  The  reconciliation  of  domestic  duties. 

First  step :  Exchange  of  an  earthly  for  a  heavenly  home. 
Jesus  was  in  the  temple  for  the  first  time.  That  which  was 
dull  routine  to  others  through  dead  habit,  was  full  of  vivid 
impression,  fresh  life,  and  God  to  Him.  "  My  Father's  busi- 


The  Early  Development  of  Jesus.          36 1 

ness" — "My  Father's  house."  How  different  the  meaning 
of  these  expressions  now  from  what  it  had  been  before  !  Be- 
fore all  was  limited  to  the  cottage  of  the  carpenter :  now  it 
extended  to  the  temple.  He  had  felt  the  sanctities  of  a  new 
home.  In  after-life  the  phrase  which  He.  had  learned  by 
earthly  experience  obtained  a  divine  significance.  "In  my 
Father's  house  are  many  mansions." 

Our  first  life  is  spontaneous  and  instinctive.  Our  second 
life  is  reflective.  There  is  a  moment  when  the  life  sponta- 
neous passes  into  the  life  reflective.  We  live  at  first  by 
instinct;  then  we  look  in,  feel  ourselves,  ask  what  we  are 
and  whence  we  came,  and  whither  we  are  bound.  In  an 
awful  new  world  of  mystery,  and  destinies,  and  duties,  we 
feel  God,  and  know  that  our  true  home  is  our  Father's  house 
which  has  many  mansions. 

Those  are  fearful,  solitary  moments;  in  which  the  heart 
knoweth  its  own  bitterness,  and  a  stranger  intermeddleth 
not  with  its  joys.  Father — mother — can  not  share  these; 
and  to  share  is  to  intrude.  The  soul  first  meets  God  alone. 
So  with  Jacob  when  he  saw  the  dream-ladder:  so  with 
Samuel  when  the  voice  called  him:  so  with  Christ.  So 
with  every  son  of  man,  God  visits  the  soul  in  secrecy,  in 
silence,  and  in  solitariness.  And  the  danger  and  duty  of  a 
teacher  is  twofold.  1st.  To  avoid  hastening  that  feeling, 
hurrying  that  crisis-moment  which  some  call  conversion. 
2d.  To  avoid  crushing  it.  I  have  said  that  first  religion  is 
a  kind  of  instinct ;  and  if  a  child  does  not  exhibit  strong 
religious  sensibilities,  if  he  seem  "  heedless,  untouched  by  awe 
or  serious  thought,"  still  it  is  wiser  not  to  interfere.  He 
may  be  still  at  home  with  God :  he  may  be  worshipping  at 
home ;  as  has  been  said  with  not  less  truth  than  beauty,  he 
may  be 

"Lying  in  Abraham's  bosom  all  the  year, 
And  worship  at  the  temple's  inner  shrine," 

God  being  with  him  when  he  knew  it  not.  Very  mysterious, 
and  beautiful,  and  wonderful,  is  God's  communing  with  the 
unconscious  soul  before  reflection  comes.  The  second  cau- 
tion is  not  to  quench  the  feeling.  Joseph  and  the  Virgin 
chid  the  Child  for  His  absence :  *""  Why  hast  thou  dealt  so 
with  us  ?"  They  could  not  understand  His  altered  ways : 
His  neglect  of  apparent  duties :  His  indifference  to  usual 
pursuits.  They  mourned  over  the  change.  And  this  reminds 
us  of  the  way  in  which  affection's  voice  itself  ministers  to 
ruin.  When  God  comes  to  the  heart,  and  His  presence  is 
shown  by  thoughtfulness,  and  seriousness,  and  distaste  to 
common  business,  and  loneliness,  and  solitary  musings,  anrj 

IB 


362  The  Early  Development  of  Jesus. 

a  certain  tone  of  melancholy,  straightway  we  set  ourselves 
to  expostulate,  to  rebuke,  to  cheer,  to  prescribe  amusement 
and  gayeties,  as  the  cure  for  seriousness  which  seems  out  of 
place.  Some  of  us  have  seen  that  tried ;  and  more  fearful 
still,  seen  it  succeed.  And  we  have  seen  the  spirit  of  fri- 
volity and  thoughtlessness,  which  had  been  banished  for  a 
time,  come  back  again  with  seven  spirits  of  evil  more  mighty 
than  himself,  and  the  last  state  of  that  person  worse  than 
the  first.  And  we  have  watched  the  still  small  voice  of 
God  in  the  soul  silenced.  And  we  have  seen  the,  spirit  of 
the  world  get  its  victim  back  again  ;  and  incipient  goodness 
dried  up  like  morning  dew  upon  the  heart.  And  they  that 
loved  him  did  it — his  parents — his  teachers.  They  quenched 
the  smoking  flax,  and  turned  out  the  lamp  of  God  lighted 
in  the  soul ! 

The  last  step  was  reconciliation  to  domestic  duties.  He 
went  down  to  Nazareth,  and  was  subject  unto  them.  The 
first  step  in  spirituality  is  to  get  a  distaste  for  common  du- 
ties. There  is  a  time  when  creeds,  ceremonies,  services,  are 
distasteful ;  when  the  conventional  arrangements  of  society 
are  intolerable  burdens;  and  when,  aspiring  with  a  sense 
of  vague  longing  after  a  goodness  which  shall  be  immeasur- 
'able,  a  duty  which  shall  transcend  mere  law,  a  something 
which  we  can  not  put  in  words — all  restraints  of  rule  and 
habit  gall  the  spirit.  But  the  last  and  highest  step  in  spir- 
ituality is  made  in  feeling  these  common  duties  again  to  be 
divine  and  holy.  This  is  the  true  liberty  of  Christ,  when  a 
free  man  binds  himself  in  love  to  duty.  Not  in  shrinking 
from  our  distasteful  occupations,  but  in  fulfilling  them,  do 
we  realize  our  high  origin.  And  this  is  the  blessed,  second 
childhood  of  Christian  life.  All  the  several  stages  towards 
it  seem  to  be  shadowed  forth  -with  accurate  truthfulness  in 
the  narrative  of  the  Messiah's  infancy.  First  the  quiet,  un- 
pretending, unconscious  obedience  and  innocence  of  home. 
Then  the  crisis  of  inquiry :  new  strange  thoughts,  entrance 
upon  a  new  world,  hopeless  seeking  of  truth  from  those  who 
can  not  teach  it,  hearing  many  teachers  and  questioning  all : 
thence  bewilderment  and  bitterness,  loss  of  relish  for  former 
duties :  'and  small  consolation  to  a  man  in  knowing  that  he 
is  farther  oif  from  heaven  than  when  he  was  a  boy.  And 
then,  lastly,  the  true  reconciliation  and  atonement  of  our 
souls  to  God — a  second  springtide  of  life  —  a  second  faith 
deeper  than  that  of  childhood — not  instinctive  but  conscious 
trust — childlike  love  come  back  again — childlike  wonder — 
childlike  implicitness  of  obedience — only  deeper  than  child- 
hood ever  knew;  when  life  has  got  a  new  meaning,  when 


Christ's  Estimate  of  Sin.  363 

uold  things  are  passed  away,  and  all  things  are  become 
new;"  when  earth  has  become  irradiate  with  the  feeling  of 
our  Father's  business  and  our  Father's  home. 


CHRIST'S  ESTIMATE  OF  SIN. 

"The  Son  of  Man  is  come  to  seek  and  to  save  that  which  was  lost."—" 
Luke  xix.  10. 

THESE  words  occur  in  the  history  which  tells  of  the  re- 
covery of  Zaccheus  from  a  life  of  worldliness  to  the  life  of 
God.  Zaccheus  was  a  publican ;  and  the  publicans  were 
outcasts  among  the  Jews,  because,  having  accepted  the 
office  under  the  Roman  government  of  collecting  the  taxes 
imposed  by  Rome  upon  their  brethren,  they  were  regarded 
as  traitors  to  the  cause  of  Israel.  Reckoned  a  degraded 
class,  they  became  degraded.  It  is  hard  for  any  man  to  live 
above  the  moral  standard  acknowledged  by  his  own  class; 
and  the  moral  standard  of  the  publican  was  as  low  as  possible. 
The  first  step  downward  is  to  sink  in  the  estimation  of  others 
— the  next  and  fatal  step  is  to  sink  in  a  man's  own  estima- 
tion. The  value  of  character  is  that  it  pledges  men  to  be 
what  they  are  taken  for.  It  is  a  fearful  thing  to  have  no 
character  to  support  —  nothing  to  fall  back  upon  —  nothing 
to  keep  a  man  up  to  himself.  Now  the  publicans  had  no 
character. 

Into  the  house  of  one  of  these  outcasts  the  Son  of  Man 
had  entered.  It  was  quite  certain  that  such  an  act  would  be 
commented  upon  severely  by  people  who  called  themselves 
religious :  it  would  seem  to  them  scandalous,  an  outrage 
upon  decency,  a  defiance  to  every  rule  of  respectability  and 
decorum.  No  pious  Israelite  would  be  seen  holding  equal 
intercourse  with  a  publican.  In  anticipation  of  such  remarks, 
before  there  was  time  perhaps  to  make  them,  Jesus  spoke 
these  words :  "  The  Son  of  Man  is  come  to  seek  and  to  save 
that  which  was  lost."  They  exhibit  the  peculiar  aspect  in 
which  the  Redeemer  contemplated  sin. 

There  are  two  ways  of  looking  at  sin.  One  is  the  severe 
view :  it  makes  no  allowance  for  frailty — it  will  not  hear  of 
temptation,  nor  distinguish  between  circumstances.  Men 
who  judge  in  this  way  shut  their  eyes  to  all  but  two  objects 
—a  plain  law,  and  a  transgression  of  that  law.  There  is  no 


364  Christ's  Estimate  of  Sin. 

more  to  be  said :  let  the  law  take  its  course.  Now  if  thig 
be  the  right  view  of  sin,  there  4s  abundance  of  room  left  for 
admiring  what  is  good,  and  honorable,  and  upright :  there  is 
positively  no  room  provided  for  restoration.  Happy  if  you 
have  done  well ;  but  if  ill,  then  nothing  is  before  you  but 
judgment  and  fiery  indignation. 

The  other  view  is  one  of  laxity  and  false  liberalism.  When 
such  men  speak,  prepare  yourself  to  hear  liberal  judgments 
and  lenient  ones:  a  great" deal  about  human  weakness,  error 
in  judgment,  mistakes,  an  unfortunate  constitution,  on  which 
the  chief  blame  of  sin  is  to  rest — a  good  heart.  All  well  if 
we  wanted,  in  this  mysterious  struggle  of  a  life,  only  conso- 
lation. But  we  want  far  beyond  comfort — goodness ;  and  to 
be  merely  made  easy  when  we  have  done  wrong  will  not  help 
us  to  that ! 

Distinct  from  both  of  these  was  Christ's  view  of  guilt. 
His  standard  of  right  was  high — higher  than  ever  man  had 
placed  it  before.  Not  moral  excellence,  but  heavenly,  He  de- 
manded. "  Except  your  righteousness  shall  exceed  the  right- 
eousness of  the  Scribes  and" Pharisees,  ye  shall  in  no  case  en- 
ter into  the  kingdom  of  heaven."  Read  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount.  It  tells  of  a  purity  as  of  snow  resting  on  an  Alpine 
pinnacle,  white  in  the  blue  holiness  of  heaven ;  and  yet  also, 
He  the  All-pure  had  tenderness  for  what  was  not  pure.  He 
•who  stood  in  divine  uprightness  that  never  faltered,  felt  com- 
passion for  the  ruined,  and  infinite  gentleness  for  human  fall. 
Broken,  disappointed,  doubting  hearts,  in  dismay  and  bewil- 
derment, never  looked  in  vain  to  Him.  Very  strange,  if  we 
stop  to  think  of  it,  instead  of  repeating  it  as  a  matter  of 
course.  For  generally  human  goodness  repels  from  it  evil 
men:  they  shun  the  society  and  presence  of  men  reputed 
good,  as  owls  fly  from  light.  But  here  was  purity  attracting 
evil ;  that  was  the  wonder.  Harlots  and  wretches  steeped  in 
infamy  gathered  round  Him.  No  wonder  the  purblind  Phar- 
isees thought  there  must  be  something  in  Him  like  such  sin- 
ners which  drew  them  so.  Like  draws  to  like.  If  He  chose 
their  society  before  that  of  the  Pharisee,  was  it  not  because 
of  some  congeniality  in  evil  ?  But  they  did  crowd  His  steps, 
and  that  because  they  saw  a  hope  opened  out  in  a  hopeless 
world  for  fallen  spirits  and  broken  hearts,  ay,  and  seared 
hearts.  The  Son  of  Man  was  forever  standing  among  the 
lost,  and  His  ever  predominant  feelings  were  sadness  for  the 
evil  in  human  nature,  hope  for  the  divine  good  in  it,  and  the 
divine  image  never  worn  out  wholly. 

I  perceive  in  this  description  three  peculiarities,  distin 
guishing  Christ  from  ordinary  men. 


Christ's  Estimate  of  Sin  365 

I.  A  peculiarity  in  the  constitution  of  the  Redeemer's 
moral  nature. 

II.  A  peculiarity  in  the  objects  of  His  solicitude. 
III.  A  peculiarity  in  His  way  of  treating  guilt. 

I.  In  His  moral  constitution.  Manifested  in  that  peculiar 
title  which  he  assumed — The  Son  of  Man.  Let  us  see  what 
that  implies. 

1.  It  implies  fairly  His  divine  origin :  for  it  is  an  emphatic 
expression,  and,  as  we  may  so  say,  an  unnatural  one.     Im- 
agine an  apostle,  St.  Paul  or  St.  John,  insisting  upon  it  per- 
petually that  he  himself  was  human.     It  would  almost  pro- 
voke a  smile  to  hear  either  of  them  averring  and  affirming, 
I  am  a  son  of  man  :  it  would  be  unnatural,  the  affectation  of 
condescension  would  be   intolerable.      Therefore,  when  we 
hear  these  words  from  Christ,  we  are  compelled  to  think  of 
them  as  contrasted  with  a  higher  nature.     None  could  with- 
out presumption  remind  men  that  He  was  their  brother  and 
a  Son  of  Man,  except  One  who  was  also  something  higher, 
even  the  Son  of  God. 

2.  It  implies  the  catholicity  of  His  brotherhood. 

Nothing  in  the  judgment  of  historians  stands  out  so  sharp- 
ly distinct  as  race — national  character:  nothing  is  more  in- 
effaceable. The  Hebrew  was  marked  from  all  mankind.  The 
Roman  was  perfectly  distinct  from  the  Grecian  character; 
as  markedly  different  as  the  rough  English  truthfulness  is 
from  Celtic  brilliancy  of  talent.  Now  these  peculiar  nation- 
alities are  seldom  combined.  You  rarely  find  the  stern,  old 
Jewish  sense  of  holiness  going  together  with  the  Athenian 
sensitiveness  of  what  is  beautiful.  Not  often  do  you  find 
together  severe  truth  and  refined  tenderness.  Brilliancy 
seems  opposed  to  perseverance.  Exquisiteness  of  taste  com- 
monly goes  along  with  a  certain  amount  of  untruthfulness. 
By  humanity,  as  a  whole,  we  mean  the  aggregate  of  all  these 
separate  excellences.  Only  in  two  places  are  they  all  found 
together — in  the  universal  human  race  ;  and  in  Jesus  Christ. 
He  having,  as  it  were,  a  whole  humanity  in  Himself,  com- 
bines them  all. 

Now  this  is  the  universality  of  the  nature  of  Jesus  Christ. 
There  was  in  Him  no  national  peculiarity  or  individual  idio- 
syncrasy. He  was  not  the  Son  of  the  Jew,  nor  the  Son  of 
the  carpenter ;  nor  the  offspring  of  the  modes  of  living  and 
thinking  of  that  particular  century.  He  was  the  Son  of  Man. 
Once  in  the  world's  history  was  born  a  MAN.  Once  in  the 
roll  of  ages,  out  of  innumerable  failures,  from  the  stock  of 
human  nature,  one  bud  developed  itself  into  a  faultless  flow- 


366  Chrisfs  Estimate  of  Sin. 

er.  One  perfect  specimen  of  humanity  has  God  exhibited  on 
earth. 

The  best  and  most  catholic  of  Englishmen  has  his  preju- 
dices. All  the  world  over,  our  greatest  writer  would  be  rec- 
ognized as  having  the  English  cast  of  thought.  The  pattern 
Jew  would  seem  Jewish  everywhere  but  in  Judea.  Take 
Abraham,  St.  John,  St.  Paul,  place  them  where  you  will,  in 
China  or  in  Peru,  they  are  Hebrews :  they  could  not  com- 
in  and  all  sympathies:  their  life  could  not  be  imitable  except 
in  part.  They  are  foreigners  in  every  land,  and  out  of  place 
in  every  country  but  their  own.  But  Christ  is  the  King  of 
men,  and  "  draws  all  men,"  because  all  character  is  in  Him, 
separate  from  nationalities  and  limitations.  As  if  the  life- 
blood  of  every  nation  were  in  His  veins,  and  that  which  is 
best  and  truest  in  every  man,  and  that  which  is  tenderest, 
and  gentlest,  and  purest  in  every  woman,  were  in  His  char- 
acter. He  is  emphatically  the  Son  of  Man. 

Out  of  this  arose  two  powers  of  His  sacred  humanity — the 
universality  of  His  sympathies,  and  their  intense  particular 
personality. 

The  universality  of  His  sympathies  :  for,  compare  Him 
with  any  one  of  the  sacred  characters  of  Scripture.  You 
know  how  intensely  national  they  were  in  their  sympathies, 
.priests,  prophets,  and  apostles:  for  example,  the  apostles 
"marvelled  that  He  spake  with  a  woman  of  Samaria:" — just 
before  His  resurrection,  their  largest  charity  had  not  reached 
beyond  this,  "  Lord,  wilt  thou  at  this  time  restore  the  king- 
dom unto  Israel?"  Or,  to  come  down  to  modern  times, 
when  His  spirit  has  been  moulding  men's  ways  of  thought 
for  many  ages : — now,  when  we  talk  of  our  philanthropy  and 
catholic  liberality,  here  in  Christian  England,  we  have  scarce- 
ly any  fellow-feeling,  true  and  genuine,  with  other  nations, 
other  churches,  other  parties,  than  our  own  :  we  care  nothing 
for  Italian  or  Hungarian  struggles ;  we  think  of  Romanists  as 
the  Jew  thought  of  Gentiles ;  we  speak  of  German  Protest- 
ants in  the  same  proud,  wicked,  self-sufficient  way  in  which 
the  Jew  spoke  of  Samaritans. 

Unless  we  bring  such  matters  home,  and  away  from  vague 
generalities,  and  consider  what  we  and  aJl  men  are,  or  rather 
are  not,  we  can  not  comprehend  with  due  wonder  the  mighty 
sympathies  of  the  heart  of  Christ.  Kone  of  the  miserable 
antipathies  that  fence  us  from  all  the  world,  bounded  the  out- 
goings of  that  love,  broad  and  deep  and  wide  as  the  heart 
of  God.  Wherever  the  mysterious  pulse  of  human  life  waa 
beating,  wherever  aught  human  was  in  struggle,  there  to  Him 
was  a  thing  not  common  or  unclean,  but  cleansed  by  God  and 


Christ's  Estimate  of  Sin.  367 

Bacred.  Compare  the  daily,  almost  indispensable  language 
of  our  life  with  His  spirit.  "  Common  people  ?" — Point  us 
out  the  passage  where  He  called  any  people  that  God  His  Fa- 
ther made,  common  ?  "  Lower  orders  ?" — Tell  us  when  and 
where  He,  whose  home  was  the  workshop  of  the  carpenter, 
authorized  you  or  me  to  know  any  man  after  the  flesh  as  low 
or  high  ?  To  Him  who  called  Himself  the  Son  of  Man,  the 
link  was  manhood.  And  that  he  could  discern  even  when  it 
was  marred.  Even  in  outcasts  His  eye  could  recognize  the 
sanctities  of  a  nature  human  still.  Even  in  the  harlot  "  one 
of  Eve's  family  :" — a  "  son  of  Abraham  "  even  in  Zaccheus. 

Once  more,  out  of  that  universal,  catholic  nature  rose 
another  power — the  power  of  intense,  particular,  personal  af- 
fections. He  was  the  Brother  and  Saviour  of  the  human 
race ;  but  this  because  He  was  the  Brother  and  Saviour  of 
every  separate  man  in  it. 

Now  it  is  very  easy  to  feel  great  affection  for  a  country  as 
a  whole ;  to  have,  for  instance,  great  sympathies  for  Poland, 
or  Ireland,  or  America,  and  yet  not  care  a  whit  for  any  single 
man  in  Poland,  and  to  have  strong  antipathies  to  every  sin- 
gle individual  American.  Easy  to  be  a  warm  lover  of  Eng- 
land, and  yet  not  love  one  living  Englishman.  Easy  to  set  a 
great  value  on  a  flock  of  sheep,  and  yet  have  no  particular  care 
for  any  one  sheep  or  lamb.  If  it  were  killed,  another  of  the 
same  species  might  replace  it.  Easy  to  have  fine,  large,  liberal 
views  about  the  working  classes,  or  the  emancipation  of  the 
negroes,  and  yet  never  have  done  a  loving  act  to  one.  Easy 
to  "be  a  great  philanthropist,  and  yet  have  no  strong  friend- 
ships, no  deep  personal  attachments. 

For  the  idea  of  an  universal  manlike  sympathy  was  not  new 
when  Christ  was  born.  The  reality  was  new.  But  before 
this,  in  the  Roman  theatre,  deafening  applause  was  called 
forth  by  this  sentence,  "  I  am  a  man — nothing  that  can  affect 
man  is  indifferent  to  me."  A  fine  sentiment — that  was  all. 
Every  pretense  of  realizing  that  sentiment,  except  one,  has  been 
a  failure.  One  and  but  One  has  succeeded  in  loving  man  :  and 
that  by  loving  men.  No  sublime  high-sounding  language  in 
His  lips  about  "  educating  the  masses,"  or  "  elevating  the 
people."  The  charlatanry  of  our  modern  sentiment  had  not 
appeared  then :  it  is  but  the  parody  of  His  love. 

What  was  His  mode  of  sympathy  with  men  ?  He  did  not 
sit  down  to  philosophize  about  the  progress  of  the  species,  or 
dream  about  a  millennium.  He  gathered  round  Him  twelve 
men.  He  formed  one  friendship,  special,  concentrated,  deep. 
He  did  not  give  himself  out  as  the  leader  of  the  publican's 
cause,  or  the  champion  of  the  rights  of  the  dangerou! 


368  Christ's  Estimate  of  Sin. 

classes ;  but  He  associated  with  Himself  Matthew,  a  publican 
called  from  the  detested  receipt  of  custom.  He  went  into 
the  bouse  of  Zaccheus,  and  treated  him  like  a  fellow-creature 
— a  brother,  and  a  son  of  Abraham.  His  catholicity  or  phi- 
lanthropy was  not  an  abstraction,  but  an  aggregate  of  person* 
al  attachments. 

IL  Peculiarity  in  the  objects  of  Christ's  solicitude. 

He  had  come  to  seek  and  to  save  the  "  lost."  The  world 
is  lost,  and  Christ  came  to  save  the  world.  But  by  the  lost 
in  this  place  He  does  not  mean  the  world ;  He  means  a  spe 
cial  class,  lost  in  a  more  than  common  sense,  as  sheep  are  lost 
which  have  strayed  from  the  flock,  and  wandered  far  beyond 
all  their  fellows  scattered  in  the  wilderness. 

Some  men  are  lost  by  the  force  of  their  own  passions,  as 
Balaam  was  by  love  of  gold :  as  Saul  was  by  self-will,  ending 
in  jealousy,  and  pride  darkened  into  madness  :  as  Hainan  was 
by  envy  indulged  and  brooded  on:  as  the  harlots  were, 
through  feelings  pure  and  high  at  first,  inverted  and  pervert- 
ed :  as  Judas  was  by  secret  dishonesty,  undetected  in  its  first 
beginnings,  the  worst  misfortune  that  can  befall  a  tendency 
to  a  false  life.  And  others  are  lost  by  the  entanglement  of 
outward  circumstances,  Avhich  make  escape,  humanly  speak- 
ing, impossible.  Such  were  the  publicans  :  men  forced,  like 
executioners,  into  degradation.  An  honest  publican,  or  a 
holy  executioner,  would  be  miracles  to  marvel  at.  And  some 
are  lost  by  the  laws  of  society,  which  while  defending  society 
have  no  mercy  for  its  outcasts,  and  forbid  their  return,  fallen 
once,  forever. 

Society  has  power  to  bind  on  earth ;  and  what  it  binds  is 
bound  upon  the  soul  indeed.  For  a  man  or  woman  who  has 
lost  self-respect  is  lost  indeed. 

And  oh  !  the  untold  world  of  agony  contained  in  that  ex- 
pression— "  a  lost  soul !"  agony  exactly  in  proportion  to  the 
nobleness  of  original  powers.  For  it  is  a  strange  and  mourn- 
ful truth,  that  the  qualities  which  enable  men  to  shine  are 
exactly  those  which  minister  to  the  worst  ruin.  God's  high- 
est gifts — talent,  beauty,  feeling,  imagination,  power :  they 
carry  with  them  the  possibility  of  the  highest  heaven  and  the 
lowest  hell.  Be  sure  that  it  is  by  that  which  is  highest  in 
you  that  you  may  be  lost.  It  is  the  awful  warning,  and  net 
the  excuse  of  evil,  that  the  light  which  leads  astray  is  ligl.t 
from  heaven.  The  shallow  fishing-boat  glides  safely  over  the 
reefs  where  the  noble  bark  strands :  it  is  the  very  might  and 
majesty  of  her  career  that  bury  the  sharp  rock  deeper  in  hei 
bosom.  There  are  thousands  who  are  not  lost  (l*ke  the  ro 


Christ's  Estimate  of  Sin.  369 

gpectable  Pharisees),  because  they  had  no  impetuous  impulses, 
no  passion,  no  strong  enthusiasm,  by  the  perversion  of  which 
they  could  be  lost. 

Now  this  will  explain  to  us  what  there  was  in  these  lost 
ones  which  left  a  hope  for  their  salvation,  and  which  Jesus 
saw  in  them  to  seek  and  save.  Outwardly  men  saw  a  crust 
of  black  scowling  impenitence.  Reprobates  they  called  them. 
Below  that  outward  crust  ran  a  hot  lava-stream  of  anguish: 
What  was  that  ?  The  coward  fear  of  hell  ?  Nay,  hardened 
men  defy  hell.  The  anguish  of  the  lost  ones  of  this  world  is 
not  fear  of  punishment.  It  was,  and  is,  the  misery  of  having 
quenched  a  light  brighter  than  the  sun  :  'the  intolerable  sense 
of  being  sunk :  the  remorse  of  knowing  that  they  were  not 
what  they  might  have  been.  And  He  saw  that :  He  knew 
that  it  was  the  germ  of  life  which  God's  spirit  could  develop 
into  salvation. 

It  was  His  work  and  His  desire  to  save  such,  and  in  this 
world  a  new  and  strange  solicitude  it  was,  for  the  world  had 
seen  before  nothing  like  it. 

Not  half  a  century  ago  a  great  man  was  seen  stooping  and 
working  in  a  charnel-house  of  bones.  Uncouth,  nameless 
fragments  lay  around  him,  which  the  workmen  had  dug  up 
and  thrown  aside  as  rubbish.  They  belonged  to  some  far- 
back  age,  and  no  man  knew  what  they  were  or  whence.  Few 
men  cared.  The  world  was  merry  at  the  sight  of  a  philoso- 
pher groping  among  mouldy  bones.  But  when  that  creative 
mind,  reverently  discerning  the  fontal  types  of  living  being 
in  diverse  shapes,  brought  together  those  strange  fragments, 
bone  to  bone,  and  rib  to  claw,  and  tooth  to  its  own  corre- 
sponding vertebrae,  recombining  the  wondrous  forms  of  pjut 
ages,  and  presenting  each  to  the  astonished  world  as  it 
moved  and  lived  a  hundred  thousand  ages  back,  then  men 
began  to  perceive  that  a  new  science  had  begun  on  earth. 

And  such  was  the  work  of  Christ.  They  saw  Him  at  work 
among  the  fragments  and  mouldering  wreck  of  our  humanity, 
and  sneered.  But  He  took  the  dry  bones  such  as  Ezekirl 
saw  in  vision,  which  no  man  thought  could  live,  and  He 
breathed  into  them  the  breath  of  life.  He  took  the  scattered 
fragments  of  our  ruined  nature,  interpreted  their  meaning, 
showed  the  original  intent  of  those  powers,  which  were  now 
destructive  only,  drew  out  from  publicans  and  sinners  yearn- 
ings which  were  incomprehensible,  and  feelings  which  were 
misunderstood,  vindicated  the  beauty  of  the  original  inten- 
tion, showed  the  Divine  Ordej  below  the  chaos,  exhibited  to 
the  world  once  more  a  human  soul  in  the  form  in  which  GocJ 
had  made  it.  saying  to  the  dry  bones  "  Live  I" 

16* 


370  Christ's  Estimate  of  Sin. 

Only  what  in  the  great  foreigner  was  a  taste,  in  Christ  was 
love.  In  the  one  the  gratification  of  an  enlightened  curiosi- 
ty :  in  the  other  the  gratification  of  a  sublime  affection.  In 
the  philosopher  it  was  a  longing  to  restore  and.  reproduce 
the  past.  In  Christ  a  hope  for  the  future — "  to  seek  and  to 
save  that  which  was  lost." 

Ill,  A  peculiarity  in  His  mode  of  treatment.  How  were 
these  lost  ones  to  be  restored  ?  The  human  plans  are  reducible 
to  three.  Governments  have  tried  chastisement  for  the  rec- 
lamation of  offenders.  For  ages  that  was  the  only  expedi- 
ent known  either  to  Church  or  State.  Time  has  written 
upon  it  failure.  I  do  not  say  that  penal  severity  is  not  need- 
ful. Perhaps  it  is,  for  protection,  and  for  the  salutary  ex- 
pression of  indignation  against  certain  forms  of  evil.  But  as 
a  system  of  reclamation  it  has  failed.  Did  the  rack  ever  re- 
claim in  heart  one  heretic  ?  Did  the  scaffold  ever  soften  one 
felon  ?  One  universal  fact  of  history  replies :  where  the 
penal  code  was  most  sanguinary,  and  when  punishments 
were  most  numerous,  crime  was  most  abundant. 

Again,  society  has  tried  exclusion  for  life.  I  do  not  pre- 
tend to  say  that  it  may  not  be  needful.  It  may  be  necessary 
to  protect  your  social  purity  by  banishing  offenders  of  a  cer- 
tain sort  forever.  I  only  say  for  recovery  it  is  a  failure. 
Whoever  knew  one  case  where  the  ban  of  exclusion  was 
hopeless,  and  the  shame  of  that  exclusion  reformed  ?  Did 
we  ever  hear  of  a  fallen  creature  made  moral  by  despair  ? 
Name,  if  you  can,  the  publican  or  the  harlot  in  any  age 
brought  back  to  goodness  by  a  Pharisee,  or  by  the  system 
of  a  Pharisee. 

And  once  more,  some  governors  have  tried  the  system  of 
indiscriminate  lenity :  they  forgave  great  criminals,  trusting 
all  the  future  to  gratitude :  they  passed  over  great  sins,  they 
sent  away  the  ringleaders  of  rebellion  with  honors  heaped 
upon  them:  they  thought  this  was  the  Gospel:  they  expect- 
ed dramatic  emotion  to  work  wonders.  How  far  this  miser- 
able system  has  succeeded,  let  those  tell  us  wrho  have  studied 
the  history  of  our  South  African  colonies  for  the  last  twenty 
years.  We  were  tired  of  cruelty — we  tried  sentiment — we 
trusted  to  feeling.  Feeling  failed :  we  only  made  hypo- 
crites, and  encouraged  rebellion  by  impunity.  Inexorable 
severity,  rigorous  banishment,  indiscriminate  and  mere  for- 
givingness — all  are  failures. 

In  Christ's  treatment  of  guilt  we  find  three  peculiarities: 
Sympathy,  holiness,  firmness. 

1.  By  human  sympathy.     In  the  treatment  of  Zaccheui 


Christ 's  Estimate  of  Sin.  371 

this  was  almost  all  We  read  of  almost  nothing  else  as  the 
instrument  of  that  wonderful  reclamation.  One  thing  only, 
Christ  went  to  his  house  self-invited.  But  that  one  was  ev- 
ery thing.  Consider  it — Zaccheus  was,  if  he  were  like  othei 
publicans,  a  hard  and  hardened  man.  He  felt  people  shrink 
from  him  in  the  streets.  He  lay  under  an  imputation  :  and 
we  know  how  that  feeling  of  being  universally  suspected 
and  misinterpreted  makes  a  man  bitter,  sarcastic,  and  de 
fiant.  And  so  the  outcast  would  go  home,  look  at  his  gold 
rejoice  in  the  revenge  he  could  take  by  false  accusations 
felt  a  pride  in  knowing  that  they  might  hate,  but  could  not 
help  fearing  him :  scorned  the  world,  and  shut  up  his  heart 
against  it. 

At  last,  one  whom  all  men  thronged  to  see,  and  all  men 
honored,  or  seemed  to  honor,  came  to  him,  offered  to  go  home 
and  sup  with  him.  For  the  first  time  for  many  years  Zac- 
cheus felt  that  he  was  not  despised,  and  the  floodgates  of 
that  avaricious,  shut  heart  were  opened  in  a  tide  oi  love  and 
generosity.'  "  Behold,  Lord,  the  half  of  my  goods  I  give  to 
the  poor ;  and  if  I  have  taken  any  thing  from  any  man  by 
false  accusation,  I  restore  him  fourfold."  He  was  reclaimed 
to  human  feeling  by  being  taught  that  he  was  a  man  still ; 
recognized  and  treated  like  a  man.  A  Son  of  Man  had  come 
to  "  seek  "  him — the  lost. 

2.  By  the  exhibition  of  Divine  holiness. 

The  holiness  of  Christ  differed  from  all  earthly,  common, 
vulgar  holiness.  Wherever  it  was,  it  elicited  a  sense  of  sin- 
fulness  and  imperfection.  Just  as  the  purest  cut  crystal  of 
the  rock  looks  dim  beside  the  diamond,  so  the  best  men  felt 
a  sense  of  guilt  growing  distinct  upon  their  souls.  When 
the  Anointed  of  God  came  near,  "  Depart  from  me,"  said  the 
bravest  and  truest  of  them  all,  "for  I  am  a  sinful  man,  O 
Lord." 

But  at  the  same  time  the  holiness  of  Christ  did  not  awe 
men  away  from  Him,  nor  repel  them.  It  inspired  them  with 
hope.  It  was  not  that  vulgar  unapproachable  sanctity  which 
makes  men  awkward  in  its  presence,  and  stands  aloof.  Its 
peculiar  characteristic  was  that  it  made  men  enamored  of 
goodness.  It  "  drew  all  men  unto  Him."  This  is  the  differ 
ence  between  greatness  that  is  first-rate  and  greatness  which 
is  second-rate  —  between  heavenly  and  earthly  goodness. 
The  second-rate  and  the  earthly  draws  admiratipn  on  itself. 
You  say,  "  how  great  an  act — how  good  a  man  !"  The  first- 
rate  and  the  heavenly  imparts  itself — inspires  a  spirit.  You 
feel  a  kindred  something  in  you  that  rises  up  to  meet  it, 
and  draws  you  out  of  yourself,  making  you  better  than  you 


372  The  Sanctification  of  Christ. 

were  before,  and  opening  out  the  infinite  possibilities  of  yoal 
life  and  soul. 

And  such  pre-eminently  was  the  holiness  of  Christ.  Had 
some  earthly  great  or  good  one  come  to  Zaccheus's  house,  a 
prince  or  a  nobleman,  his  feeling  would  have  been,  What 
condescension  is  there  !  But  when  He  came  whose  every 
^word  and  act  had  in  it  life  and  power,  no  such  barren  reflec- 
iii:>n  was  the  result:  but  instead,  the  beauty  of  holiness  had 
become  a  power  within  him,  and  a  longing  for  self-consecra- 
tion. "  Behold,  Lord,  the  half  of  my  goods  I  give  to  the 
poor:  and  if  I  have  taken  any  thing  from  any  man  by  false 
accusation,  I  restore  him  fourfold." 

By  Divine  sympathy,  and  by  the  Divine  Image  exhibited 
in  the  speaking  act  of  Christ,  the  lost  was  sought  and  saved. 
He  was  saved,  as  alone  all  fallen  men  can  be  saved.  "  Be- 
holding as  in  a  glass  the  glory  of  the  Lord,  he  was  changed 
into  the  same  image.''  And  this  is  the  very  essence  of  the 
Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ.  We  are  redeemed  by  the  life  of  God 
without  us,  manifested  in  the  person  of  Christ,  kindling  into 
flame  the  life  of  God  that  is  within  us.  Without  Him  we 
can  do  nothing.  Without  Him  the  warmth  that  was  in 
Zaccheus's  heart  would  have  smouldered  uselessly  away. 
Through  Him  it  became  life  and  light,  and  the  lost  was 
saved. 


XVI. 
THE  SANCTIFICATION  OF  CHRIST. 

"And  for  their  sakes'I  sanctify  myself,  that  they  also  might  be  sanctified 
through  the  truth." — John  xvii.  19. 

THE  prayer  in  which  these  words  occur  is  given  to  us  by 
the  Apostle  John  alone.  Perhaps  only  St.  John  could  give 
it,  for  it  belongs  to  the  peculiar  province  of  his  revelation. 
He  presents  us  with  more  of  the  heart  of  Christ  than  the 
other  apostles:  with  less  of  the  outward  manifestations.  He 
gives  us  more  conversations,  fewer  miracles :  more  of  the  in 
ner  life,  more  of  what  Christ  was,  less  of  what  Christ  did. 

St.  John's  mind  was  not  argumentative,  but  intuitive 
There  are  two  ways  of  reaching  truth :  by  reasoning  it  out 
and  by  feeling  it  out.  All  the  profoundest  truths  are  felt 
out.  The  deep  glances  into  truth  are  got  by  love.  Love  a 
man,  that  is  the  best  way  of  understanding  him.  Feel  a 
truth,  that  is  the  only  way  of  comprehending  it. 


The  Sane tification  of  Christ.  373 

Not  that  you  can  put  your  sense  of  such  truths  into  words 
in  the  shape  of  accurate  maxims  or  doctrines :  but  the  truth 
is  reached,  notwithstanding.* 

Now  St.  John  felt  out  truth.  He  understood  his  Lord  by 
loving  him.  You  find  no  long  trains  of  argument  in  St. 
John's  writings :  an  atmosphere  of  contemplation  pervades 
all.  Brief,  full  sentences,  glowing  with  imagery  of  which 
the  mere  prose  intellect  makes  nonsense,  and  which  a  warm 
.heart  alone  interprets,  that  is  the  character  of  his  writing  •. 
very  different  from  the  other  apostles'.  St.  Peter's  knowl- 
edge  of  Christ  was  formed  by  impetuous  mistakes,  corrected 
slowly  and  severely.  St.  Paul's  Christianity  was  formed  by 
principles  wrought  out  glowing  hot,  as  a  smith  hammers  out 
ductile  iron,  in  hk  unresting,  earnest  fire  of  thought,  where 
the  Spirit  dwelt  in  warmth  and  light  forever,  kindling  the 
Divine  fire  of  inspiration.  St.  John  and  St.  John's  Christian- 
ity were  formed  by  personal  view  of  Christ,  by  intercourse 
with  Him,  and  by  silent  contemplation.  Slowly,  month  by 
month  and  year  by  year,  he  gazed  on  Christ  in  silence  and 
thoughtful  adoration  :  "  reflecting  as  from  a  glass  the  glory 
of  the  Lord,"  he  became  like  Him — caught  His  tones,  His 
modes  of  thought,  His  very  expressions,  and  became  partaker 
of  His  inward  life.  A  "  Christ  was  formed* in  him." 

Hence  it  was  that  this  prayer  was  revealed  to  St.  John 
alone  of  the  apostles,  and  by  him  alone  recorded  for  us. 
The  Saviour's  mind  touched  his :  through  secret  sympathy 
he  was  inspired  with  the  mystic  consciousness  of  what  had 
passed  and  what  was  passing  in  the  deeps  of  the  soul  of 
Christ.  Its  secret  longings  and  its  deepest  struggles  were 
known  to  John  alone. 

This  particular  sentence  in  the  prayer  which  I  have  taken 
for  the  text  was  peculiarly  after  the  heart  of  the  Apostle 
John.  For  I  have  said  that  to  him  the  true  life  of  Christ 
was  rather  the  inner  life  than  the  outward  acts  of  life.  Now 
this  sentence  from  the  lips  of  Jesus  speaks  of  the  atoning 
sacrifice  as  an  inward  mental  act  rather  than  as  an  outward 
deed  :  a  self-consecration  wrought  out  in  the  will  of  Christ. 
For  their  sakes  I  am  sanctifying  myself.  That  is  a  resolve— 
a  secret  of  the  inner  life.  No  wonder  that  it  was  recorded 
by  St.  John.  The  text  has  two  parts. 

I.  The  sanctification  of  Jesus  Christ. 
II.  The  sanctification  of  His  people. 

I.  Christ's  sanctification   of  himself.     "  For  their  sakes  I 
sanctify  myself,  that  they  also  might  be  sanctified  through 
*  Compare  1  Cor.  ii.  15,  16. 


374  The  Sanctification  of  Christ. 

the  truth."  We  must  explain  this  word  "  sanctify  ;"  upon  it 
the  whole  meaning  turns.  Clearly  it  has  not  the  ordinary 
popular  sense  here  of  making  holy.  Christ  was  holy.  H« 
could  not  by  an  inward  effort  or  struggle  makt  Himself 
holy,  for  He  was  that  already.  Let  us  trace  the  history  of 
the  word  "  sanctity  "  in  the  early  pages  of  the  Jewish  his- 
tory. 

When  the  destroying  angel  smote  the  first-born  of  the 
Egyptian  families,  the  symbolic  blood  on  the  lintel  of  every 
Hebrew  house  protected  the  eldest  born  from  the  plague  of 
death.  In  consequence,  a  law  of  Moses  viewed  every  eldest 
son  in  a  peculiar  light.  He  was  reckoned  as  a  thing  devoted 
to  the  Lord — redeemed,  and  therefore  set  apart.  The  word 
used  to  express  this  devotion  is  sanctify.  "The  Lord  said 
unto  Moses,  Sanctify  unto  me  all  the  first-born,  whatsoever 
openeth  the  womb  among  the  children  of  Israel,  both  of 
man  and  of  beast :  it  is  mine."  By  a  subsequent  arrange- 
ment these  first-born  were  exchanged  for  the  Levites.  In- 
stead of  the  eldest  son  in  each  family,  a  whole  tribe  was 
taken,  and  reckoned  as  set  apart  and  devoted  to  Jehovah, 
just  as  now  a  substitute  is  provided  to  serve  in  war  in 
another's  stead.  Therefore  the  tribe  of  Levi  were  said  to  be 
sanctified  to  God: 

Ask  we  what  was  meant  by  saying  that  the  Levites  were 
sanctified  to  God  ?  The  ceremony  of  their  sanctification  will 
explain  it  to  us.  It  was  a  very  significant  one.  The  priest 
touched  with  the  typical  blood  of  a  sacrificed  animal  the  Le- 
vite's  right  hand,  right  eye,  right  foot.  This  was  the  Le- 
vite's  sanctification.  It  devoted  every  faculty  and  every 
power — of  seeing,  doing,  walking,  the  right-hand  faculties — 
the  best  and  choicest — to  God's  peculiar  service.  He  was  a 
man  set  apart.  To  sanctify,  therefore,  in  the  Hebrew  phrase, 
meant  to  devote  or  consecrate.  Let  us  pause  for  a  few  mo- 
ments to  gather  up  the  import  of  this  ceremony. 

The  first-born  are  a  nation's  hope:  they  may  be  said  to 
represent  a  whole  nation.  The  consecration,  therefore,  of  the 
first-born  was  the  consecration  of  the  entire  nation  by  their 
representatives,  Now  the  Levites  were  substituted  for  the 
first-born.  The  Levites  consequently  represented  all  Israel ; 
and  by  their  consecration  the  life  of  Israel  was  declared  to 
be  in  idea  and  by  right  a  consecrated  life  to  God.  But  fur- 
ther still.  As  the  Levites  represented  Israel,  so  Israel  itself 
was  but  a  part  taken  for  the  whole,  and  represented  the 
whole  human  race.  If  any  one  thinks  this  fanciful,  let  him 
remember  the  principle  of  representation  on  which  the  whole 
Jewish  system  was  built.  For  example — the  first-fruits  of 


The  Sanctification  of  Christ.  375 

the  harvest  were  consecrated  to  God.  Why  ?  to  declare 
that  portion  and  that  only  to  be  God's?  No;  St.  Paul  saya 
as  a  part  for  the  whole,  to  teach  and  remind  that  the  whole 
harvest  was  his.  "  If  the  first-fruits  be  holy,  the  lump  also 
is  holy."  So  in  the  same  way,  God  consecrated  a  peculiar 
people  to  himself?  Why?  The  Jews  say  because  they 
alone  are  His.  We  say,  as  a  part  representative  of  the 
whole,  to  show  in  one  nation  what  all  are  meant  to  be.  The 
holiness  of  Israel  is  a  representative  holiness.  Just  as  the 
consecrated  Levite  stood  for  what  Israel  was  meant  to  be, 
so  the  anointed  and  separated  nation  represents  forever  what 
the  whole  race  of  man  is  in  the  Divine  Idea — a  thing  whose 
proper  life  is  perpetual  consecration. 

One  step  farther.  This  being  the  true  life  of  humanity, 
name  it  how  you  will,  sanctification,  consecration,  devotion, 
sacrifice,  Christ  the  Representative  of  the  Race,  submits 
Himself  in  the  text  to  the  universal  law  of  this  devotion. 
The  true  law  of  every  life  is  consecration  to  God :  therefore 
Christ  says,  I  consecrate  myself:  else  He  had  not  been  a 
Man  in  God's  idea  of  Manhood — for  the  idea  of  Man  which 
God  had  been  for  ages  laboring  to  give  through  a  consecra- 
ted tribe  and  a  consecrated  nation  to  the  world,  was  the  idea 
of  a  being  whose  life-law  is  sacrifice,  every  act  and  every 
thought  being  devoted  to  God. 

Accordingly,  this  is  the  view  which  Christ  Himself  gave 
of  His  own  Divine  humanity.  He  spoke  of  it  as  of  a  thing 
devoted  by  a  Divine  decree.  "  Say  ye  of  Him,  whom  the 
Father  hath  sanctified,  and  sent  into  the  world,  Thou  blas- 
phemest ;  because  I  said  I  am  the  Son  of  God  ?" 

We  have  reached,  therefore,  the  meaning  of  this  word  in 
the  text,  "  For  their  sakes  I  sanctify,"  i.  e.,  consecrate  or  de- 
vote "  myself."  The  first  meaning  of  sanctify  is  to  set  apart. 
But  to  set  apart  for  God  is  to  devote  or  consecrate  ;  and  to 
consecrate  a  thing  is  to  make  it  holy.  And  thus  we  have 
the  three  meanings  of  the  word,  viz.,  to  set  apart,  to  devote, 
to  make  holy — rising  all  out  of  one  simple  idea.  To  go 
somewhat  into  particulars.  This  sanctification  is  spoken  of 
here  chiefly  as  threefold:  Self-devotion  by  inward  resolve; 
self-devotion  to  the  truth ;  self-devotion  for  the  sake  of 
others. 

1.  He  devoted  Himself  £?/  inward  resolve.  "  I  sanctify  my- 
self." God  His  Father  had  devoted  Him  before.  He  had 
sanctified  and  sent  Him.  It  only  remained  that  this  devo- 
tion should  become  by  His  own  act — se(/*-devotion  :  com- 
pleted by  His  own  will.  Now  in  that  act  of  will  consisted 
His  sanctification  of  Himself. 


376  The  Sanctification  of  Christ. 

For  observe,  this  was  done  within :  in  secret,  solitary 
struggle — in  wrestling  with  all  temptations  which  deterred 
Him  from  His  work — in  resolve  to  do  it  unflinchingly :  in 
real  human  battle  and  victory. 

Therefore  this  self-sanctification  applies  to  the  whole  tone 
and  history  of  His  mind.  He  was  forever  devoting  Himself 
to  work — forever  bracing  His  human  spirit  to  sublime  re- 
solve. But  it  applies  peculiarly  to  certain  special  moments, 
when  some  crisis  came,  as  on  this  present  occasion,  which 
called  for  an  act  of  will. 

The  first  of  these  moments  which  we  read  of  came  when 
He  was  twelve  years  of  age.  We  pondered  on  it  a  few 
weeks  ago.  In  the  temple,  that  earnest  conversation  with 
the  doctors  indicates  to  us  that  He  had  begun  to  revolve 
His  own  mission  in  His  mind ;  for  the  answer  to  His  moth- 
er's expostulations  shows  us  what  had  been  the  subject  of 
those  questions  He  had  been  putting :  "  Wist  ye  not  that  I 
must  be  about  my  Father's  business  ?"  Solemn  words,  sig- 
nificant of  a  crisis  in  His  mental  history.  He  had  been  ask- 
ing those  doctors  about  His  Father's  business  :  what  it  was, 
and  how  it  was  to  be  done  by  Him  of  whom  He  had  read  in 
the  prophets,  even  Himself.  This  was  the  earliest  self-devo- 
tion of  Messiah  :  the  boy  was  sanctifying  Himself  for  life 
and  manhood's  work. 

The  next  time  was  in  that  preparation  of  the  wilderness 
which  we  call  Christ's  temptation.  You  can  not  look  deep- 
ly into  that  strange  story  without  perceiving  that  the  true 
meaning  of  it  lies  in  this,  that  the  Saviour  in  that  conflict 
was  steeling  His  soul  against  the  threefold  form  in  which 
temptation  presented  itself  to  Him  in  after-life,  to  mar  or 
neutralize  His  ministry. 

1.  To  convert  the  hard,  stony  life  of  duty  into  the  comfort 
and  enjoyment  of  this  life :  to  barter,  like  Esau,  life  for  pot- 
tage :  to  use  Divine  powers  in  Him  only  to  procure  bread  of 
earth. 

2.  To  distrust  God,  and  try  impatiently  some  wild,  sud- 
den plan,  instead  of  His  meek  and  slow-appointed  ways — to 
•cast  Himself  from  the  temple,  as  we  dash  ourselves  against 
our  destiny. 

3.  To  do  homage  to  the  majesty  of  wrong:    to  worship 
evil  for  the  sake  of  success  :  to  make  the  world  His  own  by 
force  or  by  crooked  policy,  instead  of  by  suffering. 

These  were  the  temptations  of  His  life,  as  they  are  of  ours. 
If  you  search  through  His  history,  you  find  that  all  trial  was 
reducible  to  one  or  other  of  these  three  forms.  In  the  wil- 
derness His  soul  foresaw  them  all;  they  were  all  in  spirit 


The  Sanctification  of  Christ.  377 

met  then,  fought  and  conquered  before  they  came  in  their 
reality.  In  the  wilderness  He  had  sanctified  and  consecra- 
ted Himself  against  all  possible  temptation,  and  life  thence- 
forward was  only  the  meeting  of  that  in  fact  which  had 
been  in  resolve  met  already — a  vanquished  foe. 

I  said  He  had  sanctifieci  Himself  against  every  trial :  I 
should  have  said,  against  every  one  except  the  last.  The 
temptation  had  not  exhibited  the  terrors  and  the  form  of 
death  :  He  had  yet  to  nerve  and  steel  Himself  to  that.  And 
hence  the  lofty  sadness  which  characterizes  His  later  minis- 
try, as  he  went  down  from  the  sunny  mountain-tops  of  life 
into  the  darkening  shades  of  the  valley  where  lies  the  grave. 
There  is  a  perceptible  difference  between  the  tone  of  His 
earlier  and  that  of  His  later  ministry,  which  by  its  evidently 
undesigned  truthfulness  gives  us  a  strong  feeling  of  the  re- 
ality of  the  history. 

At  first  all  is  bright,  full  of  hope,  signalized  by  success 
and  triumph.  You  hear  from  Him  joyous  words  of  antici- 
pated victory :  "  I  beheld  Satan  as  lightning  fall  from 
heaven."  And  we  recollect  how  His  first  sermon  in  the 
synagogue  of  Capernaum  was  hailed;  how  all  eyes  were  fix- 
ed on  Him,  and  His  words  seemed  full  of  grace. 

Slowly  after  this  there  conies  a  change  over  the  spirit  of 
His  life.  The  unremitting  toil  becomes  more  superhuman, 
"  I  must  work  the  work  of  Him  that  sent  Me  while  it  is 
day :  the  night  cometh  when  no  man  can  work."  The  cold 
presentiment  of  doom  hangs  more  often  on  Him.  He  begins 
to  talk  to  His  disciples  in  mysterious  hints  of  the  betrayal 
and  the  cross.  He  is  going  down  into  the  cloud-land,  full 
of  shadows  where  nothing  is  distinct,  and  His  step  becomes 
more  solemn,  and  His  language  more  deeply  sad.  Words 
of  awe,  the  words  as  of  a  soul  struggling  to  pierce  through 
thick  glooms  of  mystery,  and  doubt,  and  death,  come  more 
often  from  His  lips  :  for  instance,  "  Now  is  My  soul  troub- 
led :  and  what  shall  I  say  ?  Father,  save  Me  from  this  hour  • 
but  for  this  cause  came  I  into  the  world."  "  My  soul  is  ex- 
ceeding sorrowful,  even  unto  death."  And  here  in  the  text 
is  another  of  those  sentences  of  mournful  grandeur :  "  For 
their  sakes  I  sanctify  Myself,  that  they  also  might  be  sancti- 
fied through  the  truth." 

Observe  the  present  tense.  Not  I  shall  devote  Myself — 
but  I  sanctify,  i.  e.,  I  am  sanctifying  Myself.  It  was  a  men- 
tal struggle  going  on  then.  This  prayer  was,  so  to  speak, 
part  of  His  Gethsemane  prayer,  the  first  utterances  of  if-- 
broken  by  interruption — then  finished  in  the  garden.  The 
consecration  and  the  agony  had  begun — the  long  inward 


378  The  Sanctification  of  Christ. 

battle — which  was  not  complete  till  the  words  came,  too 
solemnly  to  be  called  triumphantly,  though  they  were  in- 
deed the  trumpet-tones  of  man's  erand  victory,  "  It  is  fin- 
ished." 

Secondly  the  sanctification  of  Christ  was  self-devotion  to 
the  truth,  I  infer  this,  because  He  says,  "  I  sanctify  Myself, 
that  they  also  might  be  sanctified  through  the  truth.'1 
"  Also "  implies  that  what  His  consecration  was,  theirs  was. 
Now  theirs  is  expressly  said  to  be  sanctification  by  the 
truth.  That,  then,  was  His  consecration  too.  It  was  the 
truth  which  devoted  Him  and  marked  Him  out  for  death. 

For  it  was  not  merely  death  that  made  Christ's  sacrifice 
the  world's  atonement.  There  is  no  special  virtue  in  mere 
death,  even  though  it  be  the  death  of  God's  own  Son. 
Blood  does  not  please  God.  "  As  I  live,  saith  the  Lord,  I 
have  no  pleasure  in  the  death  of  the  sinner."  Do  you  think 
God  has  pleasure  in  the  blood  of  the  righteous  ?  blood  mere- 
ly as  blood  ?  death  merely  as  a  debt  of  nature  paid  ?  suffer- 
ing merely,  as  if  suffering  had  in  it  mysterious  virtue  ? 

No,  my  brethren  !  God  can  be  satisfied  with  that  only 
which  pertains  to  the  conscience  and  the  will ;  so  says  the 
writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews :  "  Sacrifices  could  nev- 
er make  the  comers  thereunto  perfect."  The  blood  of  Christ 
was  sanctified  by  the  will  with  which  He  shed  it :  it  is  that 
which  gives  it  value.  It  was  a  sacrifice  offered  up  to  con- 
science. He  suffered  as  a  martyr  to  the  truth.  He  fell  in 
fidelity  to  a  cause.  The  sacred  cause  in  which  He  fell  was 
love  to  the  human  race :  "  Greater  love  hath  no  man  than 
this,  that  a  man  give  his  life  for  his  friends."  Now  that 
truth  was  the  cause  in  which  Christ  died.  We  have  His 
own  words  as  proof:  "  To  this  end  was  I  born,  and  for  this 
cause  came  I  into  the  world,  to  bear  witness  to  the  truth." 

Let  us  see  how  His  death  was  a  martyrdom  of  witness  to 
truth. 

1.  He  proclaimed  the  identity  between  religion  and  good- 
ness. He  distinguished  religion  from  correct  views,  accurate 
religious  observances,  and  even  from  devout  feelings.  He 
said  that  to  be  religious  is  to  be  good.  "  Blessed  are  the 
pure  in  heart  ....  Blessed  are  the  merciful  ....  Blessed 
are  the  meek."  Justice,  mercy,  truth — these  He  proclaimed 
as  the  real  righteousness  of  God. 

But  because  He  taught  the  truth  of  Godliness,  the  Phari- 
Bees  became  his  enemies  :  those  men  of  opinions  and  maxims . 
those  men  of  ecclesiastical,  ritual  and  spiritual  pretensions. 

Again,  He  taught  spiritual  religion.  God  was  not  in  the 
temple  :  the  temple  was  to  come  down.  "But  religion  would 


The  Sanctification  of  Christ.  379 

survive  the  temple.  God's  temple  was  man's  soul ;  and  be- 
cause He  taught  spiritual  worship,  the  priests  became  his  en- 
emies. Hence  came  those  accusations  that  He  blasphemed 
the  temple :  that  he  had  said  contemptuously, "  Destroy  this 
temple,  and  in  three  days  I  will  raise  it  up." 

Once  more  he  struck  a  death-blow  at  Jewish  exclusive- 
ness  :  He  proclaimed  the  truth  of  the  character  of  God.  God 
the  Father :  the  hereditary  descent  from  Abraham  was  noth- 
ing :  the  inheritance  of  Abraham's  faith  was  every  thing. 
God  therefore  would  admit  the  Gentiles  who  inherited  that 
faith.  For  God  loved  the  world,  not  a  private  few :  not  the 
Jew  only,  not  the  elder  brother  who  had  been  all  his  life  at 
home,  but  the  prodigal  younger  brother  too,  who  had  wan- 
dered far  arid  had  sinned  much. 

Now  because  He  proclaimed  this  salvation  of  the  Gentiles, 
the  whole  Jewish  nation  were  offended.  The  first  time  he 
ever  hinted  it  at  Capernaum,  they  took  Him  to  the  brow  of 
the  hill  whereon  their  city  was  built  that  they  might  throw 
Him  thence. 

And  thus  by  degrees — priests,  Pharisees,  rulers,  rich  and 
poor — He  had  roused  them  all  against  Him  :  and  the  Divine 
Martyr  of  the  truth  stood  alone  at  last  beside  the  cross,  when 
the  world's  life  was  to  be  won,  without  a  friend. 

All  this  we  must  bear  in  mind,  if  we  would  understand  the 
expression,  "  I  sanctify  myself."  He  was  sanctifying  and 
consecrating  Himself  for  this — to  be  a  witness  to  the  truth — 
a  devoted  One,  consecrated  in  His  heart's  deeps  to  die — loyal 
to  truth,  even  though  it  should  have  to  give  as  the  reward  of 
allegiance,  not  honors  and  kingdoms,  but  only  a  crown  of 
thorns. 

3.  The  self-sanctification  of  Christ  was  for  the  sake  of  oth- 
ers. "  For  their  sakes."  He  obeyed  the  law  of  self-consecra- 
tion for  Himself,  else  He  had  not  been  man ;  for  that  law  is 
the  universal  law  of  our  human  existence.  But  he  obeyed  it 
not  for  Himself  alone,  but  for  others  also.  It  was  vicarious 
:jelf-devotion,  i.  e.,  instead  of  others,  as  the  Representative  of 
Miem.  "  For  their  sakes,"  as  an  example,  "  that  they  also 
might  be  sanctified  through  the  truth." 

Distinguish  between  a  model  and  an  example.  You  copy 
the  outline  of  a  model :  you  imitate  the  spirit  of  an  example. 
Christ  is  our  example  :  Christ  is  not  our  model.  You  might 
copy  the  life  of  Christ :  make  Him  a  model  in  every  act :  and 
yet  you  might  be  not  one  whit  more  of  a  Christian  than  be- 
fore. You  might  wash  the  feet  of  poor  fishermen  as  He  did, 
live  a  wandering  life  with  nowhere  to  lay  your  head.  You 
might  go  about  teaching,  and  never  use  any  worAs  but  His 


380  The  Sanctification  of  Christ. 


words,  never  express  a  religious  truth  except  in  Bible  lan- 
guage :  have  no  home,  and  mix  with  publicans  and  harlots. 
Then  Christ  would  be  your  model :  you  would  have  copied 
His  life  like  a  picture,  line  for  line,  and  shadow  for  shadow ; 
yet  you  might  not  be  Christlike. 

On  the  other  hand,  you  might  imitate  Christ,  get  his  Spirit, 
breathe  the  atmosphere  of  thought  which  He  breathed :  do 
not  one  single  act  which  He  did,  but  every  act  in  His  spirit: 
you  might  be  rich,  whereas  He  was  poor  :  never  teach,  where- 
as He  was  teaching  always  ;  lead  a  life  in  all  outward  partic- 
ulars the  very  contrast  and  opposite  of  His :  and  yet  the  spirit 
of  His  self-devotion  might  have  saturated  your  whole  being, 
and  penetrated  into  the  life  of  every  act  and  the  essence  of 
every  thought.  Then  Christ  would  have  become  your  exam- 
ple :  for  we  can  only  imitate  that  of  which  we  have  caught 
the  spirit. 

Accordingly,  He  sanctified  Himself  that  He  might  become 
a  living,  inspiring  example,  firing  men's  hearts  by  love  to  imita- 
tion— a  burning  and  a  shining  light  shed  upon  the  mystery 
of  life,  to  guide  by  a  spirit  of  warmth  lighting  from  within. 
In  Christ  there  is  not  given  to  us  a  faultless  essay  on  the  love- 
liness of  self-consecration,  to  convince  our  reason  how  beau- 
tiful it  is  :  but  there  is  given  to  us  a  self-consecrated  One : 
a  living  Truth,  a  living  Person  ;  a  life  that  was  beautiful,  a 
death  that  we  feel  in  our  inmost  hearts  to  have  been  divine  : 
and  all  this  in  order  that  the  Spirit  of  that  consecrated  life 
and  consecrated  death,  through  love,  and  wonder,  and  deep 
enthusiasm,  may  pass  into  us,  and  sanctify  us  also  to  the 
truth  in  life  and  death.  He  sacrificed  Himself  that  we  might 
offer  ourselves  a  living  sacrifice  to  God. 

IL  Christ's  sanctitication  of  His  people  :  "  That  they  also 
might  be  sanctified  through  the  truth." 

To  sanctify  means  two  things.  It  means  to  devote,  and  it 
means  to  set  apart.  Yet  these  two  meanings  are  but  differ- 
ent sides  of  the  same  idea  :  for  to  be  devoted  to  God  is  to  be 
separated  from  all  that  is  opposed  to  God.  Those  whom 
Christ  sanctifies  are  separated  from  two  things :  from  the 
world's  evil,  and  from  the  world's  spirit. 

1.  From  the  world's  evil  So  in  verse  15,  "  I  pray  not  that 
thou  shouldest  take  them  out  of  the  world,  but  that  thou 
fchouldest  keep  them  from  the  evil."  Not  from  physical  evil 
not  from  pain :  Christ  does  not  exempt  his  own  from  such 
kinds  of  evil.  Nay,  we  hesitate  to  call  pain  and  sorrow  evils, 
when  we  remember  what  bright  characters  they  have  ma'de, 
and  when  we  recollect  that  almost  all  who  came  to  Christ 


The  Sanctification  of  Christ.  381 

came  impelled  by  suffering  of  some  kind  or  other.  For  ex« 
ample,  the  Syrophenician  woman  had  been  driven  to  "fall  at 
His  feet  and  worship  Him,"  by  the  anguish  of  the  tormented 
daughter  whom  she  had  watched.  It  was  a  widow  that  cast 
into  the  treasury  all  her  living,  and  that  widow  poor. 

Possibly  want  and  woe  will  be  seen  hereafter,  when  this 
world  of  appearance  shall  have  passed  away,  to  have  been, 
not  evils,  but  God's  blessed  angels  and  ministers  of  His  most 
parental  love. 

But  the  evil  from  which  Christ's  sanctification  separates 
the  soul  is  that  worst  of  evils — properly  speaking  the  only 
evil — sin  :  revolt  from  God,  disloyalty  to  conscience,  tyranny 
of  the  passions,  strife  of  our  self-will  in  conflict  with  the  lov- 
ing will  of  God.  This  is  our  foe — our  only  foe  that  we  have 
a  right  to  hate  with  perfect  hatred,  meet  it  where  we  will,  and 
under  whatever  form,  in  Church  or  state,  in  false  social  max- 
ims, or  in  our  own  hearts.  And  it  was  to  sanctify  or  separate 
us  from  this  that  Christ  sanctified  or  consecrated  Himself. 
By  the  blood  of  his  anguish — by  the  strength  of  his  uncon- 
querable resolve — we  are  sworn  against  it — bound  to  be,  in  a 
world  of  evil,  consecrated  spirits,  or  else  greatly  sinning. 

Lastly,  the  self-devotion  of  Christ  separates  us  from  the 
world's  spirit. 

Distinguish  between  the  world's  evil  and  the  world's  spirit. 
Many  things  which  can  not  be  classed  amongst  things  evil 
are  yet  dangerous  as  things  worldly. 

It  is  one  of  the  most  difficult  of  all  ministerial  duties  to  de- 
fine what  the  world-spirit  is.  It  can  not  be  identified  with 
vice,  nor  can  unworldliness  be  defined  as  abstinence  from  vice. 
The  Old  Testament  saints  were  many  of  them  great  trans« 
gressors.  Abraham  lied,  Jacob  deceived,  David  committed 
adultery.  Crimes  dark,  surely  !  and  black  enough  !  And 
yet  these  men  were  unworldly ;  the  spirit  of  the  world  was 
not  in  them.  They  erred  and  were  severely  punished ;  for 
crime  is  crime  in  whomsoever  it  is  found,  and  most  a  crime 
in  a  saint  of  God.  But  they  were  beyond  their  age :  they 
were  not  of  the  world.  They  were  strangers  and  pilgrims 
upon  earth.  They  were,  in  the  midst  of  innumerable  temp- 
tations  from  within  and  from  without,  seeking  after  a  better 
country,  i.  e.,  a  heavenly. 

Again,  you  can  not  say  that  worldliness  consists  in  mixing 
with  many  people,  and  unworldliness  with  few.  Daniel  was 
unworldly  in  the  luxurious,  brilliant  court  of  Babylon :  Adam, 
in  Paradise,  had  but  one  companion ;  that  one  was  the  world 
to  him. 

Again,  the  spirit  of  the  world  can  not  be  defined  as  con 


382  The  Sanctification  of  Christ. 

sisting  in  any  definite  plainness  of  dress  or  peculiar  mode  of 
living.  If  we  would  be  sanctified  from  the  world  when  Christ 
comes,  we  must  be  found,  not  stripping  oif  the  ornaments  from 
our  persons,  but  the  censoriousness  from  our  tongues  and  the 
selfishness  from  our  hearts. 

Once  more,  that  which  is  a  sign  of  unworldliness  in  one 
age  is  not  a  certain  sign  of  it  in  another.  In  Daniel's  age, 
when  dissoluteness  marked  the  wTorld,  frugal  living  was  a  suf- 
ficient evidence  that  he  was  not  of  the  world.  To  say  that 
he  restrained  his  appetites  wras  nearly  the  same  as  saying 
that  he  was  sanctified.  But  now  when  intemperance  is  not 
the  custom,  a  life  as  temperate  as  Daniel's  might  coexist  with 
all  that  is  worst  of  the  spirit  of  the  world  in  the  heart ;  al- 
most no  man  then  was  temperate  who  was  not  serving  God 
• — now  hundreds  of  thousands  are  self-controlled  by  prudence, 
who  serve  the  world  and  self. 

Therefore  you  can  not  define  sanctification  by  any  outward 
marks  or  rules.  But  he  who  will  thoroughly  watch  will  un- 
derstand what  is  this  peculiar  sanctification  or  separation 
from  the  world  which  Christ  desired  in  His  servants. 

He  is  sanctified  by  the  self-devotion  of  his  Master  from  the 
world,  who  has  a  life  in  himself  independent  of  the  maxims 
and  customs  'which  sweep  along  with  them  other  men.  In 
his  Master's  words,  "A  well  of  water  in  him,  springing  up 
into  everlasting  life,"  keeping  his  life  on  the  whole  pure,  and 
his  heart  fresh.  His  true  life  is  hid  with  Christ  in  God.  His 
motives,  the  aims  and  objects  of  his  life,  however  inconsist- 
ent they  may  be  with  each  other,  however  irregularly  or  fee- 
bly carried  out,  are  yet  on  the  whole  above,  not  here.  His 
citizenship  is  in  heaven.  He  may  be  tempted,  he  may  err, 
he  may  fall,  but  still  in  his  darkest  aberrations  there  will  be 
a  something  that  keeps  before  him  still  the  dreams  and  aspi- 
rations of  his  best  days — a  thought  of  the  cross  of  Christ  and 
'the  self-consecration  'that  it  typifies — a  conviction  that  that 
is  the  highest,  and  that  alone  the  true  life.  And  that — if  it 
were  only  that — would  make  him  essentially  different  from 
other  men,  even  when  he  mixes  with  them  and  seems  to  catch 
their  tone,  among  them  but  not  one  of  them.  And  that  life 
within  him  is  Christ's  pledge  that  he  shall  be  yet  what  he 
longs  to  be — a  something  severing  him,  separating  him,  con- 
secrating him.  For  him  and  for  such  as  him  the  consecration 
prayer  of  Christ  was  made.  "  They  are  not  of  the  world, 
even  as  I  am  not  of  the  world :  Sanctify  them  through  thy 
truth  :  thy  word  is  truth." 


Tke  First  Miracle.  383 


XVII. 
THE  FIRST  MIRACLE. 

i.    THE  GLORY  OF  THE  VIRGIN  MOTHER. 

<(:This  beginning  of  miracles  did  Jesus  in  Cana  of  Galilee,  and  manifested 
forth  his  glory;  and  his  disciples  believed  on  him." — John  ii.  11. 

THIS  was  the  "  beginning  of  miracles  "  which  Jesus  did, 
and  yet  he  was  now  thirty  years  of  age.  For  thirty  years  he 
had  done  no  miracle ;  and  that  is  in  itself  almost  worthy  to 
be  called  a  miracle.  That  he  abstained  for  thirty  years  from 
the  exertion  of  His  wonder-working  power  is  as  marvellous 
as  that  He  possessed  for  three  years  the  power  to  exert.  He 
was  content  to  live  long  in  deep  obscurity.  Nazareth,  with 
its  quiet  valley,  was  world  enough  for  Him.  There  was  no 
disposition  to  rush  into  publicity :  no  haste  to  be  known  in 
the  world.  The  quiet  consciousness  of  power  which  breathes 
in  that  expression,  "Mine  hour  is  not  yet  come,"  had  marked 
His  whole  life.  He  could  bide  His  time.  He  had  the  strength 
to  wait. 

This  was  true  greatness — the  greatness  of  man,  because 
also  the  greatness  of  God :  for  such  is  God's  way  in  all  He 
does.  In  all  the  works  of  God  there  is  a  conspicuous  absence 
of  haste  and  hurry.  All  that  He  does  ripens  slowly.  Six 
slow  days  and  nights  of  creative  force  before  man  was  made: 
two  thousand  years  to  discipline  and  form  a  Jewish  people : 
four  thousand  years  of  darkness,  and  ignorance,  and  crime, 
before  the  fullness  of  the  time  had  come,  when  He  could  send 
forth  His  Son  :  unnumbered  ages  of  war  before  the  thousand 
years  of  solid  peace  can  come.  Whatever  contradicts  this 
Divine  plan  must  pay  the  price  of  haste — brief  duration.  All 
that  is  done  before  the  hour  is  come  decays  fast.  All  preco- 
cious things  ripened  before  their  time,  wither  before  their 
time :  precocious  fruit,  precocious  minds,  forced  feelings.  "He 
that  believeth  shall  not  make  haste." 

We  shall  distribute  the  various  thoughts  which  this  event 
suggests  under  two  heads. 

I.  The  glory  of  the  Virgin  Mother. 
II.  The  glory  of  the  Divine  Son. 

I.  The  glory  of  the  Virgin  Mother. 

In  the  First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians  St  Paul  speaks  of 


384  The  First  Miracle. 

the  glory  of  the  woman  as  of  a  thing  distinct  from  the 
of  the  man.  They  are  the  two  opposite  poles  of  the  sphere 
of  humanity.  Their  provinces  are  not  the  same,  but  differ- 
ent. The  qualities  which  are  beautiful  as  predominant  in 
one  are  not  beautiful  when  predominant  in  the  other.  That 
which  is  the  glory  of  the  one  is  not  the  glory  of  the  other. 
The  glory  of  her  who  was  highly  favored  among  women, 
and  whom  all  Christendom  has  agreed  in  contemplating 'as 
the  type  and  ideal  of  her  sex,  was  glory  in  a  different  order 
from  that  in  which  her  Son  exhibited  the  glory  of  a  perfect 
manhood.  A  glory  different  in  degree,  of  course:  the  one 
was  only  human,  the  other  more  than  human,  the  Word 
made  flesh ;  but  different  in  order  too :  the  one  manifesting 
forth  her  glory — the  grace  of  womanhood  ;  the  other  mani- 
festing forth  His  glory — the  wisdom  and  the  majesty  of 
manhood,  in  which  God  dwelt. 

Different  orders  or  kinds  of  glory.  Let  us  consider  th« 
glory  of  the  Virgin,  which  is,  in  other  words,  the  glory  of 
what  is  womanly  in  character. 

1.  Remarkable,  first  of  all,  in  this  respect,  is  her  considei 
ateness.  There  is  gentle,  womanly  tact  in  those  words, "  The) 
have  no  wine."  Unselfish  thoughtfulness  about  others'  com 
forts,  not  her  own :  delicate  anxiety  to  save  a  straitened 
family  from  the  exposure  of  their  poverty :  and  moreover, 
for  this  is  very  wrorthy  of  observation ,.  carefulness  about 
gross,  material  things :  a  sensual  thing,  we  might  truly  say 
— wine,  the  instrument  of  intoxication  :  yet  see  how  her 
feminine  tenderness  transfigured  and  sanctified  such  gross 
and  common  things;  how  that  wine  which,  as  used  by  the 
revellers  of  the  banquet,  might  be  coarse  and  sensual,  was 
in  her  use  sanctified,  as  it  was  by  unselfishness  and  charity  t 
a  thing  quite  heavenly,  glorified  by  the  ministry  of  love. 

It  was  so  that  in  old  times,  with  thoughtful  hospitality, 
Rebekah  offered  water  at  the  well  to  Abraham's  way-worn 
servant.  It  was  so  that  Martha  showed  her  devotion  to  her 
Lord  even  to  excess,  being  cumbered  with  much  serving. 
It  was  so  that  the  women  ministered  to  Christ  out  of  their 
substance — water,  food,  money.  They  took  these  low  things 
of  earth,  and  spiritualized  them  into  means  of  hospitality  and 
devotion. 

And  this  is  the  glory  of  womanhood  :  surely  no  common 
glory :  surely  one  which,  if  she  rightly  comprehended  her 
place  on  earth,  might  enable  her  to  accept  its  apparent  hu- 
miliation unrepiningly ;  the  glory  of  unsensualizing  coarse 
and  common  things,  sensual  things,  the  objects  of  mere 
sense,  meat  and  drink  and  household  cares,  elevating  them, 


The  Glory  of  the  Virgin  Mother.  385 

bj  the  spirit  in  which  she  ministers  them,  into  something 
transfigured  and  sublime. 

The  humblest  mother  of  a  poor  family  who  is  cumbered 
with  much  serving,  or  watching  over  a  hospitality  which  she 
is  too  poor  to  delegate  to  others,  or  toiling  for  love's  sake  in 
household  work,  needs  no  emancipation  in  God's  sight.  It 
is  the  prerogative  and  the  glory  of  her  womanhood  to  con- 
secrate the  meanest  things  by  a  ministry  which  is  not  for 
self. 

2.  Submission/  "Whatsoever  He  saith  unto  you, -do  it." 
Here  is  the  true  spirit  of  obedience.  Not  slavishness,  but 
entire  loyalty  and  perfect  trust  in  a  person  whom  we  rever- 
ence. She  did  not  comprehend  her  Son's  strange  repulse  and 
mysterious  words ;  but  she  knew  that  they  were  not  capri- 
cious words,  for  there  was  no  caprice  in  Him  :  she  knew  that 
the  law  which  ruled  His  will  was  right,  and  that  importunity 
was,  useless.  So  she  bade  them  reverently  wait  in  silence  till 
His  time  should  come. 

Here  is  another  distinctive  glory  of  womanhood.  In  the 
very  outset  of  the  Bible  submission  is  revealed  as  her  pe- 
culiar lot  and  destiny.  If  you  were  merely  to  look  at  the 
words  as  they  stand,  declaring  the  results  of  the  Fall,  you 
would  be  inclined  to  call  that  vocation  of  obedience  a  curse  ; 
but  in  the  spirit  of  Christ  it  is  transformed,  like  labor,  into  a 
blessing.  In  this  passage  a  twofold  blessing  stands  con- 
nected with  it.  Freedom  from  all  doubt ;  and  prevailing 
power  in  prayer. 

The  first  is  freedom  from  all  doubt.  The  Virgin  seems  to 
have  felt  no  perplexity  at  that  rebuke  and  seeming  refusal ; 
and  yet  perplexity  and  misgiving  would  seem  natural.  A 
more  masculine  and  imperious  mind  would  have  been  start' 
led  ;  made  sullen,  or  have  begun  at  once  to  sound  the  depths 
of  metaphysics,  reasoning  upon  the  hardship  of  a  lot  which 
can  not  realize  all  it  wishes:  wondering  why  such  simple 
blessings  are  refused,  pondering  deeply  on  Divine  decrees, 
ending  perhaps  in  skepticism.  Mary  was  saved  from  this. 
She  could  not  understand,  but  she  could  trust  and  wait. 
Not  for  one  moment  did  a  shade  of  doubt  rest  upon  her 
heart.  At  once  and  instantly,  "  Whatsoever  He  saith  unto 
you,  do  it."  And  so,  too,  the  Syrophenician  woman  was  not 
driven  to  speculate  on  the  injustice  of  her  destiny  by  the 
seeming  harshness  of  Christ's  reply.  She  drew  closer  to  her 
Lord  in  prayer.  Affection  and  submissiveness  saved  them 
both  from  doubt.  True  women  both. 

Now  there  are  whole  classes  of  our  fellow-creatures  to 
whom,  as  a  class,  the  anguish  of  religious  doubt  never  or 

17 


386  The  First  Miracle. 

rarely  comes.  Mental  doubt  rarely  touches  women.  Sol 
diers  and  sailors  do  not  doubt.  Their  religion  is  remarkable 
for  its  simplicity  and  childlike  character.  Scarcely  ever  are 
religious  warriors  tormented  with  skepticism  or.  doubts. 
And  in  all,  I  believe,  for  the  same  reason — the  habits  of  feel- 
ing to  which  the  long  life  of  obedience  trains  the  soul. 
Prompt,  quick,  unquestioning  obedience  :  that  is  the  soil  for 
faith. 

I  call  this,  therefore,  the  glory  of  womanhood.  It  is  the 
true  glory  of  human  beings  to  obey.  It  is  her  special  glory, 
rising  out  of  the  very  weakness  of  her  nature — God's  strength 
made  perfect  in  weakness.  England  will  not  soon  forget 
that  lesson  left  her  as  the  bequest  of  a  great  life.  Her  bur- 
ied Hero's  glory  came  out  of  that  which  was  manliest  in  his 
character — the  Virgin's  spirit  of  obedience. 

The  second  glory  resulting  from  it  is  prevailing  power 
with  God.  Her  wish  was  granted.  "What  have  I  to  do 
with  thee,"  were  words  that  only  asserted  His  own  perfect 
independence.  They  were  not  the  language  of  rebuke.  As 
Messiah  He  gently  vindicated  His  acts  from  interference, 
showing  the  filial  relation  to  be  in  its  first  strictness  dis- 
solved. But  as  Son  He  obeyed,  or  to  speak  more  properly, 
complied.  Nay,  probably  His  look  had  said  that  already, 
promising  more  than  His  words,  setting  her  mind  at  rest, 
and  granting  the  favor  she  desired. 

Brethren,  the  subject  of  prayer  is  a  deep  mystery.  To 
the  masculine  intellect  it  is  a  demonstrable  absurdity.  For 
says  logic,  how  can  man's  will  modify  the  will  of  God,  or 
alter  the  fixed  decree  ?  And  if  it  can  not,  wherein  lies  the 
use  .of  prayer  ?  But  there  is  a  something  mightier  than  in- 
tellect and  truer  than  logic.  It  is  the  faith  which  works  by 
love — the  conviction  that  in  this  world  of  mystery,  that 
which  can  not  be  put  in  words,  nor  defended  by  argument, 
may  yet  be  true.  The  will  of  Christ  was  fixed,  what  could 
be  the  use  of  intercession  ?  ancKyet  the  Virgin's  feeling  was 
true  ;  she  felt  her  prayer  would  prevail. 

Here  is  a  grand  paradox,  which  is  the  paradox  of  all 
prayer.  The  heart  hopes  that  which  to  reasoning  seems  im- 
possible. And  I  believe  we  never  pray  aright  except  when 
we  pray  in  that  feminine  childlike  spirit  which  no  logic  can 
defend,  feeling  as  ifvrs  modified  the  will  of  God,  though  that 
will  is  fixed.  It  is  flie  glory  of  the  spirit  that  is  affectionate 
and  submissive  that  it,  ay  and  it  alone,  can  pray,  because  it 
alone  can  believe  that  its  prayer  will  be  granted ;  and  it  ia 
the  glory  of  that  spirit,  too,  that  its  prayer  will  be  granted. 

3.  In  all  Christian  ages  the  especial  glory  ascribed  to  the 


The  Glory  of  the  Virgin  Mother.          387 

• 

Virgin  Mother  is  purity  of  heart  and  life.  Implied  in  the 
term  "  Virgin."  Gradually  in  the  history  of  the  Christian 
Church  the  recognition  of  this  became  idolatry.  The  works 
of  early  Christian  art  curiously  exhibit  the  progress  of  this 
perversion.  They  show  how  Mariolatry  grew  up.  The  first 
pictures  of  the  early  Christian  ages  simply  represent  the 
woman.  By-and-by  we  find  outlines  of  the  mother  and  the 
child.  In  an  after-age  the  Son  is  seen  sitting  on  a  throne,  with 
the  mother  crowned,  but  sitting  as  yet  below  Him.  In  an 
age  still  later,  the  crowned  mother  on  a  level  with  the  Son. 
Later  still,  the  mother  on  a  throne  above  the  Son.  And  last- 
ly, a  Romish  picture  represents  the  eternal  Son  in  wrath, 
about  to  destroy  the  earth,  and  the  Virgin  Intercessor  inter- 
posing, pleading  by  significant  attitude  her  maternal  rights, 
and  redeeming  the  world  from  His  vengeance.  Such  was,  in 
fact,  the  progress  of  Virgin-worship.  First  the  woman  rev« 
erenced  for  the  Son's  sake;  then  the  woman  reverenced 
above  the  Son,  and  adored. 

Now  the  question  is,  How  came  this  to  be  ?  for  we  assume 
it  as  a  principle  that  no  error  has  ever  spread  widely  that  was 
not  the  exaggeration  or  perversion  of  a  truth.  And  be  as- 
sured that  the  first  step  towards  dislodging  error  is  to  un- 
derstand the  truth  at  which  it  aims.  Never  can  an  error  be 
permanently  destroyed  by  the  roots,  unless  we  have  planted 
by  its  side  the  truth  that  is  to  take  its  place.  Else  you  will 
find  the  falsehood  returning  forever,  growing  up  again  when 
you  thought  it  cut  up  root  and  branch,  appearing  in  the  very 
places  where  the  crushing  of  it  seemed  most  complete. 
Wherever  there  is  a  deep  truth,  unrecognized,  misunderstood, 
it  will  force  its  way  into  men's  hearts.  It  will  take  perni- 
cious forms  if  it  can  not  find  healthful  ones.  It  will  grow  as 
some  weeds  grow,  in  noxious  forms,  ineradicably,  because  it 
has  a  root  in  human  nature. 

Else  how  comes  it  to  pass,  after  three  hundred  years  of 
reformation,  we  find  Virgin-worship  restoring  itself  again  in 
this  reformed  England,  where  least  of  all  countries  we  should 
expect  it,  and  where  the  remembrance  of  Romish  persecu- 
tion might  have  seemed  to  make  its  return  impossible  ? 
How  comes  it  that  some  of  the  deepest  thinkers  of  our  day, 
and  men  of  the  saintliest  lives,  are  feeling  this  Virgin-worship 
a  necessity  for  their  souls  ;  for  it  is  the  doctrine  to  which  the 
converts  to  Romanism  cling  most  tenaciously  ? 

Brethren,  I  reply,  Because  the  doctrine  of  the  worship  of 
the  Virgin  has  a  root  in  truth,  and  no  mere  cutting  and  up 
rooting  can  destroy  it :  no  thunders  of  Protestant  oratory : 
uo  platform  expositions :  no  Reformation  societies.  In  out* 


388  The  First  Miracle. 

Q 

word,  no  mere  negations;  nothing  but  the  full  liberation  of 
the  truth  which  lies  at  the  root  of  error  can  eradicate  error. 

Surely  we  ought  to  have  learnt  that  truth  by  this  time. 
Recollect  how,  before  Christ's  time,  mere  negations  failed  to 
uproot  paganism.  Philosophers  had  disproved  it  by  argu- 
ment :  satirists  had  covered  it  with  ridicule.  It  was  slain  a 
thousand  times,  and  yet  paganism  lived  on  in  the  hearts  of 
men :  and  those  who  gave  it  up  returned  to  it  again  in  a 
dying  hour,  because  the  disprovers  of  it  had  given  nothing 
for  the  heart  to  rest  on  in  its  place.  But  when  Paul  dared 
to  proclaim  of  paganism  what  we  are  proclaiming  of  Virgin- 
worship,  that  paganism  stood  upon  a  truth,  and  taught  that 
truth,  paganism  fell  forever.  The  Apostle  Paul  found  in 
Athens  an  altar  to  the  unknown  God.  He  did  not  announce 
in  Athens  lectures  against  heathen  priestcraft ;  nor  did  he 
undertake  to  prove  it,  in  the  Areopagus,  all  a  mystery  of  in- 
iquity, and  a  system  of  damnable  idolatries — that  is  the 
mode  in  which  wre  set  about  our  controversies;  b\it  he  dis- 
engaged the  truth  from  the  error,  proclaimed  the  truth,  and 
left  the  errors  to  themselves.  The  truth  grew  up,  and  the 
errors  silently  and  slowly  withered. 

I  pray  you,  Christian  brethren,  do  not  join  those  fierce  as- 
sociations which  think  only  of  uprooting  error.  There  is  a 
spirit  in  them  which  is  more  of  earth  than  heaven,  short- 
sighted too  and  self-destructive.  They  do  not  make  converts 
to  Christ,  but  only  controversialists,  and  adherents  to  a  par- 
ty. They  compass  sea  and  land  to  make  one  proselyte.  It 
matters  little  whether  fierce  Romanism  or  fierce  Protestant- 
ism wins  the  day :  but  it  does  matter  whether  or  not  in  the 
conflict  we  lose  some  precious  Christian  truth,  as  well  as  the 
very  spirit  of  Christianity. 

What  lies  at  the  root  of  this  ineradicable  Virgin-worship? 
How  comes  it  that  out  of  so  few  Scripture  sentences  about 
her,  many  of  them  like  this  rebuke,  depreciatory,  learned  men 
and  pious  men  could  ever  have  developed,  as  they  call  it,  or 
as  it  seems  to  us,  tortured  and  twisted  a  doctrine  of  Divine 
honors  to  be  paid  to  Mary  ?  Let  us  set  out  with  the  con- 
viction that  there  must  have  been  some  reason  for  it,  some 
truth  of  which  it  is  the  perversion. 

I  believe  the  truth  to  be  this.  Before  Christ  the  qualities 
honored  as  Divine  were  peculiarly  the  virtues  of  the  man : 
courage,  wisdom,  truth,  strength.  But  Christ  proclaimed  the 
Divine  nature  of  qualities  entirely  opposite  :  meekness,  obe- 
dience, affection,  purity.  He  said  that  the  pure  in  heart 
should  see  God.  He  pronounced  the  beatitudes  of  meekness, 
and  lowliness,  and  poverty  of  spirit.  Now  observe  these 


The  Glory  of  the  Virgin  Mother.  389 

were  all  of  the  order  of  graces  which  are  distinctively  femi« 
nine.  And  it  is  the  peculiar  feature  of  Christianity  that  it 
exalts  not  strength  nor  intellect,  but  gentleness,  and  loving- 
uess,  and  virgin  purity. 

Here  was  a  new,  strange  thought  given  to  the  world.  It 
was  for  many  ages  the  thought :  no  wonder — it  was  the  one 
i^reat  novelty  of  the  revealed  religion.  How  were  men  to 
find  expression  for  that  idea  which  was  working  in  them, 
vague  and  beautiful,  but  wanting  substance  ?  the  idea  of  the 
Divineness  of  what  is  pure,  above  the  Divineness  of  what  is 
strong?  Would  you  have  had  them  say  simply,  we  had 
forgotten  these  things ;  now  they  are  revealed — now  we  know 
that  love  and  purity  are  as  Divine  as1  power  and  reason  ?  My 
brethren,  it  is  not  so  that  men  worship — it  is  only  so  that  men 
think.  They  think  about  qualities — they  worship  persons. 
Worship  must  have  a  form.  Adoration  finds  a  person,  and  if 
it  can  not  find  one  it  will  imagine  one.  Gentleness  and  purity 
are  words  for  a  philosopher ;  but  a  man  whose  heart  wants 
something  to  adore  will  find  for  himself  a  gentle  one,  a  pure 
one,  incarnate  purity  and  love,  gentleness  robed  in  flesh  and 
blood,  before  whom  his  knee  may  bend,  and  to  whom  the 
homage  of  his  spirit  can  be  given.  You  can  not  adore  except 
a  person. 

What  marvel  if  the  early  Christian  found  that  the  Virgin- 
mother  of  our  Lord  embodied  this  great  idea  ?  What  marvel 
if  he  filled  out  and  expanded  writh  that  idea  which  was  in  his 
heart,  the  brief  sketch  given  of  her  in  the  Gospels,  till  his 
imagination  had  robed  the  woman  of  the  Bible  with  the 
majesty  of  the  mother  of  God  ?  Can  we  not  feel  that  it  must 
have  been  so  ?  Instead  of  a  dry,  formal  dogma  of  theology, 
the  Romanist  presented  an  actual  woman,  endued  with  every 
inward  grace  and  beauty,  and  pierced  by  sorrows,  as  a  living 
object  of  devotion,  faith,  and  hope — a  personality  instead  of 
an  abstraction.  Historically  speaking,  it  seems  inevitable 
that  the  idea  could  scarcely  have  been  expressed  to  the  world 
except  through  an  idolatry. 

Brethren,  it  is  an  idolatry :  in  modern  Romanism  a  perni* 
cious  and  most  defiling  one.  The  worship  of  Mary  over- 
shadows the  worship  of  the  Son.  The  love  given  to  her  is 
so  much  taken  from  Him.  Nevertheless,  let  us  not  hide  from 
ourselves  the  eternal  truth  of  the  idea  that  lies  beneath  the 
temporary  falsehood  of  the  dogma.  Overthrow  the  idolatry ; 
but  do  it  by  substituting  the  truth. 

Now  the  truth  which  alone  can  supplant  the  worship  of  the 
Virgin  is  the  perfect  humanity  of  Jesus  Christ.  I  say  the 
perfect  humanity :  for  perfect  manhood  is  a  very  ambiguous 


39°  The  First  Miracie. 

expression.  By  man  we  sometimes  mean  the  human  race, 
made  up  of  man  and  woman,  and  sometimes  we  only  mean  the 
masculine  sex.  We  have  only  one  word  to  express  both 
ideas.  The  language  in  which  the  New  Testament  was 
written  has  two.  Hence  we  may  make  a  great  mistake. 
When  the  Bible  speaks  of  man  the  human  being,  we  may 
think  that  it  means,  man  the  male  creature.  When  the 
Bible  tells  us  Jesus  Christ  was  the  Son  of  Man,  it  uses  the 
word  which  implies  human  being:  it  does  not  use  the  word 
which  signifies  one  of  the  male  sex:  it  does  not  dwell  on  the 
fact  that  He  was  a  man  :  but  it  earnestly  asserts  that  He  was 
Man.  Son  of  a  man  He  was  not.  Son  of  Man  He  was :  for 
the  blood,  as  it  were,  of  all  the  race  was  in  His  veins. 

Now  let  us  see  what  is  implied  in  this  expression  Son  of 
Man.  It  contains  in  it  the  doctrine  of  the  incarnation :  it 
means  the  full  humanity  of  Christ.  Lately  I  tried  to  bring 
out  one  portion  of  its  meaning.  I  said  that  He  belonged  to 
no  particular  age,  but  to  every  age.  He  had  not  the  qualities 
of  one  clime  or  race,  but  that  which  is  common  to  all  climes 
and  all  races.  He  was  not  the  Son  of  the  Jew,  nor  the  Son 
of  the  Oriental — He  was  the  Son  of  Man.  He  was  not  the 
villager  of  Bethlehem:  nor  one  whose  character  and  mind 
were  the  result  of  a  certain  training,  peculiar  to  Judea,  or  pe- 
culiar to  that  century — but  He  was  the  Man.  This  is  what 
St.  Paul  insists  on,  when  He  says  that  in  Him  there  is  neither 
Jew  nor  Gentile,  Barbarian,  Scythian,  bond  nor  free.  A  hu 
manity  in  which  there  is  nothing  distinctive,  limited,  or  pe- 
culiar, but  universal — your  nature  and  mine,  the  humanity  in 
which  we  all  are  brothers,  bond  or  free.  Now  in  that  same 
passage  St.  Paul  uses  another  very  remarkable  expression : 
"  There  is  neither  Jew  nor  Greek,  there  is  neither  bond  nor 
free,  there  is  neither  male  nor  female."  That  is  the  other 
thing  implied  in  His  title  to  the  Son  of  Man.  His  nature 
had  in  it  the  nature  of  all  nations :  but  also  His  heart  had  in 
it  the  blended  qualities  of  both  sexes.  Our  humanity  is  a 
whole  made  up  of  two  opposite  poles  of  character — the  manly 
and  the  feminine.  In  the  character  of  Christ  neither  was 
found  exclusively,  but  both  in  perfect  balance.  He  was  the 
Son  of  Man — the  Human  Being — perfect  Man. 

There  was  in  Him  the  woman-heart  as  well  as  the  manly 
brain — all  that  was  most  manly,  and  all  that  was  most  wom- 
anly. Remember  what  He  was  in  life :  recollect  His  stern 
iron  hardness  in  the  temptation  of  the  desert :  recollect  the 
calmness  that  never  quailed  in  all  the  uproars  of  the  people, 
the  truth  that  never  faltered,  the  strict  severe  integrity  which 
characterized  the  Witness  of  the  Truth  :  recollect  the  justice 


The  Glory  of  the  Virgin  Mother.  391 

that  never  gave  way  to  weak  feeling — which  let  the  rich 
young  ruler  go  his  way  to  perish  if  he  would — which  paid 
the  tribute-money — which  held  the  balance  fair  between  the 
persecuted  woman  and  her  accuser,  but  did  not  suffer  itself 
to  be  betrayed  by  sympathy  into  any  feeble  tenderness — the. 
justice  that  rebuked  Peter  with  indignation,  and  pronounced 
the  doom  of  Jerusalem  unswervingly.  Here  is  one  side  or 
pole  of  human  character — surely  not  the  feminine  side.  Now 
look  at  the  other.  Recollect  the  twice-recorded  tears,  which 
a  man  would  have  been  ashamed  to  show,  and  which  are 
never  beautiful  in  man  except  when  joined  with  strength  like 
His :  and  recollect  the  sympathy  craved  and  yearned  for  as 
well  as  given — the  shrinking  from  solitude  in  prayei? — the 
trembling  of  a  sorrow  unto  death — the  considerate  care  which 
provided  bread  for  the  multitude,  and  said  to  the  tired  disci- 
ples, as  with  a  sister's  rather  than  a  brother's  thoughtfulness, 
"  Come  ye  apart  into  the  desert  and  rest  a  while."  This  is 
the  other  side  or  pole  of  human  character — surely  not  the 
masculine. 

When  we  have  learnt  and  felt  what  is  meant  by  Divine 
humanity  in  Christ,  and  when  we  have  believed  it,  not  in  a 
one-sided  way,  but  in  all  its  fullness,  then  we  are  safe  from 
Mariolatry — because  we  do  not  want  it :  we  have  the  truth 
which  Mariolatry  labors  to  express,  and,  laboring  ignorantly, 
falls  into  idolatry.  But  so  long  as  the  male  was  looked  upon 
as  the  only  type  of  God,  and  the  masculine  virtues  as  the 
only  glory  of  His  character,  so  long  the  truth  was  yet  unre- 
vealed.  This  was  the  state  of  heathenism.  And  so  long  as 
Christ  was  only  felt  as  the  Divine  Man,  and  not  the  Divine 
Humanity,  so  long  the  world  had  only  a  one-sided  truth. 

One-half  of  our  nature,  the  sternei  portion  of  it,  only  was 
felt  to  be  of  God  and  in  God.  The  other  half,  the  tenderer 
and  the  purer  qualities  of  our  souls,  were  felt  as  earthly. 
This  was  the  state  of  Romanism  from,  which  men  tried  to 
escape  by  Mariolatry.  And  if  men  had  not  learned  that  this 
side  of  our  nature  too  was  made  divine  in  Christ,  what  possi- 
ble escape  was  there  for  them,  but  to  look  to  the  Virgin 
Mary  as  the  incarnation  of  the  purer  and  lovelier  elements  of 
God's  character,  reserving  to  her  Son  the  sterner  and  the 
more  masculine  ? 

Can  we  not  understand,  too,  how  it  came  to  pass  that  the 
mother  was  placed  above  the  Son,  and  adored  more  ?  Chris- 
tianity had  proclaimed  meekness,  purity,  obedience,  as  more 
Divine  than  strength  and  wisdom.  What  wonder  if  she 
who  was  gazed  on  as  the  type  of  purity  should  be  reckoned 
more  near  to  God  than  He  who  had  come  through  miscon? 


392  The  First  Miracle. 

ception  to  be  looked  on  chiefly  as  the  type  of  Strength  and 
Justice  ?  „ 

There  is  a  spirit  abroad  which  is  leading  men  to  Rome 
Do  not  call  that  the  spirit  of  the  Devil.  It  is  the  desire  and 
hope  to  find  there  in  its  tenderness,  and  its  beauty,  and  its 
devotion,  a  home  for  those  feelings  of  awe,  and  contempla- 
tion, and  love,  for  which  our  stern  Protestantism  finds  no 
shelter.  Let  us  acknowledge  that  what  they  worship  is 
indeed  deserving  of  all  adoration:  only  let  us  say -that  what 
they  worship  ignorantly  is  Christ.  Whom  they  ignorantly 
worship  let  us  declare  unto  them:  Christ  their  unknown 
God,  worshipped  at  an  idol-altar.  Do  not  let  us  satisfy 
ourselves  by  saying  as  a  watchword,  "Christ,  not  Mary:" 
say  rather,  "  In  Christ  all  that  they  find  in  Mary."  The 
mother  in  the  Son,  the  womanly  in  the  soul  of  Christ.  Di- 
vine honor  to  the  feminine  side  of  His  character,  joyful  and 
unvarying  acknowledgment  that  in  Christ  there  is  a  reve- 
lation of  the  Divineness  of  submission,  and  love,  and  purity, 
and  long-suffering,  just  as  there  was  before  in  the  name  of 
the  Lord  of  Hosts  a  revelation  of  the  Divineness  of  courage^ 
and  strength,  and  heroism,  and  manliness. 

Therefore  it  is  we  do  not  sympathize  with  those  coarse 
expositions  which  aim  at  doing  exclusive  honor  to  the  Son 
of  God  by  degrading  the  life  and  character  of  the  Virgin. 
Just  as  the  Romanist  has  loved  to  represent  all  connection 
with  her  as  mysterious  and  immaculate,  so  has  the  Prot- 
estant been  disposed  to  vulgarize  her  to  the  level  of  the 
commonest  humanity,  and  exaggerate  into  rebukes  the  rev- 
erent expressions  to  her  in  which  Jesus  merely  asserted  His 
Divine  independence. 

Rather  reverence,  not  her,  but  that  idea  and  type  which 
Christianity  has  given  in  her — the  type  of  Christian  woman- 
hood ;  which  was  not  realized  in  her,  which  never  was  and 
never  will  be  realized  in  one  single  woman — which  remains 
ever  a  Divine  Idea,  after  which  each  living  woman  is  to 
strive. 

And  when  I  say  reverence  that  idea  or  type,  I  am  but 
pointing  to  the  relation  between  the  mother  and  the  Son, 
and  asking  men  to  reverence  that  which  He  reverenced. 
Think  we  that  there  is  no  meaning  hidden  in  the  mystery 
that  the  Son  of  God  was  the  Virgin's  Son?  To  Him  through 
life  there  remained  the  early  recollections  of  a  pure  mother. 
Blessed  beyond  all  common  blessedness  is  the  man  who  can 
look  back  to  that.  God  has  given  to  him  a  talisman  which 
will  carry  him  triumphant  through  many  a  temptation.  To 
other  men  purity  may  be  a  name ;  to  him  it  has  been  once  a 


The  Glory  of  the  Divine  Son.  393 

realty.  "Faith  in  ail  things  high  beats  with  his  blood." 
He  may  be  tempted:  he  may  err:  but  there  will  be  a  light 
from  home  shining  forever*  on  his  path  inextinguishably. 
By  the  grace  of  God,  degraded  he  can  not  be. 


XVIII. 
THE  FIRST  MIRACLE. 

II.    THE  GLORY  OF  THE  DIVINE  SON. 

"This  beginning  of  miracles  did  Jesus  in  Cana  of  Galilee,  and  manifested 
forth  his  glory;  and  his  disciples  believed  on  him." — John  ii.  11. 

IN  the  history  of  this  miracle  two  personages  are  brought 
prominently  before  our  notice.  One  is  the  Virgin  Mary; 
the  other  is  the  Son  of  God.  And  these  two  exhibit  differ- 
ent orders  of  glory,  as  well  as  different  degrees.  Different 
degrees,  for  the  Virgin  was  only  human :  her  Son  was  God 
manifest  in  the  flesh.  Different  orders  of  glory,  for  tine  one 
exhibited  the  distinctive  glory  of  womanhood :  the  Other 
manifested  forth  His  glory — the  glory  of  perfect  manhood. 

Taking  the  Virgin  as  the  type  and  representative  of  her 
sex,  we  found  the  glory  of  womanhood,  as  exhibited  by  her 
conduct  in  this  parable,  to  consist  in  unselfish  considerate- 
ness  about  others,  in  delicacy  of  tact,  in  the  power  of  enno- 
bling a  ministry  of  coarse  and  household  things,  like  the 
wine  of  the  marriage-feast,  by  the  sanctity  of  affection :  in 
meekness,  and  lowly  obedience,  which  was  in  the  Fall  her 
curse,-in  Christ  become  her  glory,  transformed  into  a  bless- 
ing and  a  power:  and  lastly,  as  the  name  Virgin  implies, 
the  distinctive  glory  of  womanhood  we  found  to  consist  in 
purity. 

Now  the  Christian  history  first  revealed  these  great  truths. 
The  Gospels  which  record  the  life  of  Christ,  first,  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  world,  brought  to  light  the  Divine  glory  of  those 
qualities  which  had  been  despised.  Before  Christ  came,  the 
heathen  had  counted  for  Divine  the  legislative  wisdom  of 
the  man,  manly  strength,  manly  truth,  manly  justice,  manly 
courage.  The  life  and  the  cross  of  Christ  shed  a  splendor 
from  heaven  upon  a  new  and  till  then  unheard-of  order  of 
heroism  —  that  which  may  be  called  the  feminine  order, 
meekness,  endurance,  long-suffering,  the  passive  strength  of 
martyrdom.  For  Christianity  does  not  say,  Honor  to  the 


394  Tk*  First  Miracle. 

wise,  but "  Blessed  are  the  meek."  Not,  Glory  to  the  strong, 
but  "  Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart,  for  they  shall  see  God." 
Not,  "  The  Lord  is  a  man  of  war,  Jehovah  is  His  name,"  but 
"  God  is  Love."  In  Christ  not  intellect,  but  love,  is  conse- 
crated. In  Christ  is  magnified,  not  force  of  will,  but  the 
glory  of  a  Divine  humility.  "  He  was  obedient  unto  death, 
even  the  death  of  the  cross  :  wherefore  God  also  hath  highly 
exalted  Him." 

Therefore  it  was,  that  from  that  time  forward  womanhood 
assumed  a  new  place  in  this  world.  She  in  whom  these 
qualities,  for  the  first  time  declared  Divine  in  Christ,  were 
the  distinctive  characteristics,  steadily  and  gradually  rose 
to  a  higher  dignity  in  human  life.  It  is  not  to  a  mere  civiliza- 
tion, but  to  the  spirit  of  life  in  Christ,  that  woman  owes  all 
she  has,  and  all  she  has  yet  to  gain.  ^ 

Now  the  outward  phases  in  wrhich  this  redemption  of  the 
sex  appeared  to  the  world  have  been  as  yet  chiefly  three. 
There  have  been  three  ages  through  which  these  great  truths 
of  the  Divineness  of  purity,  and  the  strength  and  glory  of 
obedience,  the  peculiar  characteristics  of  womanhood,  have 
been  rising  into  their  right  acknowledgment.  1.  The  ages 
of  Virgin-worship.  2.  The  ages  of  chivalry.  3.  The  age  of 
the  three  last  centuries.  Now  during  these  three  Protestant 
centuries,  the  place  and  destinies  of  womanhood  have  been 
every  year  rising  more  and  more  into  great  questions.  Her 
mission,  as  it  is  called  in  the  cant  language  of  the  day — 
what  it  is — that  is  one  of  the  subjects  of  deepest  interest  in 
the  controversies  of  the  day.  And  unless  we  are  prepared 
to  say  that  the  truth  which  has  been  growing  clearer  and 
brighter  for  eighteen  centuries  shall  stop  now  exactly  where 
it  is,  and  grow  no  clearer:  unless  we  are  ready  to  affirm  that 
mankind  will  never  learn  to  pay  less  glory  to  strength  and 
intellect,  and  more  to  meekness,  and  humbleness,  and  pure- 
ness  than  they  do  now,  it  follows  that  God  has  yet  reserved 
for  womanhood  a  larger  and  more  glorious  field  for  her 
peculiar  qualities  and  gifts,  and  that  the  truth  contained  in 
the  Virgin's  motherhood  is  unexhausted  still. 

For  this  reason,  in  reference  to  that  womanhood  and  its 
destinies  of  which  St.  Mary  is  the  type,  I  thought  it  needful, 
last  Sunday,  to  insist  on  two  things  as  of  profound  impor- 
tance. 

L  To  declare  in  what  her  true  glory  consists.  The  only 
glory  of  the  Virgin  was  the  glory  of  true  womanhood.  The 
glory  of  true  womanhood  consists  in  being  herself:  not  in 
striving  to  be  something  else.  It  is  the  lalse  paradox  and 


The.  Glory  of  the  Divine  Son.  395 

heresy  of  this  present  age  to  claim  for  her  as  a  glory  the 
right  to  leave  her  sphere.  Her  glory  lies  in  her  sphere,  and 
God  has  given  her  a  sphere  distinct ;  as  in  the"  Epistle  to  the 
Church  of  Corinth,  when  in  that' wise  ctfapter  St.  Paul  render- 
ed unto  womanhood  the  things  which  were  woman's,  and 
unto  manhood  the  things  which  were  man's. 

And  the  true  correction  of  that  monstrous  rebellion  against 
what  is  natural  lies  in  vindicating  Mary's  glory,  on  the  one 
side,  from  the  Romanist,  who  gives  to  her  the  glory  of  God  ; 
and  on  the  other  from  those  who  would  confound  the  dis- 
tinctive glories  of  the  two  sexes,  and  claim  as  the  glory  of 
woman  what  is,  in  the  deeps  of  nature,  the  glory  of  the 
man. 

Every  thing  is  created  in  its  own  order.  ..Every  created 
thing  has  its  own  glory.  "  There  is  one  glory  of  the  sun, 
another  glory  of  the  moon,  and  another  glory  of  the  stav«a  • 
for  one  star  differeth  from  another  star  in  glory."  There  is 
one  glory  of  manhood,  and  another  glory  of  womanhood. 
And  the  glory  of  each  created  thing  consists  in  being  true 
to  its  own  nature,  and  moving  in  its  own  sphere. 

Mary's  glory  was  not  immaculate  origin,  nor  immaculate 
life,  nor  exaltation  to  Divine  honors.  She  had  none  of  these 
things.  Nor,  on  the  other  hand,  was  it  force  or  demanded 
rights,  social  or  domestic,  that  constituted  her  glory.  But  it 
was  the  glory  of  simple  womanhood ;  the  glory  of  being 
true  to  the  nature  assigned  her  by  her  Maker;  the  glory  of 
motherhood;  the  glory  of  "a  meek  and  quiet  spirit,  which 
in  the  sight  of  God  is  of  great  price."  She  was  not  the 
queen  of  heaven,  but  she  was  something  nobler  still,  a  crea- 
ture content  to  be  what  God  had  made  her:  in  unselfishness, 
and  humbleness,  and  purity,  "  rejoicing  in  God  her  Saviour," 
content  that  "  He  had  regarded  the  lowliness  of  His  hand- 
maiden." 

The  second  thing  upon  w7hich  I  insisted  was,  that  the  only 
safeguard  against  the  idolatrous  error  of  Virgin-worship  is  a 
full  recognition  of  the  perfect  humanity  of  "Christ.  A  full 
recognition  :  for  it  is  only  a  partial  acknowledgment  of  the 
meaning  of  the  incarnation  when  we  think  of  Him  as  the 
Divine  Man.  It  was  not  manhood,  but  humanity,  that  was 
made  Divine  in  Him.  Humanity  has  its  two  sides  :  one  side 
in  the  strength  and  intellect  of  manhood ;  the  other  in  the 
tenderness,  and  faith,  and  submissiveness  of  womanhood: 
Man  and  woman,  not  man  alone,  make  up  human  nature.  Ip 
Christ  not  one  alone  but  both  were  glorified.  Strength  anci 
grace,  wisdom  and  love,  courage  and  purity,  Divine  manli- 
ness :  Divine  womanliness.  In  all  noble  characters  you  find 


396  The  First  Miracle. 

the  two  blended :  in  Him,  the  noblest,  blended  into  one  en. 
tire  and  perfect  humanity. 

Unless  you -recognize  and  fully  utter  this  whole  truth,  you 
will  find  Mariolatry  forever  returning,  cut  it  down  as  you 
will.  It  must  come  back.  It  will  come  back.  I  had  well 
nigh  said  it  ought  to  come  back,  unless  we  preach  and  believe 
the  full  truth  of  God  incarnate  in  humanity.  For  while  we 
teach  in  our  classical  schools  as  the  only  manliness,  Pa- 
gan heroism  of  warrior  and  legislator,  can  we  say  that  we 
are  teaching  both  sides  of  Christ  ?  Our  souls  were  trained 
in  boyhood  to  honor  the  heroic  and  the  masculine.  Who 
ever  hinted  to  us  that  charity  is  the  "more  excellent  way  ?" 
Who  suggested  that  "  he  which  ruleth  his  spirit  is  greater 
than  he  which  taketh  a  city  ?" 

Again,  we  find  our  English  society  divided  into  two  sec- 
tions :  one  the  men  of  business  and  action,  exhibiting  promi- 
nently the  masculine  virtues  of  English  character,  truth  and 
honor,  and  almost  taught  to  reckon  forbearance  and  feeling 
as  proofs  of  weakness;  taught  in  the  playground  to  believe 
that  a  chaste  life  is  romance ;  false  sentiment  and  strength- 
lessness  of  character  taught  there :  and  in  after-life  that  it  is 
mean  to  forgive  a  personal  affront. 

The  other  section  of  our  society  is  made  up  of  men  of 
prayer  and  religiousness  :  for  some  reason  or  other  singular- 
ly deficient  in  masculine  breadth  and  strength,  and  even 
truthfulness  of  character :  with  no  firm  footing  upon  reality, 
not  daring  to  look  the  real  problems  of  social  and  political 
life  in  the  face,  but  wasting  their  strength  in  disputes  of 
words,  or  shrinking  into  a  dim  atmosphere  of  ecclesiastical 
dreaminess,  unreal  and  effeminate.  Dare  we  say  that  the 
full  humanity  of  Christ  in  its  double  aspect  is  practically 
adored  amongst  us?  Have  we  not  made  a  fatal  separation 
between  the  manly  and  the  feminine  sides  of  character  ?  be- 
tween the  moral  and  the  devout  ?  so  that  we  have  men  who 
are  masculine  and  moral,  and  also  men  who  are  effeminate 
and  devout.  But  w<here  are  our  Christian  men  in  whom  the 
whole  Christ  is  formed — all  that  is  brave,  and  true,  and  wise, 
and  at  the  same  time  all  that  is  tender,  and  devout,  and 
r,ure  ?  Who  ever  taught  us  to  adore  in  Christ  all  that  is 
most  manly,  and  all  that  is  most  womanly,  that  we  might 
strive  to  be  such  in  our  degree  ourselves  ?  And  if  not,  can 
you  wonder  that  men,  feeling  their  Christianity  imperfect, 
blindly  strive  to  patch  it  up  through  Mariolatry'? 

I  gather  into  a  few  sentences  the  substance  of  what  was 
said  last  Sunday.  I  said  that  Christianity  exhibited  the 
Divine  glory  of  the  weaker  elements  of  our  human  nature, 


The  Glory  of  the  Divine  Son.  397 

Heathenism,  nay  even  Judaism,  had  as  yet  before  him  only 
recognized  the  glory  of  the  stronger  and  masculine.  Now 
the  Romanist  personified  the  masculine  side  of  human  na- 
ture in  Christ.  He  personified  gentleness  and  purity,  the 
feminine  side  of  human  nature,  in  the  Virgin  Mary.  No 
wonder  that  with  this  cardinal  error  at  the  outset  in  his  con- 
ceptions, he  adored ;  and  no  wonder,  since  Christianity  de- 
clared meekness  and  purity  more  Divine  than  strength  and 
intellect,  in  process  of  time  he  came  to  honor  the  Virgin 
more  than  Chris^  That  I  believe  is  the  true  history  and 
account  of  Virgin-worship. 

The  Bible  personifies  both  sides  of  human  nature,  the  mas- 
culine and  feminine,  in  Christ,  of  whom  St.  Paul  declares  in 
the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians,  "  In  Him  is  neither  Jew  nor 
Greek,  bond  nor  free,  male  nor  female."  Neither  distinctive- 
ly, for  in  him  both  the  manly  and  the  womanly  sides  of  char- 
acter divinely  meet.  I  say  therefore  that  the  incarnation  of 
God  in  Christ  is  the  true  defense  against  Virgin-worship. 

Think  of  Christ  only  as  the  masculine  character,  glorified 
by  the  union  of  Godhead  with  it,  and  your  Christianity  has 
in  it  an  awful  gap,  a  void,  a  want — the  inevitable  supply  and 
relief  to  which  will  be  Mariolatry,  however  secure  you  may 
think  yourself;  however  strong  and  fierce  the  language 
you  now  use.  Men  who  have  used  language  as  strong  and 
fierce  have  become  idolaters  of  Mary.  With  a  half  thought 
of  Christ,  safe  you  are  not.  But  think  of  him  as  the  Divine 
Human  Being,  in  whom  both  sides  of  our  cjouble  being  are 
divine  and  glorified,  and  then  you  have  the  truth  which  Ro- 
manism has  marred  and  perverted  into  an  idolatry  pernicious 
in  all ;  in  the  less  spiritual  worshippers  sensualizing  and  de- 
basing. 

Now  there  are  two  ways  of  meeting  error.  The  one  is  that 
in  which,  in  humble  imitation  of  Christ  and  His  apostles,  I 
have  tried  to  show  you  the  error  of  the  worship  of  Mary — to 
discern  the  truth  out  of  which  the  error  sprung,  firmly  as- 
serting the  truth,  forbearing  threatening  ;  certain  that  he  in 
Avhose  mind  the  truth  is  lodged  has  in  that  truth  the  safe- 
guard against  error. 

The  other  way  of  meeting  error  is  to  overwhelm  it  with 
threats.  To  some  men  it  seems  the  only  way  in  which  true 
zeal  is  shown.  Well,  it  is  very  easy,  requiring  no  self-con- 
trol, but  only  an  indulgence  of  every  bad  passion.  It  is  very 
easy  to  call  Rome  the  "  mother  of  harlots  and  abominations  " 
— very  easy  to  use  strong  language  about  "  damnable  idola- 
tries " — very  easy  for  the  apostles  to  call  down  fire  from 
heaven  upon  the  Samaritans  because  they  would  not  receive 


The  First  Miracle. 

Christ,  and  then  to  flatter  themselves  that  that  was  godly 
zeal.  But  it  might  be  well  for  us  to  remember  his  somewhat 
startling  comment,  "Ye  know  not  what  manner  of  spirit  ye 
are  of."  There  are  those  who  think  it  a  surer  and  a  safer 
Protestantism  to  use  those  popular  watchwords.  Be  it  so. 
But  with  God's  blessing,  that  will  not  I.  The  majesty  of 
truth  needs  other  bulwarks  than  vulgar  and  cowardly  vitu- 
peration. Coarse  and  violent  language,  excusable  three  hun- 
dred years  ago  by  the  manners  of  that  day,  was  bold  and 
brave  in  the  lips  of  the  Reformer's,  with  whom  the  struggle 
was  one  of  life  and  death,  and  who  might  be  called  to  pay 
the  penalty  of  their  bold  defiances  with  their  blood.  But  the 
same  fierceness  of  language  now,  when  there  is  no  personal 
risk  in  the  use  of  it,  in  the  midst  of  hundreds  of  men  and 
women  ready  to  applaud  and  honor  violence  as  zeal,  is  simply 
a  dastardliness  from  which  every  generous  mind  shrinks. 
You  do  not  get  the  Reformers'  spirit  by  putting  on  the  ar- 
mor they  have  done  with,  but  by  risking  the  dangers  which 
those  noble  warriors  risked.  It  is  not  their  big  words,  but 
their  large,  brave  heart  that  makes  the  Protestant.  Oh,  be 
sure  that  he  whose  soul  hns  anchored  itself  to  rest  on  the 
deep  calm  sea  of  truth,  does  not  spend  his  strength  in  raving 
against  those  who  are  still  tossed  by  the  winds  of  error. 
Spasmodic  violence  of  words  is  one  thing,  strength  of  convic- 
tion is  another. 

When,  oh  when,  shall  we  learn  that  loyalty  to  Christ  is 
tested  far  more  by  the  strength  of  our  sympathy  with  truth 
than  by  the  intensity  of  our  hatred  of  error  ?  I  will  tell  you 
what  to  hate.  Hate  hypocrisy — hate  cant — hate  intolerance, 
oppression,  injustice — hate  Pharisaism — hate  them  as  Christ 
hated  them,  with  a  deep,  living,  Godlike  hatred.  But  do  not 
hate  men  in  intellectual  error.  To  hate  a  man  for  his  errors 
is  as  unwise  as  to  hate  one  who  in  casting  up  an  account  has 
made  an  error  against  himself.  The  Rornanist  has  made  an 
error  against  himself.  He  has  missed  the  full  glory  of  his 
Lord  and  Master.  Well,  shall  we  hate  him,  and  curse,  and 
rant,  and  thunder  at  him  ?  Or,  shall  we  sit  down  beside  him, 
and  try  to  sympathize  with  him,  and  see  things  from  his  point 
of  view,  and  strive  to  understand  the  truth  which  his  soul  is 
aiming  at,  and  seize  the  truth  for  him  and  for  ourselves, 
"  meekly  instructing;  those  who  oppose  themselves?" 

Our  subject  to-day  is  the  glory  of  the  Divine  Son.  In  that 
miracle  "  He  manifested  forth  his  glory."  Concerning  that 
glory  we  sny  : — 

1 .  The  glory  of  Christ  did  not  begin  with  that  miracle  :  the 
miracle  only  manifested  it.  For  thirty  years  the  wonder- 


The  Glory  of  the  Divine  Son.  399 

working  power  had  been  in  Him.  It  was  not  Diviner  power 
when  it  broke  forth  into  visible  manifestation  than  it  had 
been  when  it  was  unsuspected  and  unseen.  It  had  been  ex- 
ercised up  to  this  time  in  common  acts  of  youthful  life  :  obe- 
dience to  His  mother,  love  to  His  brethren.  Well,  it  was 
just  as  Divine  in  those  simple,  daily  acts,  as  when  it  showed 
itself  in  a  way  startling-  and  wonderful.  It  was  just  as  much 
the  life  of  God  on  earth  when  He  did  an  act  of  ordinary  hu- 
man love  or  human  duty,  as  when  He  did  an  extraordinary 
act,  such  as  turning  water  into  wine.  God  wras  as  much,  nay 
more,  in  the  daily  life  and  love  of  Christ,  than  he  was  in  Christ's 
miracles.  The  miracle  only  made  the  hidden  glory  visible. 
The  extraordinary  only  proved  that  the  ordinary  was  Divine* 
That  was  the  very  object  of  the  miracle.  It  was  done  to  man- 
ifest forth  his  glory.  And  if,  instead  of  rousing  men  to  see 
the  real  glory  of  Christ  in  His  other  life,  the  miracle  merely 
fastened  men's  attention  on  itself,  and  made  them  think  that 
the  only  glory  which  is  Divine  is  to  be  found  in  what  is  won- 
derful and  uncommon,  then  the  whole  intention  of  the  miracle 
was  lost. 

Let  us  make  this  more  plain  by  an  illustration.  To  the 
wise  man,  the  lightning  only  manifests  the  electric  force  which 
is  everywhere,  and  which  for  one  moment  has  become  visible. 
As  often  as  he  sees  it,  it  reminds  him  that  the  lightning  slum- 
bers invisibly  in  the  dew-drop,  and  in  the  mist,  and  in  the 
cloud,  and  binds  together  every  atom  of  the  water  that  he 
uses  in  daily  life.  But  to  the  vulgar  mind,  the  lightning  is 
something  unique,  a  something  which  has  no  existence  but 
when  it  appears.  There  is  a  fearful  glory  in  the  lightning 
because  he  sees  it.  But  there  is  no  startling  glory  and  noth- 
ing fearful  in  the  drop  of  dew,  because  he  does  not  know, 
what  the  thinker  knows,  that  the  flash  is  there  in  all  its  ter- 
rors. So,  in  the  same  way,  to  the  half  believer  a  miracle  is 
the  one  solitary  evidence  of  God.  Without  it  he  could  have 
no  certainty  of  God's  existence. 

But  to  the  true  disciple  a  miracle  only  manifests  the  pow- 
er and  love  which  are  silently  at  work  everywhere— as  truly 
and  as  really  in  the  slow  work  of  the  cure  of  the  insane,  as  in 
the  sudden  expulsion  of  the  legion  from  the  demoniac — as 
divinely  in  the  gift  of  daily  bread  as  in  the  miraculous  mul- 
tiplication of  the  loaves.  God's  glory  is  at  work  in  the  growth 
of  the  vine  and  the  ripening  of  the  grape,  and  the  process  by 
which  grape-juice  passes  into  wine.  It  is  not  more  glory,  but 
only  glory  more  manifested,  when  water  at  his  bidding  passes 
at  once  into  wine.  And  be  sure  that  if  you  do  not  feel  as 
David  felt,  God's  presence  in  the  annual  miracle,  that  it  is 


4OO  The  First  Miracle. 

God,  which  in  the  vintage  of  every  year  causeth  wine  to 
make  glad  the  heart  of  man,  the  sudden  miracle  at  Caperna- 
um would  not  have  given  you  conviction  of  His  presence. 
"  If  you  hear  not  Moses  and  the  prophets,  neither  will  you 
be  persuaded  though  one  rose  from  the  dead."  Miracles  have 
only  done  their  work  when  they  teach  us  the  glory  and  the 
awfulness  that  surround  our  common  life.  In  a  miracle,  God 
for  one  moment  shows  Himself  that  we  may  remember  it  is 
He  that  is  at  work  when  no  miracle  is  seen. 

Now  this  is  the  deep  truth  of  miracles  which  most  men 
miss.  They  believe  that  the  life  of  Jesus  was  Divine,  be- 
cause He  wrought  miracles.  But  if  their  faith  in  miracles 
were  shaken,  their  faith  in  Christ  would  go.  If  the  evidence 
for  the  credibility  of  those  miracles  were  weakened,  then  to 
them  the  mystic  glory  would  have  faded  off  His  history. 
They  could  not  be  sure  that  His  existence  was  Divine. 
That  love,  even  unto  death,  would  bear  no  certain  stamp  of 
God  upon  it.  That  life  of  long  self-sacrifice  would  have  had 
in  it  no  certain  unquestionable  traces  of  the  Son  of  God. 

See  what  that  implies.  If  that  be  true,  and  miracles  are 
the  best  proof  of  Christ's  mission,  God  can  be  recognized 
only  in  what  is  marvellous :  God  can  not  be  recognized  in 
what  is  good.  It  is  by  Divine  power  that  a  human  Being 
turns  water  into  wine.  It  is  by  power  less  certainly  Divine 
that  the  same  Being  witnesses  to  truth — forgives  His  ene- 
mies— makes  it  His  meat  and  drink  to  do  His  Father's  will, 
and  finishes  His.  work.  We  are  more  sure  that  God  was  in 
Christ  when  he  said,  "  Rise  up,  and  walk,"  than  when  He 
said  with  absolving  love,  "  Son,  thy  sins  be  forgiven  thee  :" 
more  certain  when  He  furnished  wine  for  wedding-guests, 
than  when  He  said,  "  Father,  forgive  them,  for  they  know 
not  what  they  do."  Oh,  a  strange,  and  low,  and  vulgar  ap- 
preciation this  of  the  true  glory  of  the  Son  of  God ;  the  same 
false  conception  that  runs  through  all  our  life,  appearing  in 
every  form — God  in  the  storm,  and  the  earthquake,  and  the 
fire — no  God  in  the  still  small  voice.  Glory  in  the  lightning- 
flash — no  glory  and  no  God  in  the  lowliness  of  the  dew-drop. 
Glory  to  intellect  and  genius — no  glory  to  gentleness  and 
patience.  Glory  to  every  kind  of  power — none  to  the  in- 
ward, invisible  strength  of  the  life  of  God  in  the  soul  of  man. 

"An  evil  and  an  adulterous  generation  seeketh  after  a 
sign."  Look  at  the  feverish  eagerness  with  which  men 
crowd  to  every  exhibition  of  some  newly-discovered  force, 
real  or  pretended.  What  lies  at  the  bottom  of  this  feverish- 
ness  but  an  unbelieving  craving  after  signs  ?  some  wonder 
which  is  to  show  them  the  Divine  life  of  which  the  evidence 


The  Glory  of  the  Divine  Son.  401 

is  yet  imperfect  ?  As  if  the  bread  they  eat  and  the  wine 
they  drink,  chosen  by  God  for  the  emblems  of  His  sacra- 
ments because  the  commonest  things  of  daily  life,  were  not 
filled  with  the  presence  of  His  love ;  as  if  God  were  not 
around  their  path  and  beside  their  bed,  and  spying  out  all 
their  daily  ways. 

It  is  in  this  strange  way  that  we  have  learned  Christ. 
The  miracles  which  were  meant  to  point  us  to  the  Divinity 
of  His  goodness,  have  only  dazzled  us  with  the  splendor  of 
their  power.  We  have  forgotten,  what  His  first  wonder- 
work shows,  that  a  miracle  is  only  manifested  glory. 

2.  It  was  the  glory  of  Christ,  again,  to  sanctify,  i.  e.,  declare 
the  sacredness  of,  all  things  natural  —  all  natural  relation- 
ships, all  natural  enjoyments. 

All  natural  relationships.  What  He  sanctified  by  His 
presence  was  a  marriage.  Now  remember  what  had  gone 
before  this.  The  life  of  John  the  Baptist  was  the  highest 
form  of  religious  life  known  in  Israel.  It  was  the  life 
ascetic.  It  was  a  life  of  solitariness  and  penitential  auster- 
ity. He  drank  no  wine  :  he  ate  no  pleasant  food :  he  mar- 
ried no  wife  :  he  entered  into  no  human  relationship.  It  was 
the  law  of  that  stern  and  in  its  way  sublime  life,  to  cut  out 
every  human  feeling  as  a  weakness,  and  to  mortify  every 
natural  instinct,  in  order  to  cultivate  an  intenser  spirituality. 
A  life  in  its  own  order  grand,  but  indisputably  unnatural. 

Now  the  first  public  act  of  our  Redeemer's  life  is  to  go 
with  His  disciples  to  a  marriage.  He  consecrates  marriage, 
and  the  sympathies  which  lead  to  marriage.  He  declares 
the  sacredness  of  feelings  which  had  been  reckoned  carnal, 
and  (low,  and  human.  He  stamped  His  image  on  human 
joys,  human  connections,  human  relationships.  He  pro- 
nounces that  they  are  more  than  human — as  it  were  sacra- 
mental :  the  means  whereby  God's  presence  comes  to  us ; 
the  types  and  shadows  whereby  higher  and  deeper  relation- 
ships become  possible  to  us.  For  it  is  through  our  human 
aifections  that  the  soul  first  learns  to  feel  that  its  destiny  is 
divine :  It  is  through  a  mortal  yearning,  unsatisfied,  that  the 
spirit  ascends,  seeking  a  higher  object :  It  is  through  the 
gush  of  our  human  tenderness  that  the  immortal  and  the  in- 
finite in  us  reveals  itself.  Never  does  a  man  know  the  force 
that  is  in  him  till  some  mighty  affection  or  grief  has  human- 
ized the  soul.  It  is  by  an  earthly  relationship  that  God  haa 
typified  to  us  and  helped  us  to  conceive  the  only  true  espous- 
al— the  marriage  of  the  soul  to  her  eternal  Lord. 

It  was  the  glory  of  Christianity  to  pronounce  all  these  hu- 
man feelings  sacred:  therefore  it  is  that  the  Church  asserts 


4O2  The  First  Miracle. 

their  sacredness  in  a  religious  ceremony ;  for  example,  that 
of  marriage.  Do  not  mistake.  It  is  not  the  ceremony  that 
makes  a  thing  religious :  a  ceremony  can  only  declare  a  thing 
religious.  The  Church  can  not  make  sacred  that  which  is 
not  sacred :  she  is  but  here  on  earth  as  the  moon,  the  witness 
of  the  light  in  heaven  ;  by  her  ceremonies  and  by  her  insti- 
tutions to  bear  witness  to  eternal  truths.  She  can  not  by 
her  manipulations  manufacture  a  child  of  the  devil,  through 
baptism,  into  a  child  of  God :  she  can  only  authoritatively 
declare  the  sublime  truth — ho  is  not  the  devil's  child,  but 
God's  child  by  right.  She  can  not  make  the  bond  of  mar- 
riage sacred  and  indissoluble.:  she  can  only  witness  to  the 
sacredness  of  that  which  the  union  of  two  spirits  has  already 
made :  and  such  are  her  own  words.  Her  minister  is  com- 
manded by  her  to  say — "  Forasmuch  as  these  two  persons 
have  consented  together"  there  is  the  sacred  fact  of  nature, 
"  I  pronounce  that  they  be  man  and  wife  " — here  is  the  au- 
thoritative witness  to  the  fact. 

Again,  it  was  His  glory  to  declare  the  sacredness  of  all 
natural  enjoyments.  It  was  not  a  marriage  only,  but  a  mar- 
riage-feast,  to  which  Christ  conducted  His  disciples.  Now 
we  can  not  get  over  this  plain  fact  by  saying  that  it  was  a 
religious  ceremony :  that  would  be  mere  sophistry.  It  was 
an  indulgence  in  the  festivity  of  life ;  as  plainly  as  words 
can  describe,  here  was  a  banquet  of  human  enjoyment.  The 
very  language  of  the  master  of  the  feast  about  men  who  had 
well  drunk,  tells  us  that  there  had  been,  not  excess  of  course, 
but  happiness  there  and  merry-making. 

Neither  can  we  explain  away  the  lesson  by  saying  that  it 
is  no  example  to  us,  for  Christ  was  there  to  do  good,  and 
that  what  was  safe  for  Him  might  be  unsafe  for  us.  For  if 
His  life  is  no  pattern  for  us  here  in  this  case  of  accepting  an 
invitation,  in  what  can  we  be  sure  it  is  a  pattern  ?  Besides, 
He  took  His  disciples  there,  and  His  mother  was  there  :  they 
were  not  shielded,  as  He  was,  by  immaculate  purity.  He  was 
there  as  a  guest  at  first,  as  Messiah  only  afterwards :  thereby 
He  declared  the  sacredness  of  natural  enjoyments. 

Here  again,  then,  Christ  manifested  His  peculiar  glory 
The  temptation  of  the  wilderness  was  past :  the  baptism  of 
John,  and  the  life  of  abstinence  to  which  it  introduced,  were 
over;  and  now  the  Bridegroom  comes  before  the  world  in 
the  true  glory  of  Messiah — not  in  the  life  of  asceticism,  but 
in  the  life  of  Godliness — not  separating  from  life,  but  conse- 
crating it ;  carrying  a  Divine  spirit  into  every  simplest  act — 
accepting  an  invitation  to  a  feast — giving  to  water  the  vir- 
tue of  a  nobler  beverage.  For  Christianity  does  not  destroy 


The  Glory  of  the  Divine  Son.  403 

what  is  natural,  but  ennobles  it.  To  turn  water  into  wine, 
and  what  is  common  into  what  is  holy,  is  indeed  the  glory  of 
Christianity. 

The  ascetic  life  of  abstinence,  of  fasting,  austerity,  singu- 
larity, is  the  lower  and  earthlier  form  of  religion.  The  life 
of  Godliness  is  the  glory  of  Christ.  It  is  a  thing  far  more 
striking  to  the  vulgar  imagination  to  be  religious  after  the 
type  and  pattern  of  John  the  Baptist,  to  fast,  to  mortify 
every  inclination,  to  be  found  at  no  feast,  to  wrap  ourselves 
in  solitariness,  and  abstain  from  all  social  joys  :  yes,  and  far 
easier  so  to  live,  and  far  easier  so  to  win  a  character  for  re- 
ligiousness. A  silent  man  is  easily  reputed  wise.  A  man 
who  suffers  none  to  see  him  in  the  common  jostle  and  un 
dress  of  life,  easily  gathers  round  him  a  mysterious  veil  of 
unknown  sanctity,  and  men  honor  him  for  a  saint.  The  un- 
known is  always  wonderful.  But  the  life  of  Him  whom 
men  called  "  a  gluttonous  man  and  a  winebibber,  a  friend  of 
publicans  and  sinners,"  was  a  far  harder  and  a  far  heavenlier 
religion. 

To  shroud  ourselves  in  no  false  mist  of  holiness :  to  dare  to 
show  ourselves  as  we  are,  making  no  solemn  affectation  of 
reserve  or  difference  from  others :  to  be  found  at  the  mar- 
riage-feast :  to  accept  the  invitation  of  the  rich  Pharisee  Si- 
mon, and  the  scorned  publican  Zaccheus:  to  mix  with  the 
crowd  of  men,  using  no  affected  singularity,  content  to  be 
"  creatures  not  too  bright  or  good  for  human  nature's  daily 
food :"  and  yet  for  a  man  amidst  it  all  to  remain  a  conse- 
crated spirit,  his  trials  and  his  solitariness  known  only  to  his 
Father — a  being  set  apart,  not  of  this  world,  alone  in  the 
heart's  deeps  with  God:  to  put  the  cup  of  this  world's  glad- 
ness to  his  lips,  and  yet  be  unintoxicated :  to  gaze  steadily 
on  all  its  grandeur,  and  yet  be  undazzled,  plain  and  simple 
in  personal  desires :  to  feel  its  brightness,  and  yet  defy  its 
thrall : — this  is  the  difficult,  and  rare,  and  glorious  life  of 
God  in  the  soul  of  man.  This,  this  was  the  peculiar  glory 
of  the  life  of  Christ,  which  was  manifested  in  that  first  mir- 
acle which  Jesus  wrought  at  the  marriage -ieast  in  Caua  oi 
Galilea 


404  The  Good  Shepherd. 


XIX. 
THE  GOOD  SHEPHERD. 

"  I  am  the  good  shepherd,  and  know  ray  sheep,  and  am  known  of  mint 
As  the  Father  knoweth  me,  even  so  know  I  the  Father :  and  I  lay  down  nu} 
life  for  the  sheep." — John  x.  14,  15. 

As  these  words  stand  in  the  English  translation,  it  is  hard 
to  see  any  connection  between  the  thoughts  that  are  brought 
together. 

It  is  asserted  that  Christ  is  the  good  Shepherd,  and  knows 
His  sheep.  It  is  also  asserted  that  He  knows  the  Father ; 
but  between  these  two  truths  there  is  no  express  connection. 
And  again,  it  is  declared  that  He  lays  down  His  life  for  the 
sheep.  This  follows  directly  after  the  assertion  that  He 
knows  the  Father.  Again,  we  are  at  a  loss  to  say  what  one 
of  these  truths  has  to  do  with  the  other. 

But  the  whole  difficulty  vanishes  with  the  alteration  of  a 
single  stop  and  a  single  word.  Let  the  words  "  even  so"  be 
exchanged  for  the  word  "  and."  Four  times  in  these  verses 
the  same  word  occurs.  Three  times  out  of  these  four  it  is 
translated  "  and," — and  know  my  sheep,  and  am  known,  and 
I  lay  down  my  life.  All  that  is  required  then  is,  that  in  con- 
sistency it  shall  be  translated  by  the  same  word  in  the  fourth 
case :  for  "  even  so  "  substitute  "  and  :"  then  strike  away  the 
full  stop  after  "  mine,"  and  read  the  whole  sentence  thus  : 
"I  am  the  good  Shepherd,  and  know  my  sheep,  and  am 
known  of  mine  as  the  Father  knoweth  me,  and&s  I  know  the 
Father :  and  I  lay  down  my  life  for  the  sheep." 

At  once  our  Redeemer's  thought  becomes  clear.  There  is 
a  reciprocal  affection  between  the  Shepherd  and  the  sheep. 
There  is  a  reciprocal  affection  between  the  Father  and  the 
Son ;  and  the  one  is  the  parallel  of  the  other.  The  affection 
between  the  Divine  Shepherd  and  His  flock  can  be  compared, 
for  the  closeness  of  its  intimacy,  with  nothing  but  the  affec- 
tion between  the  Eternal  Father  and  the  Son  of  His  love. 
As  the  Father  knows  the  Son,  so  does  the  Shepherd  know 
the  sheep :  as  the  Son  knows  the  Father,  so  do  the  sheep 
know  their  heavenly  Shepherd. 

I.  The  pastoral  character  claimed  by  Christ. 
XL  The  proofs  which  substantiate  the  claim. 

L  The  Son  of  Man  claims  to  Himself  the  name  of  Shep- 


The  Good  Shepherd.  405 

herd.  -  Now  we  shall  not  learn  any  thing  from  that,  unless 
we  enter  humbly  and  affectionately  into  the  spirit  of  Christ's 
teaching.  It  is  the  heart  alone  which  can  give  us  a  key  to 
His  words.  Recollect  how  He  taught.  By  metaphors,  by 
images,  by  illustrations,  boldly  figurative,  in  rich  variety — 
yes,  in  daring  abundance.  He  calls  Himself  a  gate,  a  king, 
a  vine,  a  shepherd,  a  thief  in  the  night.  In  every  one  of 
these  He  appeals  to  certain  feelings  and  associations.  What 
He  says  can  only  be  interpreted  by  such  associations.  They 
must  be  understood  by  a  living  heart :  a  cold,  clear  intellect 
will  make  nothing  of  them.  If  you  take  those  glorious  ex- 
pressions, pregnant  with  almost  boundless  thought,  and  lay 
them  down  as  so  many  articles  of  rigid,  stiff  theology,  you 
turn  life  into  death.  It  is  just  as  if  a  chemist  were  to  ana- 
lyze a  fruit  or  a  flower,  and  then  imagine  that  he  had  told 
you  what  a  fruit  and  a  flower  are.  He  separates  them  into 
their  elements,  names  them  and  numbers  them :  but  thost 
elements,  weighed,  measured,  numbered  in  the  exact  propor- 
tions that  made  up  the  beautiful  living  thing,  are  not  the  liv- 
ing thing — no,  nor  any  thing  like  it.  Your  science  is  very 
profound,  no  doubt ;  but  the  fruit  is  crushed,  and  the  -grace 
of  the  flower  is  gone. 

It  is  in  this  way  often  that  we  deal  with  the  words  of 
Christ,  when  we  anatomize  them  and  analyze  them.  Theol- 
ogy is  very  necessary,  chemistry  is  very  necessary ;  but 
chemistry  destroys  life  to  analyze,  murders  to  dissect ;  and 
theology  very  often  kills  religion  out  of  words  before  it  can 
cut  them  up  into  propositions. 

Here  is  a  living  truth  which  our  cold  reasonings  have  often 
torn  into  dead  fragments — "I  am  the  good  Shepherd."  In 
this  northern  England  it  is  hard  to  get  the  living  associa- 
tions of  the  East  with  which  such  an  expression  is  full. 

The  pastoral  life  and  duty  in  the  East  is  very  unlike  that 
of  the  shepherds  on  our  bleak  hill-sides  and  downs.  Here 
the  connection  between  the  shepherd  and  the  sheep  is  simply 
one  of  pecuniary  interest.  Ask  an  English  shepherd  about 
his  flock,  he  can  tell  you  the  numbers  and  the  value ;  he 
knows  the  market  in  which  each  was  purchased,  and  the  re- 
munerating price  at  which  it  can  be  disposed  of.  There  is 
before  him  so  much  stock  convertible  into  so  much  money. 

Beneath  the  burning  skies  and  the  clear  starry  nights  of 
Palestine  there  grows  up  between  the  shepherd  and  his  flock 
an  union  of  attachment  and  tenderness.  It  is  the  country 
where  at  any  moment  sheep  are  liable  to  be  swept  away  by 
some  mountain-torrent,  or  carried  off  by  hill-robbers,  or  torn 
by  wolves.  At  any  moment  their  protector  may  have  to 


406  The  Good  Shepherd. 

save  the/n  by  personal  hazard.  The  shepherd-king  tells  us 
how,  in  defense  of  his  father's  flock,  he  slew  a  lion  and  a 
bear :  and  Jacob  reminds  Laban  how,  when  he  watched  La- 
ban's  sheep  in  the  day,  the  drought  consumed.  Every  hour 
of  the  shepherd's  life  is  risk.  Sometimes  for  the  sake  of  an 
armful  of  grass  in  the  parched  summer  days,  he  must  climb 
precipices  almost  perpendicular,  and  stand  on  a  narrow  ledge 
of  rock  where  the  wild  goat  will  scarcely  venture.  Pitiless 
showers,  driving  snows,  long  hours  of  thirst — all  this  he  must 
emlure,  if  the  flock  is  to  be  kept  at  all. 

And  thus  there  grows  up  between  the  man  and  the  dumb 
creatures  he  protects,  a  kind  of  friendship.  For  this  is,  after 
all,  the  true  school  in  which  love  is  taught — dangers  mutually 
shared  and  hardships  borne  together;  these  are  the  things 
which  make  generous  friendship — risk  cheerfully  encountered 
for  another's  sake.  You  love  those  for  whom  you  risk,  and 
they  love  you ;  therefore  it  is  that,  not  as  here  where  the 
flock  is  driven,  the  shepherd  goes  before  and  the  sheep  follow 
him.  They  follow  in  perfect  trust,  even  though  he  should  be 
leading  them  away  from  a  green  pasture,  by  a  rocky  road,  to 
another  pasture  which  they  can  not  yet  see.  He  knows  them 
all — their  separate  histories,  their  ailments,  their  characters. 

Now  let  it  be  observed  how  much  in  all  this  connection 
there  is  of  heart — of  real,  personal  attachment,  almost  incon- 
ceivable to  us.  It  is  strange  how  deep  the  sympathy  may 
become  between  the  higher  and  the  lower  being :  nay,  even 
between  the  being  that  has  life  and  what  is  lifeless.  Alone 
almost  in  the  desert,  the  Arab  and  his  horse  are  one  family. 
Alone  in  those  vast  solitudes,  with  no  human  being  near,  the 
shepherd  and  the  sheep  feel  a  life  in  common.  Differences 
disappear,  the  vast  interval  between  the  man  and  the  brute  : 
the  single  point  of  union  is  felt  strongly.  One  is  the  love  of 
the  protector  :  the  other  the  love  of  the  grateful  life  :  arid  so 
between  lives  so  distant  there  is  woven  by  night  and  day,  by 
summer  suns  and  winter  frosts,  a  living  network  of  sympa- 
thy. The  greater  and  the  less  mingle  their  being  together : 
they  feel  each  other.  "  The  shepherd  knows  his  sheep,  and 
is  known  of  them." 

The  men  to  whom  Christ  said  these  words  felt  all  this 
and  more,  the  moment  He  had  said  them,  which  it  has  taken 
me  many* minutes  to  draw  out  in  dull  sentences  :  for  He  ap- 
pealed to  the  familiar  associations  of  their  daily  life,  and  call- 
ing Himself  a  Shepherd,  touched  strings  which  would  vi- 
brate with  many  a  tender  and  pure  recollection  of  their 
childhood.  And  unless  we  try,  by  realizing  su<  h  scenes,  to 
supply  what  they  felt  by  association,  the  words  of  Chris* 


The  Good  Shepherd.  407 

will  be  only  hard,  dry,  lifeless  words  to  us  :  for  all  Christ's 
teaching  is  a  Divine  poetry,  luxuriant  in  metaphor,  over- 
flowing with  truth  too  large  for  accurate  sentences,  truth 
which  only  a  heart  alive  can  appreciate.  More  than  half  the 
heresies  into  which  Christian  sects  have  blundered,  have 
merely  come  from  mistaking  for  dull  prose  what  prophets 
and  apostles  said  in  those  highest  moments  of  the  soul,  when 
seraphim  kindle  the  sentences  of  the  pen  and  lip  into  poetry. 
"This  is  my  body."  Chill  that  into  prose,  and  it  becomes 
Transubstantiation.  "I  am  the  good  Shepherd."  In  the 
dry  and  merciless  logic  of  a  commentary,  trying  laboriously 
to  find  out  minute  points  of  ingenious  resemblance  in  which 
Christ  is  like  a  Shepherd,  the  glory  and  the  tenderness  of  this 
sentence  are  dried  up. 

But  try  to  feel,  by  imagining  what  the  lonely  Syrian  shep- 
herd must  feel  towards  the  helpless  things  which  are  the  com- 
panions of  his  daily  life,  for  whose  safety  he  stands  in  jeopardy 
every  hour,  and  whose  value  is  measurable  to  him  not  by 
price,  but  by  his  own  jeopardy,  and  then  we  have  reached 
some  notion  of  the  love  which  Jesus  meant  to  represent,  that 
eternal  tenderness  which  bends  over  us  —  infinitely  lower 
though  we  be  in  nature — and  knows  the  name  of  each  and 
the  trials  of  each,  and  thinks  for  each  with  a  separate  solici- 
tude, and  gave  Itself  for  each  with  a  sacrifice  as  special  and 
a  love  as  personal,  as  if  in  the  whole  world's  wilderness  there 
were  none  other  but  that  one. 

To  the  name  Shepherd,  Christ  adds  an  emphatic  word 
of  much  significance:  "I  am  the  good  Shepherd."  Good, 
not  in  the  sense  of  benevolent,  but  in  the  sense  of  genuine, 
true  born,  of  the  real  kind — just  as  wine  of  nobler  quality  is 
good  compared  with  the  cheaper  sort,  just  as  a  soldier  is 
goo'd  or  noble  who  is  a  soldier  in  heart,  and  not  a  soldier  by 
mere  profession  or  for  pay.  It  is  the  same  word  used  by  St. 
Paul  when  he  speaks  of  a  good,  i.  e.,  a  noble  soldier  of  Christ. 
Certain  peculiar  qualifications  make  the  genuine  soldier — 
certain  peculiar  qualifications  make  the  genuine  or  good 
shepherd. 

Now  this  expression  distinguishes  the  shepherd  from  two 
sorts  of  men  who  may  also  be  keepers  of  the  sheep  :  shep- 
herds, but  not  shepherds  of  the  true  blood.  1.  From  rob- 
bers. 2.  From  hirelings. 

1.  Robbers  may  turn  shepherds :  they  may  keep  the 
sheep,  but  they  guard  them  only  for  their  own  purposes, 
simply  for  the  flesh  and  fleece  ;  they  have  not  a  true  shep- 
herd's heart,  any  more  than  a  pirate  has  the  true  sailor's 
heart  and  the  true  sailor's  loyalty.  There  were  many  such 


408  The  Good  Shepherd. 

marauders  on  the  hills  of  Galilee  and  Judea :  such,  for  ex« 
ample,  as  those  from  whom  David  and  his  band  protected 
Nabal's  flocks  on  Mount  Carmel. 

And  many  such  nominal  shepherds  had  the  people  of 
Israel  had  in  by-gone  years :  rulers  in  whom  the  art  of  rul- 
ing had  been  but  kingcraft ;  teachers  whose  instruction  to 
the  people  had  been  but  priestcraft.  Government,  states- 
manship, teachership— tL  <se  are  pastoral  callings — sublime, 
even  Godlike.  For  only  consider  it :  wise  rule,  chivalrous 
protection,  loving  guidance — what  diviner  work  than  these 
has  the  Master  given  to  the  shepherds  of  the  people  ?  But 
when  the  work  is  done,  even  well  done,  whether  it  be  by 
statesmen  or  by  pastors,  for  the  sake  of  party  or  place,  or 
honor,  or  personal  consistency,  or  preferment,  it  is  not  the 
spirit  of  the  genuine  shepherd,  but  of  the  robber.  No  won- 
der He  said,  "All  that  ever  came  before  Me  were  thieves 
and  robbers." 

2.  Hirelings  are  shepherds,  but  not  good  shepherds,  of 
the  right  pure  kind  :  they  are  tested  by  danger.  "  He  that 
is  a  hireling,  and  not  the  good  shepherd,  whose  own  the 
sheep  are  not,  seeth  the  wolf  coming,  and  leaveth  the  sheep, 
and  fleeth ;  and  the  wolf  catcheth  them,  and  scattereth 
the  sheep."  Now  a  man  is  a  hireling  when  he  does  his 
duty  for  pay.  He  may  do  it  in  his  way  faithfully.  The 
paid  shepherd  would  not  desert  the  sheep  for  a  shower  or  a 
cold  night.  But  the  lion  and  the  bear — he  is  not  paid  to 
risk  his  life  against  them,  and  the  sheep  are  not  his,  so  he 
leaves  them  to  their  fate.  So,  in  the  same  way,  a  man  may 
be  a  hired  priest,  as  Demetrius  was  at  Ephesus :  "  By  this 
craft  we  get  our  living."  Or  a  paid  demagogue,  a  great 
champion  of  rights,  and  an  investigator  of  abuses — paid  by 
applause ;  and  while  popularity  lasts  he  will  be  a  reformer 
— deserting  the  people  when  danger  comes.  There  is  no 
vital  union  between  the  champion  and  the  defenseless — the 
teacher  and  the  taught.  The  cause  of  the  sheep  is  not  his 
cause. 

Exactly  the  reverse  of  this  Christ  asserts  in  calling  Him- 
self the  good  Shepherd.  He  is  a  good,  genuine,  or  true- 
born  sailor  who  feels  that  the  ship  is  as  it  were  his  own ; 
whose  point  of  chivalrous  honor  is  to  save  his -ship  rather 
than  himself — not  to  survive  her.  He  is  a  good,  genuine,  or 
true-born  shepherd  who  has  the  spirit  of  his  calling,  is  an  en- 
thusiast in  it,  has  the  true  shepherd's  heart,  and  makes  the 
cause  of  the  sheep  his  cause. 

Brethren,  the  cause  of  man  was  the  cause  of  Christ !  He 
did  no  hireling's  work.  The  only  pay  He  got  was  hatred,  a 


The  Good  Shepherd.  409 

crown  of  thorns,  and  the  cross.  He  might  have  escaped  it 
all.  He  might  have  been  the  Leader  of  the  people  and  their 
King.  He  might  have  converted  the  idolatry  of  an  hour 
into  the  hosannas  of  a  lifetime :  if  He  would  but  have  con- 
ciliated the  Pharisees,  instead  of  bidding  them  defiance  and 
exasperating  their  bigotry  against  Him :  if  He  would  but 
have  explained,  and,  like  some  demagogue  called  to  account^ 
trimmed  away  His  sublime  sharp-edged  truths  about  oppres- 
sion and  injustice  until  they  became  harmless,  because  mean- 
ingless :  if  He  would  but  have  left  unsaid  those  rough  things 
about  the  consecrated  temple  and  the  sabbath-days :  if  He 
would  but  have  left  undisputed  the  hereditary  title  of  Israel 
to  God's  favor,  and  not  stung  the  national  vanity  by  telling 
them  that  trust  in  God  justifies  the  Gentile  as  entirely  as  the 
Jew :  if  He  would  but  have  taught  less  prominently  that 
hateful  doctrine  of  the  salvability  of  the  heathen  Gentiles 
and  the  heretic  Samaritans,  and  the  universal  Fatherhood  of 
God :  if  he  would  but  have  stated  with  less  angularity  of 
edge  His  central  truth — that  not  by  mere  compliance  with 
law,  but  by  a  spirit  transcending  law,  even  the  spirit  of  the 
cross  and  self-sacrifice,  can  the  soul  of  man  be  atoned  to 
God : — that  would  have  saved  Him.  But  that  would  have 
been  the  desertion  of  the  cause — God's  cause  and  man's — the 
cause  of  the  ignorant  defenseless  sheep,  whose  very  salvation 
depended  on  the  keeping  of  that  Gospel  intact :  therefore  the 
Shepherd  gave  His  life  a  witness  to  the  truth,  and  a  sacrifice 
to  God.  It  was  a  profound  truth  that  the  populace  gave  ut- 
terance to,  when  they  taunted  Him  on  the  cross :  "  He  saved 
others,  Himself  He  can  not  save."  No,  of  course  not ;  He 
that  will  save  others  can  not  save  Himself. 

Of  that  pastoral  character  He  gives  here  three  proofs.  I 
know  My  sheep — am  known  of  Mine — I  lay  down  My  life 
for  the  sheep. 

I  know  my  sheep,  as  the  Father  knoweth  Me.  In  other 
words,  as  unerringly  as  His  Father  read  His  iicart,  so  unerr- 
ingly did  He  read  the  heart  of  man  and  recognize  His  own. 

Ask  we  how  ?  An  easy  reply,  and  a  common  one,  would 
be — He  recognized  them  by  the  Godhead  in  Him :  His  mind 
was  Divine,  therefore  omniscient :  He  knew  all  things,  there- 
fore He  knew  what  was  in  man:  and  therefore  He  knew  His 
own.  But  we  must  not  slur  over  His  precious  words  in  this 
way.  That  Divinity  of  His  is  made  the  pass-key  by  which 
we  open  all  mysteries  with  fatal  facility,  and  save  ourselves 
from  thinking  of  them.  We  get  a  dogma  ard  cover  truth 
with  it :  we  satisfy  ourselves  with  saying  Christ  was  God, 
and  lose  the  precious  humanities  of  His  heart  and  life. 

18 


4.IO  The  Good  Shepherd. 

* 

There  is  here  a  deep  truth  of  human  nature,  for  he  does  not 
limit  that  recognizing  power  to  Himself — He  says  that  the 
sheep  know  Him  as  truly  as  He  the  sheep.  He  knew  men  on 
the  same  principle  on  which  we  know  men — the  same  on 
which  we  know  Him.  The  only  difference  is  in  degree :  He 
knows  with  infinitely  more  unerringness  than  we,  but  the 
knowledge  is  the  same  in  kind. 

Let  us  think  of  this.  There  is  a  certain  mysterious  tact 
of  sympathy  and  antipathy  by  which  we  discover  the  like 
and  unlike  of  ourselves  in  others'  character.  You  can  not 
find  out  a  man's  opinions  unless  he  chooses  to  express  them; 
but  his  feelings  and  his  character  you  may.  He  can  not  hide 
them :  you  feel  them  in  his  look  and  mein,  and  tones  and 
motion.  There  is,  for  instance,  a  certain  something  in  sincer- 
ity and  reality  which  can  not  be  mistaken — a  certain  some- 
thing in  real  grief  which  the  most  artistic  counterfeit  can  not 
imitate.  It  is  distinguished  by  nature,  not  education. 
There  is  a  something  in  an  impure  heart  which  purity  de- 
tects afar  off.  Marvellous  it  is  how  innocence  perceives  the 
approach  of  evil  which  it  can  not  know  by  experience,  just 
as  the  dove  wrhich  has  never  seen  a  falcon  trembles  by  in- 
stinct at  its  approach ;  just  as  a  blind  man  detects  by  finer 
sensitiveness  the  passing  of  the  cloud  which  he  can  not  see 
overshadowing  the  sun.  It  is  wondrous  how  the  truer  we 
become  the  more  unerringly  we  know  the  ring  of  truth,  dis- 
cern whether  a  man  be  true  or  not,  and  can  fasten  at  once 
upon  the  rising  lie  in  word  and  look,  and  dissembling  act. 
Wondrous  how  the  charity  of  Christ  in  the  heart  finely  per- 
ceives the  slightest  aberration  from  charity  in  others,  in  un- 
gentle thought  or  slanderous  tone. 

Therefore  Christ  knew  His  sheep  by  that  mystic  power  al- 
ways finest  in  the  best  natures,  most  developed  in  the  high- 
est, by  which  like  detects  what  is  like  and  what  unlike  it- 
self. He  was  perfect  love,  perfect  truth,  perfect  purity : 
therefore  He  knew  what  was  in  man,  and  felt,  as  by  another 
sense,  afar  off  the  shadows  of  unlovingness,  and  falseness,  and 
impurity. 

No  one  can  have  read  the  Gospels  without  remarking  that 
they  ascribe  to  Him  unerring  skill  in  reading  man.  People, 
we  read,  began  to  show  enthusiasm  for  Him.  But  Jesus  did 
not  trust  Himself  unto  them,  "for  He  knew  what  was  in 
man."  He  knew  that  the  flatterers  of  to-day  would  be  the 
accusers  of  to-morrow.  Nathanael  stood  before  Him.  He 
had  scarcely  spoken  a  word ;  but  at  once  unhesitatingly,  to 
Nathanael's  own  astonishment — "Behold  an  Israelite  indeed, 
VD  whom  there  is  no  guile !"  There  came  to  Him  a  young 


The  Good  Shepherd.  .   411 

man  with  vast  possessions.:  a  single  sentence,  an  exaggerated 
epithet,  an  excited  manner,  revealed  his  character.  Enthusi- 
astic and  amiable,  Jesus  loved  him :  capable  of  obedience,  in 
life's  sunshine  and  prosperity,  ay,  and  capable  of  aspiration 
after  something  more  than  mere  obedience,  but  not  of  sacri- 
fice. Jesus  tested  him  to  the  quick,  and  the  young  man  fail- 
ed. He  did  not  try  to  call  him  back,  for  He  knew  what  was 
In  him  and  what  was  not.  He  read  through  Zaccheus  when 
he  climbed  into  the  sycamore-tree,  despised  by  the  people  as 
a  publican,  really  a  son  of  Abraham :  through  Judas,  with 
his  benevolent  saying  about  the  selling  of  the  alabaster-box 
for  the  poor,  and  his  false  kiss :  through  the  curses  of  the 
thief  upon  the  cross,  a  faith  that  could  be  saved  :  through  the 
zeal  of  a  man  who  in  a  fit  of  enthusiasm  offered  to  go  with 
Him  whithersoever  He  would.  He  read  through  the  Phari- 
sees, and  His  whole  being  shuddered  with  the  recoil  of  utter 
and  irreconcilable  aversion. 

It  was  as  if  His  bosom  was  some  mysterious  mirror  on 
which  all  that  came  near  Him  left  a  sullied  or  unsullied  sur- 
face, detecting  themselves  by  every  breath. 

Now  distinguish  that  Divine  power  from  that  cunning 
sagacity  which  men  call  knowingness  in  the  matter  of  char- 
acter. The  worldly-wise  have  maxims  and  rules ;  but  the 
finer  shades  and  delicacies  of  truth  of  character  escape 
them.  They  would  prudently  avoid  Zaccheus — a  publican : 
they — 

There  is  a  very  solemn  aspect  in  which  this  power  of  Jesus 
to  know  man  presents  itself.  It  is  this  which  qualifies  Him 
for  judgment — this  perfection  of  human  sympathy.  Perfect 
sympathy  with  every  most  delicate  line  of  good  implies  ex- 
quisite antipathy  to  every  shadow  of  a  shade  of  evil.  God 
hath  given  Him  authority  to  execute  judgment  also,  because 
He  is  the  Son  of  Man.  On  sympathy  the  final  awards  of 
heaven  and  hell  are  built :  attraction  and  repulsion,  the  law 
of  the  magnet.  To  each  pole  all  that  has  affinity  with  itself: 
to  Christ  all  that  is  Christlike :  from  Christ  all  that  is  not 
Christlike — forever  and  forever.  Eternal  judgment  is  noth- 
ing more  than  the  carrying  out  of  these  words,  "  I  know  my 
sheep :" — for  the  obverse  of  them  is,  "  I  never  knew  you,  de- 
part from  me  all  ye  that  work  iniquity." 

The  second  proof  which  Christ  alleges  of  the  genuineness 
of  His  pastorate  is  that  His  sheep  know  Him. 

How  shall  we  recognize  truth  Divine?  What  is  the  test 
by  which  we  shall  know  whether  it  crimes  from  God  or  not  ? 
They  tell  us  we  know  Christ  to  be  from  God  because  He 
wrought  miracles ;  we  know  a  doctrine  to  be  from  God  be- 


4 1 2  The  Good  Shepherd. 

cause  we  find  it  written:  or  because  it  is  sustained  by  an 
universal  consent  of  fathers. 

That  is — for  observe  what  this  argument  implies — there  is 
something  more  evident  than  truth  :  Truth  can  not  prove  it- 
self: we  want  something  else  to  prove  it.  Our  souls  judge 
of  truth — our  senses  judge  of  miracles  ;  and  the  evidence  of 
our  senses — the  lowest  part  of  our  nature — is  more  certain 
than  the  evidence  of  our  souls,  by  which  we  must  partake  of 
God. 

Now  to  say  so  is  to  say  that  you  can  not  be  sure  that  it  is 
midday  or  morning  sunshine  unless  you  look  at  the  sun-dial : 
you  can  not  be  sure  that  the  sun  is  shining  in  the  heavens 
unless  you  see  his  shadow  on  the  dial-plate.  The  dial  is  val- 
uable to  a  man  who  never  reads  the  heavens — the  shadow  is 
good  for  him  who  has  not  watched  the  sun :  but  for  a  man 
who  lives  in  perpetual  contemplation  of  the  sun  in  heaven, 
the  sunshine  needs  no  evidence,  and  every  hour  is  known. 

Now  Christ  says,  "  My  sheep  know  Me"  Wisdom  is  just- 
ified by  her  children.  Not  by  some  lengthened  investiga- 
tion, whether  the  shepherd's  dress  be  the  identical  dress,  and 
the  staff  and  the  crozier  genuine,  do  the  sheep  recognize  the 
shepherd.  They  know  him,  they  hear  his  voice,  they  know 
him  as  a  man  knows  his  friend. 

They  know  him,  in  short,  instinctively.  Just  so  does  the 
soul  recognize  what  is  of  God  and  true.  Truth  is  like  light : 
visible  in  itself,  not  distinguished  by  the  shadows  that  it 
casts.  There  is  a  something  in  our  souls  of  God,  which  cor- 
responds with  what  is  of  God  outside  us,  and  recognizes  it 
by  direct  intuition :  something  in  the  true  soul  which  corre- 
sponds with  truth  and  knows  it  to  be  truth.  Christ  came 
with  truth,  and  the  true  recognize  it  as  true  :  the  sheep  know 
the  shepherd,  wanting  no  further  evidence.  Take  a  few  ex- 
amples :  "  God  is  Love."  "  What  shall  a  man  give  in  ex- 
change for  his  soul  ?"  "  He  that  saveth  his  life  shall  lose  it : 
and  he  that  loseth  his  life  for  my  sake  shall  find  it."  "  All 
things  are  possible  to  him  that  believeth."  "The  sabbath 
was  made  for  man,  not  man-  for  the  sabbath."  "  God  is  a 
Spirit." 

Now  the  wise  men  of  intellect  and  logical  acumen  wanted 
proof  of  these  truths.  Give  us,  said  they,  your  credentials. 
"  By  what  authority  doesV  thou  these  things  ?"  They  want- 
ed a  sign  from  heaven  to  prove  that  the  truth  was  true,  and 
the  life  He  led,  Godlike,  and  not  devil-like.  How  can  we  be 
sure  that  it  is  not  frdrn  Beelzebub,  the  prince  of  the  devils, 
that  these  deeds  and  sayings  come  ?  We  must  be  quite  sure 
that  we  are  not  taking  a  message  from  hell  as  one  from 


The  Good  Shepherd.  41 3 

heaven.  Give  us  demonstration,  chains  of  evidence — chapter 
and  verse — authority. 

But  simple  men  had  decided  the  matter  already.  They 
knew  very  little  of  antiquity,  church  authority,  and  shadows 
of  coming  events  which  prophecy  casts  before  :  but  their 
eyes  saw  the  light,  and  their  hearts  felt  the  present  God. 
Wise  Pharisees  and  learned  doctors  said,  to  account  for  a 
wondrous  miracle,  "  Give  God  the  glory."  But  the  poor  un« 
lettered  man,  whose  blinded  eye  had  for  the  first  time  looked 
on  a  face  of  love,  replied,  "  Whether  this  man  be  a  sinner  or 
not,  I  know  not :  one  thing  I  know,  that  whereas  I  was  blind, 
now  I  see." 

The  well-read  Jews  could  not  settle  the  literary  question, 
whether  the  marks  of  his  appearance  coincided  with  the 
prophecies.  But  the  Samaritans  felt  the  life  of  God  :  "  Now 
we  believe,  not  because  of  thy  word,  but  because  we  have 
heard  Him  ourselves  and  know  that  this  is  indeed  the  Christ." 

The  Shepherd  had  come,  and  the  sheep  knew  his  voice. 
Brethren,  in  all  matters  of  eternal  truth,  the  soul  is  before 
the  intellect:  the  things  of  God  are  spiritually  discerned. 
You  know  truth  by  being  true :  you  recognize  God  by  being 
like  Him.  The  Scribe  comes  and  says,  I  will  prove  to  you 
that  this  is  sound  doctrine  by  chapter  and  verse,  by  what 
the  old  and  best  writers  say,  by  evidence  such  as  convinces 
the  intellect  of  an  intelligent  lawyer  or  juryman.  Think  you 
the  conviction  of  faith  is  got  in  that  way  ? 

Christ  did  not  teach  like  the  Scribes.  He  spoke  His  truth. 
He  said,  "  If  any  man  believe  not,  I  judge  him  not ;  the 
word  which  I  have  spoken,  the  same  shall  judge  him  in  the 
last  day."  It  was  true,  and  the  guilt  of  disbelieving  it  was 
not  an  error  of  the  intellect  but  a  sin  of  the  heart.  Let  us 
stand  upright :  let  us  be  sure  that  the  test  of  truth  is  the  soul 
within  us.  Not  at  second-hand  can  we  have  assurance  of 
what  is  divine  and  what  is  not:  only  at  first-hand.  The 
sheep  of  Christ  hear  His  voice. 

The  third  proof  given  by  Christ  was  pastoral  fidelity  :  "  I 
lay  down  my  life  for  the  sheep."  Now  here  is  the  doctrine 
of  vicarious  sacrifice :  the  sacrifice  of  one  instead  of  another  : 
life  saved  by  the  sacrifice  of  another  life. 

Most  of  us  know  the  meagre  explanation  of  these  words 
which  satisfies  the  Unitarians :  they  say  that  Christ  merely 
died  as  a  martyr,  in  attestation  of  the  truths  He  taught. 

But  you  will  observe  the  strength  of  the  expression  which 
we  can  not  explain  away,  "I  lay  down  my  life  for,"  i.  e,  in- 
stead of  "the  sheep."  If.  the  Shepherd  had  not  sacrificed 
Himself,  the  sheep  must  have  been  the  sacrifice. 


414  The  Good  Shepherd. 

Observe,  however,  the  suffering  of  Christ  was  not  the  sam« 
suffering  as  that  from  which  He  saved  us.  The  suffering  of 
Christ  was  death.  But  the  suffering  from  which  He  re- 
deemed us  by  death  was  more  terrible  than  death.  The  pit 
into  which  He  descended  was  the  grave.  But  the  pit  in 
which  we  should  have  been  lost  forever,  was  the  pit  of  self- 
ishness and  despair. 

Therefore  St.  Paul  affirms,  "  If  Christ  be  not  risen,  ye  are 
vet  in  your  sins"  If  Christ's  resurrection  be  a  dream,  and 
tie  be  not  risen  from  the  grave  of  death,  you  are  yet  in  the 
grave  of  guilt.  He  bore  suffering  to  free  us  from  what  is 
worse  than  suffering — sin :  temporal  death  to  save  us  from 
death  everlasting :  His  life  given  as  an  offering  for  sin  to 
save  the  soul's  eternal  life. 

Now  in  the  text  this  sacrificing  love  of  Christ  is  paralleled 
by ,  the  love  of  the  Father  to  the  Son.  As  He  loved  the 
sheep,  so  the  Father  had  loved  Him.  Therefore  the  sacrifice 
of  Christ  is  but  a  mirror  of  the  love  of  God.  The  love  of  the 
Father  to  the  Son  is  self-sacrificing  love. 

You  know  that  shallow  men  make  themselves  merry  with 
this  doctrine.  The  sacrifice  of  God,  they  say,  is  a  figment  and 
an  impossibility.  Nevertheless  this  parallel  tells  us  that  it 
is  one  of  the  deepest  truths  of  all  the  universe.  It  is  the  pro- 
found truth  which  the  ancient  fathers  endeavored  to  express 
in  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  For  what  is  the  love  of  the 
Father  to  the  Son — Himself  yet  not  Himself — but  the  grand 
truth  of  Eternal  Love  losing  Itself  and  finding  Itself  again  in 
the  being  of  another  ?  What  is  it  but  the  sublime  express- 
ion of  the  unselfishness  of  God  ? 

It  is  a  profound,  glorious  truth ;  I  wish  I  knew  how  to  put 
it  in  intelligible  words.  But  if  these  words  of  Christ  do  not 
make  it  intelligible  to  the  heart,  how  can  any  words  of  mine? 
The  life  of  blessedness — the  life  of  love — the  life  of  sacrifice 
— the  life  of  God,  are  identical.  All  love  is  sacrifice — the 
giving  of  life  and  self  for  others.  God's  life  is  sacrifice — for 
the  Father  loves  the  Son  as  the  Son  loves  the  sheep  for 
whom  He  gave  His  life. 

Whoever  will  humbly  ponder  upon  this  will,  I  think,  un- 
derstand the  Atonement  better  than  all  theology  can  teach 
him.  Oh,  my  brethren,  leave  men  to  quarrel  as  they  will 
about  the  theology  of  the  Atonement ;  here  in  these  words  is 
the  religion  of  it — the  blessed,  all-satisfying  religion  for  our 
hearts.  The  self-sacrifice  of  Christ  was  the  satisfaction  to 
the  Father. 

iiow  could  the  Father  be  satisfied  with  the  death  of  Christ, 
unless  He  saw  in  the  sacrifice  mirrored  His  own  love  ? — for 


The  Doubt  of  Thomas.  4 1 5 

God  can  be  satisfied  only  with  that  which  is  perfect  as  Him- 
self. Agony  does  not  satisfy  God — agony  only  satisfied  Mo- 
loch. Nothing  satisfies  God  but  the  voluntary  sacrifice  of 
love. 

The  pain  of  Christ  gave  God  no  pleasure — only  the  love 
that  was  tested  by  pain — the  love  of  perfect  obedience.  He 
was  obedient  unto  death. 


XX. 
THE  DOUBT  OF  THOMAS. 

"  Jesus  saith  unto  him,  Thomas,  because  thou  hast  seen  me,  thou  hast 
believed :  blessed  are  they  that  have  not  seen,  and  yet  have  believed." — 
John  xx.  29. 

THE  day  on  which  these  words  were  spoken  was  the  first 
day  of  the  week.  On  that  day  Thomas,  received  demonstra- 
tion that  his  Lord  was  risen  from  the  dead.  On  that  same 
day  a  week  before,  Thomas  had  declared  that  no  testimony 
of  others,  no  eyesight  of  his  own,  nothing  short  of  touching 
with  his  hands  the  crucifixion  marks  in  his  Master's  body, 
should  induce  him  to  believe  a  fact  so  unnatural  as  the  res- 
urrection of  a  human  being  from  the  grave.  Those  seven 
days  between  must  therefore  have  been  spent  in  a  state  of 
miserable  uncertainty.  How  miserable  and  how  restless 
none  can  understand  but  those  who  have  felt  the  wretched- 
ness of  earnest  doubt. 

Doubt  moreover,  observe,  respecting  all  that  is  dear  to  a 
Christian's  hopes.  For  if  Christ  were  not  risen,  Christianity 
was  false,  and  every  high  aspiration  which  it  promised  to 
gratify  was  thrown  back  on  the  disappointed  heart. 

Let  us  try  to  understand  the  doubt  of  Thomas.  There  are 
some  men  whose  affections  are  stronger  than  their  under- 
standings :  they  feel  more  than  they  think.  They  are  simple, 
trustful,  able  to  repose  implicitly  on  what  is  told  them — lia- 
ble sometimes  to  verge  upon  credulity  and  superstition,  but 
take  them  all  in  all,  perhaps  the  happiest  class  of  minds :  for 
it  is  happy  to  be  without  misgivings  about  the  love  of  God 
and  our  own  eternal  rest  in  Him.  u  Blessed,"  said  Christ  to 
Thomas,  "  are  they  that  have  believed." 

There  is  another  class  of  men  whose  reflective  powers  are 
stronger  than  their  susceptive :  they  think  out  truth — they 
do  not  feel  it  out.  Often  highly  gifted  and  powerful  minds, 


4i 6  The  Doubt  of  Thomas. 

they  can  not  rest  till  they  have  made  all  their  grounds  Cer- 
tain :  they  do  not  feel  safe  as  long  as  there  is  one  possibility 
of  delusion  left :  they  prove  all  things.  Such  a  man  was 
Thomas.  He  has  well  been  called  the  rationalist  among  the 
apostles.  Happy  such  men  can  not  be.  An  anxious  and  in- 
quiring mind  dooms  its  possessor  to  unrest.  But  men  of 
generous  spirit,  manly  and  affectionate,  they  may  be :  Thomas, 
was.  When  Christ  was  bent  on  going  to  Jerusalem,  to  cer- 
tain death,  Thomas  said,  "Let  us  go  up  too,  that  we  may  die 
with  him."  And  men  of  mighty  faith  they  may  become,  if 
they  are  true  to  themselves  and  their  convictions:  Thomas 
did.  When  such  men  do  believe,  it  is  belief  with  all  the  heart 
and  soul  for  life.  When  a  subject  has  been  once  thoroughly 
and  suspiciously  investigated,  and  settled  once  for  all,  the  ad- 
herence of  the  whole  reasoning  man,  if  given  in  at  all,  is  given 
frankly  and  heartily  as  Thomas  gave  it — "My  Lord,  and  my 
God." 

Now  this  question  of  a  resurrection  which  made  Thomas 
restless,  is  the  most  anxious  that  can  agitate  the  mind  of  man. 
So  awful  in  its  importance,  and  out  of  Christ  so  almost  des- 
perately dark  in  its  uncertainty,  who  shall  blame  an  earnest 
man  severely  if  he  crave  the  most  indisputable  proofs  ? 

Very  clearly  Christ  did  not.  Thomas  asked  of  Christ  a 
sign :  he  must  put  his  own  hands  into  the  prints.  His  Mas- 
ter gave  him  that  sign  or  proof.  He  said,  "  Reach  hither  thy 
hand."  He  gave  it,  it  is  true,  with  a  gentle  and  delicate 
reproof — but  He  did  give  it.  Now  from  that  condescension 
we  are  reminded  of  the  darkness  that  hangs  round  the  ques- 
tion of  a  resurrection,  and  how  excusable  it  is  for  a  man  to 
question  earnestly  until  he  has  got  proof  to  stand  on.  For  if 
it  were  not  excusable  to  crave  a  proof,  our  Master  never 
would  have  granted  one.  Resurrection  is  not  one  of  those 
questions  on  wrhich  you  can  afford  to  wait :  it  is  the  question 
of  life  and  death.  There  are  times  when  it  does  not  weigh 
heavily.  When  we  have  some  keen  pursuit  before  us :  when 
we  are  young  enough  to  be  satisfied  to  enjoy  ourselves — the 
problem  does  not  press  itself.  We  are  too  laden  with  the 
pressure  of  the  present  to  care  to  ask  wrhat  is  coming.  But 
at  last  a  time  comes  when  we  feel  it  will  be  all  over  soon — 
that  much  of  our  time  is  gone,  and  the  rest  swiftly  going. 
And  let  a  man  be  as  frivolous  as  he  will  at  heart,  it  is  a  ques- 
tion too  solemn  to  be  put  aside — Whether  he  is  going  down 
into  extinction  and  the  blank  of  everlasting  silence  or  not. 
Whether  in  those  far  ages,  when  the  very  oak  which  is  to 
form  his  coffin  shall  have  become  fibres  of  black  mould,  and 
the  church-yard  in  which  he  is  to  lie  shall  have  become  per 


The  Doubt  of  Thomas.  4 1  7 

haps  unconsecrated  ground,  and  the  spades  of  a  generation 
yet  unborn  shall  have  exposed  his  bones,  those  bones  will  be 
the  last  relic  in  the  world  to  bear  record  that  he  once  trod 
this  green  earth,  and  that  life  was  once  dear  to  him,  Thomas, 
or  James,  or  Paul.  Or  whether  that  thrilling,  loving,  think- 
ing something,  that  he  calls  hirnselt,  has  indeed  within  it  an 
indestructible  existence  which  shall  still  be  conscious,  when 
avery  thing  else  shall  have  rushed  into  endless  wreck.  Oh, 
in  the  awful  earnestness  of  a  question  such  as  that,  a  specula- 
tion and  a  peradventure  will  not  do :  we  must  have  proof 
The  honest  doubt  of  Thomas  craves  a  sign  as  much  as  the 
cold  doubt  of  the  Sadducee.  And  a  sign  shall  be  mercifully 
given  to  the  doubt  of  love  which  is  refused  to  the  doubt  of 
indifference. 

This  passage- presents  two  lines  of  thought. 

I.  The  naturalness  of  the  doubts  of  Thomas,  which  partly 
excuses  them. 

II.  The  evidences  of  the  Christian  Resurrection. 

I.  The  naturalness  of  the  doubts  of  Thomas. 

The  first  assertion  that  we  make  to  explain  those  doubts 
is,  that  Nature  is  silent  respecting  a  future  life.  All  that 
reason,  all  that  nature,  all  that  religion,  apart  from  Christ, 
have  to  show  us  is  something  worse  than  darkness.  It  is 
the  twilight  of  excruciating  uncertainty.  There  js  enough 
in  the  riddle  of  this  world  to  show  us  that  there  may  be  a 
life  to  come;  there  is  nothing  to  make  it  certain  that  there 
will  be  one.  We  crave,  as  Thomas  did,  a  sign  either  in  the 
height  above  or  in  the  depth  beneath,  and  the  answer  seems 
to  fall  back  like  ice  upon  our  hearts — "  there  shall  no  sign 
be  given  you." 

It  is  the  uncertainty  of  twilight.  You  strain  at  some- 
thing in  the  twilight,  and  just  when  you  are  beginning  to 
make  out  its  form  and  color,  the  light  fails  you,  and  your 
eyelids  sink  down,  wet  and  wearied  with  the  exertion.  Just 
so  it  is  when  we  strain  into  nature's  mysteries,  to  discern  the 
secrets  of  the  great  hereafter.  Exactly  at  the  moment  when 
we  think  we  begin  to  distinguish  something,  the  light  goes 
out  and  we  are  left  groping  in  darkness — the  darkness  of  the 
grave. 

Let  us  forget  for  a  moment  that  we  ever  heard  of  Christ : 
what  is  there  in  life  or  nature  to  strengthen  the  guess  that 
there  is  a  life  to  come  ?  There  are  hints — there  are  proba- 
bilities— ther2  is  nothing  more.  Let  us  examine  some  of 
those  probabilities. 

First,  there  is  an  irrepressible  longing  in  our  hearts,  W  e 

18* 


4 i 8  77/£  Doubt  of  Thomas. 

wish  for  immortality.  The  thought  of  annihilation  is  horri- 
ble :  even  to  conceive  it  is  almost  impossible.  The  wish  is  a 
kind  of  argument :  it  is  not  likely  that  God  would  have  giv- 
en all  men  such  a  feeling,  if  He  had  not  meant  to  gratify5  it. 
Every  natural  longing  has  its  natural  satisfaction.  If  we 
thirst,  God  has  created  liquids  to  gratify  thirst.  If  we  are 
susceptible  of  attachments,  there  are  beings  to  gratify  that 
love.  If  we  thirst  for  life  and  love  eternal,  it  is  likely  that 
there  are.  an  eternal  life  and  an  eternal  love  to  satisfy  that 
craving. 

Likely,  I  say :  more  we  can  not  say.  A  likelihood  of  an 
immortality  of  which  our  passionate  yearnings  are  a  pre- 
sumption— nothing  higher  than  a  likelihood.  And  in  weary 
moments,  when  the  desire  of  life  is  not  strong,  and  in  unlov- 
ing moments,  there  is  not  even  a  likelihood. 

Secondly,  corroborating  this  feeling  we  have  the  traditions 
of  universal  belief.  There  is  not  a  nation  perhaps  which 
does  not  in  some  form  or  other  hold  that  there  is  a  country 
beyond  the  grave  where  the  weary  are  at  rest.  Now  that 
which  all  men  everywhere  and  in  every  age  have  held,  it  is 
impossible  to  treat  contemptuously.  How  came  it  to  be 
held  by  all,  if  only  a  delusion  ?  Here  is  another  probability 
in  the  universality  of  belief.  And  yet  when  you  come  to  es- 
timate this,  it  is  too -slender  for  a  proof:  it  is  only  a  pre- 
sumption. The  universal  voice  of  mankind  is  not  infallible. 
It  was  the  universal  belief  once  on  the  evidence  of  the 
senses  that  the  earth  was  stationary :  the  universal  voice 
was  wrong.  The  universal  voice  might  be  wrong  in  the 
matter  of  a  resurrection.  It  might  be  only  a  beautiful  and 
fond  dream,  indulged  till  hope  made  itself  seem  to  be  a  re- 
ality.' You  can  not  build  upon  it. 

Once  again  :  in  this  strange  world  of  perpetual  change, 
we  are  met  by  many  resemblances  to  a  resurrection.  With- 
out much  exaggeration  we  call  them  resurrections.  There 
is  tfie  resurrection  of  the  moth  from  the  grave  of  the  chrysa- 
lis. For  many  ages  the  sculptured  butterfly  was  the  type 
and  emblem  of  immortality.  Because  it  passes  into  a  state 
of  torpor  or  deadness,  and  because  from  that  it  emerges  by  a 
kind  of  resurrection — the  same,  yet  not  the  same — in  all  the 
radiance  of  a  fresh  and  beautiful  youth,  never  again  to  be 
supported  by  the  coarse  substance  of  earth,  but  destined 
henceforth  to  nourish  its  etherealized  existence  on  the  nectar 
of  the  flowers — the  ancients  saw  in  that  transformation  a 
something  added  to  their  hopes  of  immortality.  It  was 
their  beautiful  symbol  of  the  soul's  indestructibility. 

Again,  there  is  a  kind  of  resurrection  when  the  spring 


The  Doubt  of  Thomas.  4 1 9 

brings  vigor  and  motion  back  to  the  frozen  pulse  of  the  win- 
ter world.  Let  any  one  go  into  the  fields  at  this  spring  sea- 
son of  the  year.  Let  him  mark  the  busy  preparations  for 
life  which  are  going  on.  Life  is  at  work  in  every  emerald 
bud,  in  the  bursting  bark  of  every  polished  bough,  in  the 
greening  tints  of  every  brown  hillside.  A  month  ago  every 
thing  was  as  still  and  cold  as  the  dead  silence  which  chills 
the  heart  in  the  highest  regions  of  the  glacier  solitudes. 
Life  is  coming  back  to  a  dead  world.  It  is  a  resurrection 
surely  !  The  return  of  freshness  to  the  frozen  world  is  not 
less  marvellous  than  the  return  of  sensibility  to  a  heart 
which  has  ceased  to  beat.  If  one  has  taken  place,  the  other 
is  not  impossible. 

And  yet  all  this,  valuable  as  it  is  in  the  way  of  suggestive- 
ness,  is  worth  nothing  in  the  way  of  proof.  It  is  worth  ev- 
ery thing  to  the  heart,  for  it  strengthens  the  dim  guesses  and 
vague  intimations  which  the  heart  has  formed  already.  It  is 
worth  nothing  to  the  intellect :  for  the  moment  we  come  to 
argue  the  matter  we  find  how  little  there  is  to  rest  upon  in 
these  analogies.  They  are  no  real  resurrections,  after  all : 
they  only  look  like  resurrections.  The  chrysalis  only  seemed 
dead  :  the  tree  in  winter  only  seemed  to  have  lost  its  vitali- 
ty. Show  us  a  butterfly  which  has  been  dried  and  crushed, 
fluttering  its  brilliant  wings  next  year  again — show  us  a 
tree  plucked  up  by  the  roots  and  seasoned  by  exposure,  the 
vital  force  really  killed  out;  putting  forth  its  leaves  again, 
then  we  should  have  a  real  parallel  to  a  resurrection.  But 
nature  does  not  show  us  that.  So  that  all  we  have  got  in 
the  butterfly  and  the  spring  are  illustrations  exquisitely  in 
point  after  immortality  is  proved,  but  in  themselves  no 
proofs  at  all. 

Further  still.  Look  at  it  in  another  point  of  view,  and  it 
is  a  dark  prospect.  Human  history  behind  and  human  his- 
tory before,  both  give  a  stern  "  No,"  in  reply  to  the  question 
— Shall  we  rise  again  ? 

Six  thousand  years  of  human  existence  have  passed  away ; 
countless  armies  of  the  dead  have  set  sail  from  the  shores  of 
time.  No  traveller  has  returned  from  the  still  land  beyond. 
More  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  generations  have  done 
their  work,  and  sunk  into  the  dust  again,  and  still  there  is 
not  a  voice  ;  there  is  not  a  whisper  from  the  grave  to  tell  us 
whether  indeed  those  myriads  are  in  existence  still,  be- 
sides, why  should  they  be  ?  Talk  as  you  will  of  the  grand- 
eur of  man,  why  should  it  not  be  honor  enough  for  him, 
more  than  enough  to  satisfy  a  thing  so  mean,  to  ha>e  had 
his  twenty  or  his  seventy  years'  life-rent  of  God's  universe  ? 


420  The  Doubt  of  Thomas. 

Why  must  such  a  thing,  apart  from  proof,  rise  up  and  claim 
to  himself  an  exclusive  immortality  ? 

Man's  majesty  !  man's  worth  !  the  difference  between  him 
and  the  elephant  or  ape  is  too  degradingly  small  to  venture 
much  on.  That  is  not  all :  instead  of  looking  backward,  now 
look  forward.  The  wisest  thinkers  tell  us  that  there  are  al- 
ready on  the  globe  traces  of  a  demonstration  that  the  human 
race  is  drawing  to  its  close.  Each  of  the  great  human  fami- 
lies has  had  its  o!ay — its  infancy — its  manhood — its  decline. 
The  two  last  races  that  have  not  been  tried  are  on  the  stage 
of  earth  doing  their  work  now.  There  is  no  other  to  suc- 
ceed them.  Man  is  but  of  yesterday,  and  yet  his  race  is 
well-nigh  done.  Man  is  wearing  out,  as  every  thing  before 
him  has  been  worn  out.  In  a  few  more  centuries  the  crust 
of  earth  will  be  the  sepulchre  of  the  race  of  man,  as  it  has 
been  the  sepulchre  of  extinct  races  of  palm-trees,  and  ferns, 
and  gigantic  reptiles.  The  time  is  near  when  the  bones  of 
the  last  human  being  will  be  given  to  the  dust.  It  is  his- 
torically certain  that  man  has  quite  lately,  within  a  few  thou- 
sand years,  been  called  into  existence.  It  is  certain  that  be- 
fore very  long  the  race  must  be  extinct. 

Now  look  at  all  this  without  Christ,  and  tell  us  whether 
it  be  possible  to  escape  such  misgivings,  and  such  reason- 
ings as  these  which  rise  out  of  such  an  aspect  of  things. 
Man,  this  thing  of  yesterday,  which  sprung  out  of  the  eter- 
nal nothingness,  why  may  he  not  sink,  after  he  has  played 
his  appointed  part,  into  nothingness  again  ?  You  see  the 
leaves  sinking  one  by  one  in  autumn,  till  the  heaps  below 
are  rich  with  the  spoils  of  a  whole  year's  vegetation.  They 
were  bright  and  perfect  while  they  lasted  :  each  leaf  a  mira- 
cle of  beauty  and  contrivance.  There  is  no  resurrection  for 
the  leaves — why  must  there  be  one  for  man  ? 

Go  and  stand  some  summer  evening  by  the  river  side : 
you  will  see  the  mayfly  sporting  out  its  little  hour,  in  dense 
masses  of  insect  life,  darkening  the  air  a  few  feet  above  the 
gentle  swell  of  the  water.  The  heat  of  that  very  afternoon 
brought  them  into  existence.  Every  gauze  wing  is  traversed 
by  ten  thousand  fibres  which  defy  the  microscope  to  find  a 
flaw  in  their  perfection.  The  omniscience  and  the  care 
bestowed  upon  that  exquisite  anatomy,  one  would  think,  can 
not  be  destined  to  be  wasted  in  a  moment,  Yet  so  it  is : 
wlfen  the  sun  has  sunk  below  the  trees  its  little  life  is  done. 
Yesterday  it  was  not :  to-morrow  it  will  not  be.  God  has 
bidden  it  be  happy  for  one  evening.  It  has  no  right  or 
claim  to  a  second,  and  in  the  universe  that  marvellous  life 
has  appeared  once  and  will  appear  no  more.  May  not  the 


The  Doiibt  of  Thomas.  42 1 

race  of  man  smk  like  the  generations  of  the  mayfly?  Why 
can  not  the  Creator,  so  lavish  in  His  resources,  afford  to  an- 
nihilate souls  as  he  annihilates  insects  ? 

Would  it  not  almost  enhance  His  glory  to  believe  it  ? 

That,  brethren,  is  the  question  ;  and  Nature  has  no  reply. 
The  fearful  secret  of  sixty  centuries  has  not  yet  found  a 
voice.  The  whole  evidence  lies  before  us.  We  know  what 
the  greatest  and  wisest  have  had  to  say  in  favor  of  an  im- 
mortality ;  and  we  know  how,  after  eagerly  devouring  all 
their  arguments,  our  hearts  have  sunk  back  in  cold  disap- 
pointment, and  to  every  proof  as  we  read,  our  lips  have  re- 
plied mournfully,  that  will  not  stand.  Search  through  tradi 
tion,  history,  the  world  within  you  and'  the  world  without — 
except  in  Christ  there  is  not  the  shadow  of  a  shade  of  proof 
that  man  survives  the  grave. 

I  do  not  wonder  that  Thomas,  with  that  honest  accurate 
mind  of  his,  wishing  that  the  news  were  true,  yet  dreading 
lest  it  should  be  false,  and  determined  to  guard  against 
every  possible  illusion,  delusion,  and  deception,  said  so  strong- 
ly, "  Except  I  shall  see  in  his  hands  the  print  of  the  nails, 
and  put  my  finger  into  the  print  of  the  nails,  and  thrust  my 
hand  into  his  side,  I  will  not  believe." 

II.  The  Christian  proofs  of  a  Resurrection. 

This  text  tells  us  of  two  kinds  of  proof:  The  first  is  the 
evidence  of  the  senses — "  Thomas,  because  thou  hast  seen  me, 
thou  hast  believed."  The  other  is  the  evidence  of  the  Spirit 
— "Blessed  are  they  that  have  not  seen,  and  yet  have  be- 
lieved." 

Let  us  scrutinize  the  external  evidence  of  Christ's  resur- 
rection which  those  verses  furnish.  It  is  a  twofold  evidence : 
The  witness  of  the  Apostle  Thomas,  who  was  satisfied  with 
the  proofs — the  witness  of  St.  John,  who  records  the  circum- 
stance of  his  satisfaction.  Consider  first  the  witness  of  St. 
John :  try  it  by  ordinary  rules.  Hearsay  evidence,  which 
c/>mes  second-hand,  is  suspicious,  but  St.  John's  is  no  distant 
hearsay  story.  He  does  not  say  that  he  had  heard  the  story 
from  Thomas,  and  that  years  afterwards,  when  the  circum- 
stances had  lost  their  exact  sharp  outline,  he  had  penned  it 
rio^vn,  when  he  was  growing  old  and  his  memory  might  be 
failing.  St.  John  was  present  the  whole  time.  All  the 
apostles  were  there :  they  all  watched  the  result  with  eager 
interest.  The  conditions  made  by  Thomas,  without  which 
he  would  not  believe,  had  been  made  before  them  all.  They 
all  heard  him  say  that  the  demonstration  was  complete  : 
they  all  saw  him  touch  the  wounds :  and  St.  John  recorded' 


422  The  Doubt  of  Thomas. 

what  he  saw.  Now  a  scene  like  that  is  one  of  those  solemn 
ones  in  a  man's  life  which  can  not  be  forgotten  :  it  graves  it- 
self on  the  memory.  A  story  told  us  by  another  may  be  un- 
intentionally altered  or  exaggerated  in  the  repetition  ;  but  a 
spectacle  like  this,  so  strange  and  so  solemn,  could  not  be 
forgotten  or  misinterpreted.  St.  John  could  have  made  no 
mistake.  Estimate  next  the  worth  of  the  witness  of  Thomas : 
try  it  by  the  ordinary  rules  of  life.  Evidence  is  worth  little 
if  it  is  the  evidence  of  credulity.  If  you  find  a  man  believ- 
ing every  new  story,  and  accepting  every  fresh  discovery,  so 
called,  without  scrutiny,  you  may  give  him  credit  for  sinceri- 
ty ;  you  can  riot  re'st  much  upon  his  judgment :  his  testimony 
can  not  go  for  much.  For  example,  when  St.  Peter,  after  his 
escape  from  prison,  knocked  at  Mark's  mother's  door,  there 
went  a  maid  to  open  it,  who  came  back  scared  and  startled 
with  the  tidings  that  she  had  seen  his  angel  or  spirit.  Had 
she  gone  about  afterwards  among  the  believers  with  that 
tale,  that  St.  Peter  was  dead  and  alive  again,  it  would  have 
been  worth  little.  Her  fears,  her  sex,  her  credulity,  all  rob- 
bed her  testimony  of  its  worth. 

Now  the  resurrection  of  Christ  does  not  stand  on  such  a 
footing.  There  was  one  man  who  dreaded  the  possibility 
of  delusion,  however  credulous  the  others  might  be.  He  re- 
solved beforehand  that  only  one  proof  should  be  decisive. 
He  would  not  be  contented  with  seeing  Christ :  that  might 
be  a  dream:  it  might  be  the  vision  of  a  disordered  fancy. 
He  would  not  be  satisfied  with  the  assurance  of  others. 
The  evidence  of  testimony  which  he  did  reject  was  very 
strong.  Ten  of  his  most  familiar  friends,  and  certain  women, 
gave  in  their  separate  and  their  united  testimony ;  but 
against  all  that  St.  Thomas  held  out  skeptically  firm.  They 
might  have  been  deceived  themselves  :  they  might  have  been 
trifling  with  him.  The  possibilities  of  mistake  were  innumer- 
able :  the  delusions  of  the  best  men  about  what  they  see  are 
incredible.  He  would  trust  a  thing  so  infinitely  important 
to  nothing  but  his  own  scrutinizing  hand.  It  might  be  some 
one  personating  his  Master.  He  would  put  his  hands  into 
real  wounds,  or  else  hold  it  unproved.  The  allegiance  which 
was  given  in  so  enthusiastically,  "  My  Lord,  and  my  God," 
was  given  in  after,  and  not  before  scrutiny.  It  was  the  cau- 
tious verdict  of  an  enlightened,  suspicious,  most  earnest,  and 
most  honest  skeptic. 

Try  the  evidence  next  by  character.  Blemished  character 
damages  evidence.  Now  the  only  charge  that  was  ever 
heard  against  the  Apostle  John  was  that  he  loved  a  world 
'which  hated  him.  The  character  of  the  Apostle  Thomas  is 


The  Doubt  of  Thomas.  423 

that  he  was  a  man  cautious  in  receiving  evidence,  and  most 
rigorous  in  exacting  satisfactory  proof,  but  ready  to  act  upon 
his  convictions  when  once  made,  even  to  the  death.  Love, 
elevated  above  the  common  love  of  man,  in  the  one — heroic 
conscientiousness  and  a  most  rare  integrity  in  the  other — 
who  impeaches  that  testimony  ? 

Once  more :  any  possibility  of  interested  motives  will  dis- 
credit evidence.  Ask  we  the  motive  of  John  or  Thomas  for 
this  strange  tale  ?  John's  reward — a  long  and  solitary  ban- 
ishment to  the  mines  of  Patmos.  The  gain  and  the  bribe 
which  tempted  Thomas — a  lonely  pilgrimage  to  the  far  East, 
and  death  at  the  last  in  India.  Those  were  strange  motives 
to  account  for  their  persisting  and  glorying  in  the  story  of 
the  resurrection  to  the  last !  Starving  their  gain,  and  martyr- 
dom their  price. 

The  evidence  to  which  Thomas  yielded  was  the  evidence 
of  the  senses — touch,  and  sight,  and  hearing.  Now  the  feel- 
ing which  arose  from  this  touching,  and  feeling,  and  demon- 
stration, Christ  pronounced  to  be  faith :  "  Thomas,  because 
thou  hast  seen,  thou  hast  believed."  There  are  some  Chris- 
tian writers  who  tell  us  that  the  conviction  produced  by  the 
intellect  or  the  senses  is  not  faith :  but  Christ  says  it  is. 
Observe,  then,  it  matters  not  how  faith  comes  —  whether 
through  the  intellect,  as  in  the  case  of  St.  Thomas  —  or 
through  the  heart,  as  in  the  case  of  St.  John — or  as  the  result 
of  long  education,  as  in  the  case  of  St.  Peter.  God  has  many 
ways  of  bringing  different  characters  to  faith  :  but  that 
blessed  thing  which  the  Bible  calls  faith  is  a  state  of  soul  in 
which  the  things  of  God  become  glorious  certainties.  It 
was  riot  faith  which  assured  Thomas  that  what  stood  before 
him  was  the  Christ  he  had  known :  that  was  sight.  But  it 
was  faith,  which  from  the  visible  enabled  him  to  pierce  up  to 
the  truth  invisible:  "My  Lord,  and  my  God."  And  it  was 
faith  which  enabled  him  through  all  life  after,  to  venture 
every  thing  on  that  conviction,  and  live  for  One  who  had 
died  for  him. 

Remark  again  this :  The  faith  of  Thomas  was  not  merely 
satisfaction  about  a  fact :  it  was  trust  in  a  person.  The 
admission  of  a  fact,  however  sublime,  is  not  faith :  we  may 
believe  that  Christ  is  risen,  yet  not  be  nearer  heaven.  It  is 
a  Bible  fact  that  Lazarus  rose  from  the  grave,  but  belief  in 
Lazarus's  resurrection  does  not  make  the  soul  better  than  it 
was.  Thomas  passed  on  from  the  fact  of  the  resurrection  to 
the  person  of  the  risen  :  "  My  Lord,  and  my  God."  Trust  in 
the  risen  Saviour — that  was  the  belief  which  saved  his  soul. 

And  that  is  our  salvation  too.     You  may  satisfy  yourself 


424  The  Doubt  of  Thomas. 

about  the  evidences  of  the  resurrection  ;  you  may  bring  in 
your  verdict  well,  like  a  cautious  and  enlightened  judge; 
you  are  then  in  possession  of  a  fact,  a  most  valuable  and 
curious  fact :  but  faith  of  any  saving  worth  you  have  not, 
unless  from  the  fact  you  pass  on,  like  Thomas,  to  cast  the 
allegiance  and  the  homage  of  your  soul,  and  the  love  of  all 
your  being,  on  Him  whom  Thomas  worshipped.  It  is  not 
belief  about  the  Christ,  but  personal  trust  in  the  Christ  of 
God,  that  saves  the  soul. 

There  is  another  kind  of  evidence  by  which  the  resurrec- 
tion becomes  certain.  Not  the  evidence  of  the  senses,  but 
the  evidence  of  the  spirit :  "  Blessed  are  they  that  have  not 
seen,  and  yet  have  believed."  There  are  thousands  of  Chris- 
tians who  have  never  examined  the  evidences  of  the  resur- 
rection piece  by  piece :  they  are  incapable  of  estimating  it  if 
they  did  examine :  they  know  nothing  about  the  laws  of  ev^ 
idence:  they  have  had  no  experience  in  balancing  the  value 
of  testimony  :  they  are  neither  lawyers  nor  philosophers :  and 
yet  these  simple  Christians  have  received  into  their  very  souls 
the  resurrection  of  their  Redeemer,  and  look  forward  to 
their  own  rising  from  the  grave  with  a  trust  as  firm,  as 
steady,  and  as  saving,  as  if  they  had  themselves  put  .their 
hands  into  His  wounds.  They  have  never  seen — they  know 
nothing  of  proofs  and  miracles  —  yet  they  believe,  and  are 
blessed.  How  is  this  ? 

I  reply,  there  is  an  inward  state  of  heart  which  makes 
truth  credible  the  moment  it  is  stated.  It  is  credible  to 
some  men  because  of  what  they  are.  Love  is  credible  to  a 
loving  heart :  purity  is  credible  to  a  pure  mind  :  life  is  cred- 
ible to  a  spirit  in  which  ever  life  beats  strongly  :  it  is  incred- 
ible to  other  men.  Because  of  that  such  men  believe.  Of 
course  that  inward  state  could  not  reveal  a  fact  like  the 
resurrection  ;  but  it  can  receive  the  fact  the  moment  it  is 
revealed  without  requiring  evidence.  The  love  of  St.  John 
himself  never  could  discover  a  resurrection ;  but  it  made 
a  resurrection  easily  believed,  when  the  man  of  intellect, 
St.  Thomas,  found  difficulties.  Therefore  "  with  the  heart 
man  believeth  unto  righteousness,"  and  therefore  "he  that 
believeth  on  the  Son  of  God  hath  the  witness  in  himself," 
and  therefore  "faith  is  the  substance  of  things  hoped  for." 
Now  it  is  of  such  a  state,  a  state  of  love  and  hope,  which 
makes  the  Divine  truth  credible  and  natural  at  once,  that 
Jesus  speaks  :  "  Blessed  are  they  that  have  not  seen  and  yet 
have  believed." 

There  are  men  in  whom  the  resurrection  begun  makes  the 
resurrection  credible.  In  them  the  Spirit  of  the  risen  Saviour 


The  Doubt  of  Thomas.  425 

works  already ;  and  they  have  mounted  with  Him  from  the 
grave.  They  have  risen  out  of  the  darkness  of  doubt,  and  are 
expatiating  in  the  brightness  and  the  sunshine  of  a  day  in 
which  God  is  ever  light.  Their  step  is  as  free  as  if  the  clay 
of  the  sepulchre  had"  been  shaken  off:  and  their  hearts  are 
lighter  than  those  of  other  men ;  and  there  is  in  them  an 
unearthly  triumph  which  they  are  unable  to  express.  They 
have  risen  above  the  narrowness  of  life,  and  all  that  is  petty, 
and  ungenerous,  and  mean.  They  have  risen  above  fear—- 
they have  risen  above  self.  In  the  New  Testament  that  is 
called  the  spiritual  resurrection,  a  being, "  risen  with  Christ :" 
and  the  man  in  whom  all  that  is  working  has  got  something 
more  blessed  than  external  evidence  to  rest  upon.  He  has  the 
witness  in  himself:  he  has  not  seen,  and  yet  he  has  believed  : 
he  believed  in  a  resurrection,  because  he  has  the  resurrection 
in  himself.  The  resurrection  in  all  its  heavenliness  and  un- 
earthly elevation  has  begun  within  his  soul,  and  he  knows  as 
clearly  as  if  he  had  demonstration,  that  it  must  be  developed 
in  an  eternal  life. 

Now  this  is  the  higher  and  nobler  kind  of  faith — a  faith 
more  blessed  than  that  of  Thomas.  "  Because  thou  hast  seen 
me,  thou  hast  believed."  There  are  times  when  we  envy,  as 
possessed  of  higher  privileges,  those  who  saw  Christ  in  the 
flesh  :  we  think  that  if  we  could  have  heard  that  calm  voice, 
or  seen  that  blessed  presence,  or  touched  those  lacerated 
wounds  in  His  sacred  flesh,  all  doubt  would  be  set  at  rest 
forever.  Therefore  these  words  must  be  our  corrective. 
God  has  granted  us  the  possibility  of  believing  in  a  more 
trustful  and  more  generous  way  than  if  we  sain.  To  believe, 
not  because  we  are  learned  and  can  prove,  but  because  there 
is  a  something  in  us,  even  God's  own  Spirit,  which  makes  us 
feel  Light  as  light,  and  Truth  as  true — that  is  the  blessed 
faith. 

Blessed,  because  it  carries  with  it  spiritual  elevation  of 
character.  Narrow  the  prospects  of  man  to  this  time-world, 
and  it  is  impossible  to  escape  the  conclusions  of  the  Epicu- 
rean sensualist.  If  to-morrow  we  die,  let  us  eat  and  drink 
to  day.  If  we  die  the  sinner's  death,  it  becomes  a  matter  of 
mere  taste  whether  we  shall  live  the  sinner's  life  or  not. 
But  if  our  existence  is  forever,  then  plainly,  that  which  is  to 
be  daily  subdued  and  subordinated  is  the  animal  within  us : 
that  which  is  to  be  cherished  is  that  which  is  likest  God 
within  us — which  we  have  from  Him,  and  which  is  the  sole 
pledge  of  eternal  being  in  the  spirit-life. 


426  The  Irreparable  Past. 


XXI. 
THE  IRREPARABLE  PAST. 

"And  he  eometh  the  third  time,  and  saith  unto  them,  Sleep  on  now,  and 
take  your  rest :  it  is  enough,  the  hour  is  come ;  behold,  the  Son  of  man  is 
betrayed  into  the  hands  of  sinners.  Rise  up,  let  us  go ;  lo,  he  that  betrayeth 
me  is  at  hand." — Mark  xiv.  41.  42. 

IT  is  upon  two  sentences  of  this  passage  that  our  attention 
it  to  be  fixed  to-day — sentences  which  in  themselves  are  ap- 
parently contradictory,  but  which  are  pregnant  with  a  les- 
son of  the  deepest  practical  import.  Looked  at  in  the 
mere  meaning  of  the  words  as  they  stand,  our  Lord's  first 
command  given  to  His  disciples,  "  Sleep  on  now,  and  take 
your  rest,"  is  inconsistent  with  the  second  command,  which 
follows  almost  in  the  same  breath, "  Rise,  let  us  be  going." 
A  permission  to  slumber,  and  a  warning  to  arouse  at  once, 
are  injunctions  which  can  scarcely  standlogether  in  the  same 
sentence  consistently. 

Our  first  inquiry  therefore  is,  what  did  our  Redeemer 
mean  ?  We  shall  arrive  at  the  true  solution  of  this  difficulty 
if  we  review  the  circumstances  under  which  these  words  were 
spoken. 

The  account  with  which  these  verses  stand  connected,  be- 
longs to  one  of  the  last  scenes  in  the  drama  of  our  Master's 
earthly  pilgrimage :  it  is  found  in  the  history  of  the  trial- 
hour  which  was  passed  in  the  garden  of  Gethsemane.  And 
an  hour  it  was  indeed  big  with  the  destinies  of  the  world, 
for  the  command  had  gone  forth  to  seize  the  Saviour's  per- 
son :  but  the  Saviour  was  still  at  large  and  free.  Upon  the 
success  or  the  frustration  of  that  plan  the  world's  fate  was 
trembling.  Three  men  were  selected  to  be  witnesses  of  the 
sufferings  of  that  hour:  three  men,  the  favored  ones  on  all 
occasions  of  the  apostolic  band,  and  the  single  injunction 
which  had  been  laid  upon  them  was,  "  Watch  with  me  one 
hour." 

That  charge  to  watch  or  keep  awake,  seems  to  have  been 
given  with  two  ends  in  view.  He  asked  them  to  keep 
awake,  first  that  they  might  sympathize  with  him.  He  com- 
manded them  to  keep  awake  that  they  might  be  on  their 
guard  against  surprise :  that  they  might  afford  sympathy, 
because  never  in  all  His  career  did  Christ  more  stand  in  need 


The  Irreparable  Past.  427 

of  such  soothing  as  it  was  in  the  power  of  man  to  give.  It  is 
true  that  was  not  much :  the  struggle,  and  the  agony,  and 
the  making  up  of  the  mind  to  death  had  something  in  them 
too  Divine  and  too  mysterious  to  be  understood  by  the  dis- 
ciples, and  therefore  sympathy  could  but  reach  a  portion  of 
what  our  Redeemer  felt.  Yet  still  it  appears  to  have  been 
an  additional  pang  in  Christ's  anguish  to  find  that  He  was 
left  thoroughly  alone— -to  endure,  while  even  His  own  friends 
did  not  compassionate  His  endurance.  We  know  what  a  re- 
lief it  is  to  see  the  honest  affectionate  face  of  a  menial  serv- 
ant, or  some  poor  dependent,  regretting  that  your  suifering 
may  be  infinitely  above  his  comprehension.  It  may  be  a  se- 
cret which  you  can  not  impart  to  him :  or  it  may  be  a  men- 
tal distress  which  his  mind  is  too  uneducated  to  appreciate : 
yet  still  his  sympathy  in  your  dark  hour  is  worth  a  world. 
What  you  suifer  he  knows  not,  but  he  knows  you  do  suffer, 
and  it  pains  him  to  think  of  it :  there  is  balm  to  you  in  that. 
This  is  the  power  of  sympathy. 

We  can  do  little  for  one  another  in  this  world.  Little, 
very  little,  can  be  done  when  the  worst  must  come ;  but  yet 
to  know  that  the  pulses  of  a  human  heart  are  vibrating  with 
yours,  there  is  something  in  that,  let  the.  distance  between 
man  and  man  be  ever  so  immeasurable,  exquisitely  soothing. 

It  was  this,  and  but  this,  in  the  way  of  feeling,  that  Christ 
asked  of  Peter,  James,  and  John :  Watch — be  awake :  let  me 
not  feel  that  when  I  agonize  you  can  be  at  ease  and  comfort- 
able. But  it  would  seem  there  was  another  thing  which  He 
asked  in  the  way  of  assistance.  The  plot  to  capture  Him  was 
laid ;  the  chance  of  that  plot's  success  lay  in  making  the  sur- 
prise so  sudden  as  to  cut  off  all  possibility  of  escape.  The 
hope  of  defeating  that  plot  depended  upon  the  fidelity  of 
apostolic  vigilance.  Humanly  speaking,  had  they  been  vigi- 
lant they  might  have  saved  Him.  Breathless  listening  for 
the  sound  of  footsteps  in  the  distance  :  eyes  anxiously  strain- 
ing through  the  trees  to  distinguish  the  glitter  of  the  lan- 
terns ;  unremitting  apprehension  catching  from  the  word  of 
Christ  an  intimation  that  He  was  in  danger,  and  so  giving 
notice  on  the  first  approach  of  any  thing  like  intrusion — that 
would  have  been  watching. 

That  command  to  watch  was  given  twice — first,  when 
Christ  first  retired  aside  leaving  the  disciples  by  themselves; 
secondly,  in  a  reproachful  way  when  He  returned  and  found 
His  request  disregarded.  He  waked  them  up  once  and  said, 
"  What,  could  ye  not  watch  with  me  one  hour  ?"  He  came 
again,  and  found  their  eyes  closed  once  more.  On  that  occa- 
sion not  a  syllable  fell  from  His  lips;  He  did  not  waken 


428  The  Irreparable  Past. 

them  a  second  time.  He  passed  away  sad  and  disappointed, 
and  left  them  to  their  slumbers.  But  when  He  came  the 
third  time,  it  was  no  longer  possible  for  their  sleep  to  do 
Him  harm  or  their  watching  to  do  Him  good.  The  precious 
opportunity  was  lost  forever.  Sympathy,  vigilance,  the  hour 
for  these  was  past.  The  priests  had  succeeded  in  their  sur- 
prise, and  Judas  had  well  led  them  through  the  dark,  with 
unerring  accuracy,  to  the  very  spot  where  his  Master  knelt ; 
and  there  were  seen  quite  close,  the  dark  figures  shown  in  re- 
lief against  the  glare  of  the  red  torchlight,  and  every  now 
and  then  the  gleam  glittering  from  the  bared  steel  and  the 
Roman  armor.  It  was  all  over,  they  might  sleep  as  they 
liked,  their  sleeping  could  do  no  injury  now;  their  watching 
could  do  no  good.  And,  therefore,  partly  in  bitterness,  part- 
ly in  reproach,  partly  in  a  kind  of  irony,  partly  in  sad  earnest, 
our  Master  said  to  His  disciples :  "  Sleep  on  now :  there  is  no 
use  in  watching  now :  take  your  rest — forever  if  you  will. 
Sleep  and  rest  can  do  me  no  more  harm  now,  for  all  that 
watching  might  have  done  is  lost." 

But,  brethren,  we  have  to  observe  that  in  the  next  sen- 
tence our  Redeemer  addresses  Himself  to  the  consideration 
of  what  could  yet-  be  done :  the  best  thing  as  circumstances 
then  stood.  So  far  as  any  good  to  be  got  from  watching 
went,  they  might  sleep  on :  there  was  no  reparation  for  the 
fault  that  had  been  done :  but  so  far  as  duty  went,  there  was 
still  much  of  endurance  to  which  they  had  to  rouse  them- 
selves. They  could  not  save  their  Master,  but  they  might 
loyally  and  manfully  share  His  disgrace,  and,  if  it  must  be, 
His  death.  They  could  not  put  off  the  penalty,  but  they 
might  steel  themselves  cheerfully  to  share  it.  Safety  was 
out  of  the  question :  but  they  might  meet  their  fate,  instead 
of  being  overwhelmed  by  it:  and  so,  as  respected  what  was 
gone  by,  Christ  said,  "  Sleep,  what  is  done  can  not  be  un- 
done ;"  but  as  respected  the  duties  that  were  lying  before 
them  still,  He  said,  "  We  must  make  the  best  of  it  that  can 
be  made :  rouse  yourselves  to  dare  the  worst :  on  to  enact 
your  parts  like  men.  Rise,  let  us  be  going — we  have  some- 
thing still  left  to  do."  Here  then  we  have  two  subjects  of 
contemplation  distinctly  marked  out  for  us. 

I.  The  irreparable  past. 
II.  The  available  future. 

The  words  of  Christ  are  not  like  the  words  of  other  men  : 
His  sentences  do  not  end  with  the  occasion  which  called  them 
forth:  every  sentence  of  Christ's  is  a  deep  principle  of  hu- 
man life,  and  it  is  so  with  these  sentences :  "  Sleep  on  now  " 


The  Irreparable  Past.  -    429 

— that  is  a  principle.  "  Rise  up,  and  let  us  be  going  " — that 
is  another  principle.  The  principle  contained  in  "  Sleep  on 
now  "  is  this,  that  the  past  is  irreparable,  and  after  a  certain 
moment  waking  will  do  no  good.  You  may  improve  the  fu- 
ture, the  past  is  gone  beyond  recovery.  As  to  all  that  is 
gone  by,  so  far  as  the  hope  of  altering  it  goes,  you  may  sleep 
on  and  take  your  rest :  there  is  no  power  in  earth  or  heaven 
that  can  undo  what  has  once  been  done. 

Now  let  us  proceed  to  give  illustrations  of  this  principle. 

It  is  true,  first  of  all,  with  respect  to  time  that  is  gone  by. 
Time  is  the  solemn  inheritance  to  which  every  man  is  bora 
heir,  who  has  a  life-rent  of  this  world — a  little  section  cut  out 
of  eternity  and  given  us  to  do  our  work  in :  an  eternity  be- 
fore, an  eternity  behind ;  and  the  small  stream  between, 
floating  swiftly  from  one  into  the  vast  bosom  of  the  other. 
The  man  who  has  felt  with  all  his  soul  the  significance  of 
Time  will  not  be  long  in  learning  any  lesson  that  this  world 
has  to  teach  him.  Have  you  ever  felt  it,  my  Christian  breth- 
ren ?  Have  you  ever  realized  how  your  own  little  streamlet 
is  gliding  away,  and  bearing  you  along  with  it  towards  that 
awful  other  world  of  which  all  things  here  are  but  the  thin 
shadows,  down  into  that  eternity  towards  which  the  confused 
wreck  of  all  earthly  things  are  bound?  Let  us  realize  that, 
beloved  brethren :  until  that  sensation  of  Time,  and  the  infi- 
nite meaning  which  is  wrapped  up  in  it,  has  taken  possession 
of  our  souls,  there  is  no  chance  of  our  ever  feeling  other  than 
that  it  is  worse  than  madness  to  sleep  that  time  away.  Ev- 
ery day  in  this  world  has  its  work ;  and  every  day  as  it  rises 
out  of  eternity  keeps  putting  to  each  of  us  the  question 
afresh,  What  will  you  do  before  to-day  has  sunk  into  eternity 
and  nothingness  again  ?  And  now  what  have  we  to  say  with 
respect  to  this  strange  solemn  thing — Time?  That  men  do 
with  it  through  life  just  what  the  apostles  did  for  one  precious 
and  irreparable  hour  in  the  garden  of  Gethsemane  :  they  go 
to  sleep.  Have  you  ever  seen  those  marble  statues  in  some 
public  square  or  garden,  which  art  has  so  fashioned  into  a 
perennial  fountain  that  through  the  lips  or  through  the  hands 
the  clear  water  flows  in  a  perpetual  stream,  on  and  on  for- 
ever;  and  the  marble  stands  there — passive,  *cold — making 
no  effort  to  arrest  the  gliding  water  ? 

It  is  so  that  Time  flows  through  the  hands  of  men — swift, 
never  pausing  till  it  has  run  itself  out ;  and  there  is  the  man 
petrified  into  a  marble  sleep,  not  feeling  what  it  is  which  is 
passing  away  forever.  It  is  so,  brethren,  just  so,  that  the 
destiny  of  nine  men  out  of  ten  accomplishes  itself,  slipping 
away  from  them,  aimless,  useless,  till  it  is  too  late.  And 


430  The  Irreparable  Past. 

this  passage  asks  us  with  all  the  solemn  thoughts  which 
crowd  around  an  approaching  eternity — what  has  been  our 
life,  and  what  do  we  intend  it  shall  be?  Yesterday,  last 
week,  last  year — they  are  gone.  Yesterday,  for  example, 
was  such  a  day  as  never  was  before,  and  never  can  be  again. 
Out  of  darkness  and  eternity  it  was  born  a  new  fresh  day : 
into  darkness  and  eternity  it  sank  again  forever.  It  had  a 
voice  calling  to  us,  of  its  own.  Its  own  work — its  own  du- 
ties. What  were  we  doing  yesterday?  Idling,  whiling 
away  the  time  in  light  and  luxurious  literature — Tiot  as  life's 
relaxation,  but  as  life's  business?  thrilling  our  hearts  with 
the  excitements  of  life — contriving  how  to  spend  the  day 
most  pleasantly  ?  Was  that  our  day  ?  Sleep,  brethren  !  all 
that  is  but  the  sleep  of  the  three  apostles.  And  now  let  us 
remember  this :  there  is  a  day  coming  when  that  sleep  will 
be  broken  rudely,  "with  a  shock :  there  is  a  day  in  our  future 
Jives  when  our  time  will  be  counted  not  by  years  nor  by 
months,  nor  yet  by  hours,  but  by  minutes — the  day  when 
unmistakable  symptoms  shall  announce  that  the  messengers 
of  death  have  come  to  take  us. 

That  startling  moment  will  come  wrhich  it  is  in  vain  to  at- 
tempt to  realize  now,  when  it  will  be  felt  that  it  is  all  over 
at  last — that  our  chance  and  our  trial  are  past.  The  moment 
that  we  have  tried  to  think  of,  shrunk  from,  put  away  from 
us,  here  it  is — going  too,  like  all  other  moments  that  have 
gone  before  it :  and  then  with  eyes  unsealed  at  last,  you  look 
back  on  the  life  which  is  gone  by.  There  is  no  mistake  about 
it :  there  it  is,  a  sleep,  a  most  palpable  sleep — self-indulged 
unconsciousness  of  high  destinies,  and  God  and  Christ :  a 
sleep  when  Christ  was  calling  out  to  you  to  watch  with  Him 
one  hour — a  sleep  when  there  was  something  to  be  done — a 
sleep  broken,  it  may  be,  once  or  twice  by  restless  dreams, 
and  by  a  voice  of  truth  which  would  make  itself  heard  at 
times,  but  still  a  sleep  which  was  only  rocked  into  deeper 
stillness  by  interruption.  And  now  from  the  undone  eterni- 
ty the  bosom  of  whose  waves  is  distinctly  audible  upon  your 
soul,  there  comes  the  same  voice  again — a  solemn  sad  voice — 
but  no  longer  the  same  word,  "  Watch  " — other  words  alto- 
gether, " You  may  go  to  sleep."  It  is  too  late  to  wake; 
there  is  no  science  in  earth  or  heaven  to  recall  time  that 
once  has  fled. 

Again,  this  principle  of  the  irreparable  past  holds  good 
with  respect  to  preparing  for  temptation.  That  hour  in  the 
garden  was  a  precious  opportunity  given  for  laying  in  spir- 
itual strength.  Christ  knew  it  well.  He  struggled  and 
fought  then  :  therefore  there  was  no  struggling  afterwards  — 


The  Irreparable  Past.  431 

no  trembling  in  the  judgment-hall — no  shrinking  on  the  cross, 
but  only  dignified  and  calm  victory  ;  for  He  had  fought  the 
temptation  on  His  knees  beforehand,  and  conquered  all  in  the 
garden.  The  battle  of  the  judgment-hall,  the  battle  of  the 
cross,  were  already  fought  and  over,  in  the  watch  and  in  the 
agony.  The  apostles  missed  the  meaning  of  that  hour  ;  and 
therefore  when  it  came  to  the  question  of  trial,  the  loudest 
boaster  of  them  all  shrunk  from  acknowledging  whose  he 
was,  and  the  rest  played  the  part  of  the  craven  and  the 
renegade.  And  if  the  reason  of  this  be  asked,  it  is  simply 
this  :  They  went  to  trial  unprepared  :  they  had  not  prayed  : 
and  what  is  a  Christian  without  prayer  but  Samson  with- 
out his  talisman  of  hair? 

Brethren,  in  this  world,  when  there  is  any  foreseen  or  sus- 
pected danger  before  us,  it  is  our  duty  to  forecast  our  trial. 
It  is  our  wisdom  to  put  on  our  armor — to  consider  what  lies 
before  us — to  call  up  resolution  in  God's  strength  to  go 
through  what  we  may  have  to  do.  And  it  is  marvellous 
how  difficulties  smooth  away  before  a  Christian  when  he 
does  this.  Trials  that  cost  him  a  struggle  to  meet  even  in 
imagination — like  the  heavy  sweat  of  Gethsemane,  when 
Christ  was  looking  forward  and  feeling  exceeding  sorrowful 
even  unto  death — come  to  their  crisis ;  and  behold,  to  his 
astonishment  they  are  nothing — they  have  been  fought  and 
conquered  already.  But  if  you  go  to  meet  those  tempta- 
tions, not  as  Christ  did,  but  as  the  apostles  did,  prayerless, 
trusting  to  the  chance  impulse  of  the  moment,  you  may  make 
up  your  mind  to  fail.  That  opportunity  lost  is  irreparable : 
it  is  your  doom  to  yield  then.  Those  words  are  true,  you 
may  "sleep  on  now,  and  take  your  rest,"  for  you  have  be- 
trayed yourselves  into  the  hands  of  danger. 

And  now  one  word  about  prayer.  It  is  a  preparation  for 
danger,  it  is  the  armor  for  battle.  Go  not,  my  Christian 
brother,  into  the  dangerous  world  without  it.  You  kneel 
down  at  night  to  pray,  and  drowsiness  weighs  down  your 
eyelids.  A  hard  day's  work  is  a  kind  of  excuse,  and  you 
shorten  your  prayer  and  resign  yourself  softly  to  repose. 
The  morning  breaks,  and  it  may  be  you  rise  late,  and  so 
your  early  devotions  are  not  done,  or  done  with  irregular 
haste.  No  watching  unto  prayer — wakefulness  once  more 
omitted.  And  now  we  ask,  is  that  reparable?  Brethren, 
we  solemnly  believe  not.  There  has  been  that  done  which 
can  not  be  undone.  You  have  given  up  your  prayer,  and 
you  will  suffer  for  it.  Temptation  is  before  you,  and  you  are 
not  fit  to  meet  it.  There  is  a  guilty  feeling  on  the  soul,  and 
you  linger  at  a  distance  from  Christ.  It  is  no  marvel  if  that 


432  The  Irreparable  Past. 

day,  in  which  you  suffer  drowsiness  to  interfere  with  prayer, 
be  a  day  on  which  you  betray  Him  by  cowardice  and  soft 
shrinking  from  duty.  Let  it  be  a  principle  through  life,  mo- 
ments of  prayer  intruded  upon  by  sloth  can  not  be  made  up. 
We  may  get  experience,  but  we  can  not  get  back  the  rich 
freshness  and  the  strength  which  were  wrapped  up  in  these 
moments. 

Once  again  this  principle  is  true  in  another  respect.  Op- 
portunities of  doing  good  do  not  come  back.  We  are  here, 
brethren,  for  a  most  definite  and  intelligible  purpose — to 
educate  our  own  hearts  by  deeds  of  love,  and  to  be  the  in- 
strument of  blessing  to  our  brother  men.  There  are  two 
ways  in  which  this  is  to  be  done — by  guarding  them  from 
danger,  and  by  soothing  them  in  their  rough  path  by  kindly 
sympathies — the  two  things  which  the  apostles  were  asked 
to  do  for  Christ.  And  it  is  an  encouraging  thought,  that  he 
who  can  not  do  the  one  has  at  least  the  other  in  his  power. 
If  he  can  not  protect  he  can  sympathize.  Let  the  weakest 
— let  the  humblest  in  this  congregation  remember,  that  in 
his  daily  course  he  can,  if  he  will,  shed  around  him  almost  a 
heaven.  Kindly  words,  sympathizing  attentions,  watchful- 
ness against  wounding  men's  sensitiveness — these  cost  very 
little,  but  they  #re  priceless  in  their  value.  Are  they  not, 
brethren,  almost  the  staple  of  our  daily  happiness  ?  From 
hour  to  hour,  from  moment  to  moment,  we  are  supported, 
blest,  by  small  kindnesses.  And  then  consider :  Here  is  a 
section  of  life,  one-third,  one-half,  it  may  be  three-fourths 
gone  by,  and  the  question  before  us  is,  how  much  has  been 
done  in  that  way  ?  Who  has  charged  himself  with  the 
guardianship  of  his  brother's  safety  ?  Who  has  laid  on  him- 
self as  a  sacred  duty  to  sit  beside  his  brother  suffering?  Oh ! 
my  brethren,  it  is  the  omission  of  these  things  which  is  irrepa- 
rable :  irreparable,  when  you  look  to  the  purest  enjoyment 
which  might  have  been  your  own  :  irreparable,  when  you 
consider  the  compunction  which  belongs  to  deeds  of  love 
not  done ;  irreparable,  wrhen  you  look  to  this  groaning  wrorld 
and  feel  that  its  agony  of  bloody  sweat  has  been  distilling 
all  night,  and  you  were  dreaming  away  in  luxury  !  Shame, 
shame  upon  our  selfishness  !  There  is  an  infinite  voice  in 
the  sin  and  sufferings  of  earth's  millions,  which  makes  every 
idle  moment,  every  moment,  that  is,  wrhich  is  not  relaxation, 
guilt ;  and  seems  to  cry  out,  If  you  will  not  bestir  yourself 
for  love's  sake  now,  it  will  soon  be  too  late. 

Lastly,  this  principle  applies  to  a  misspent  youth.  There 
is  something  very  remarkable  in  the  picture  which  is  placed 
before  us.  There  is  a  picture  of  One  struggling,  tolling. 


The  Irreparable  Past.  433 

standing  between  others  and  danger,  and  those  others  quiet- 
ly content  to  reap  the  benefit  of  that  struggle  without  anxie- 
ty of  their  own.  And  there  is  something  in  this  singularly 
like  the  position  in  which  all  young  persons  are  placed. 
The  young  are  by  God's  providence  exempted  in  a  great 
measure  from  anxiety :  they  are  as  the  apostles  were  in  re- 
lation to  their  Master:  their  friends  stand  between  them 
and  the  struggles  of  existence.  They  are  not  called  upon  to 
think  for  themselves  :  the  burden  is  borne  by  others.  They 
get  their  bread  without  knowing  or  caring  how  it  is  paid 
for :  they  smile  and  laugh  without  a  suspicion  of  the  anxious 
thoughts  of  day  and  night  which  a  parent  bears  to  enable 
them  to  smile.  So  to  speak  they  are  sleeping — and  it  is  not 
a  guilty  sleep — while  another  watches. 

My  young  brethren — youth  is  one  of  the  precious  oppor- 
tunities of  life — rich  in  blessing  if  you  choose  to  make  it  so, 
but  having  in  it  the  materials  of  undying  remorse  if  you  suf- 
fer it  to  pass  unimproved.  Your  quiet  Gethsemane  is  now. 
Gethsemane's  struggles  you  can  not  know  yet.  Take  care 
that  you  do  not  learn  too  well  Gethsemane's  sleep.  Do  you 
know  how  you  can  imitate  the  apostles  in  their  fatal  sleep  ? 
You  can  suffer  your  young  days  to  pass  idly  and  uselessly 
away;  you  can  live  as  if  you  had  nothing  to  do  but  to  en- 
joy yourselves :  you  can  let  others  think  for  you,  and  not 
try  to  become  thoughtful  yourselves :  till  the  business  and 
the  difficulties  of  life  come  upon  you  unprepared,  and  you 
find  yourselves  like  men  waking  from  sleep,  hurried,  con- 
fused, scarcely  able  to  stand,  with  all  the  faculties  bewilder- 
ed, not  knowing  right  from  wrong,  led  headlong  to  evil,  just 
because  you  have  not  given  yourselves  in  time  to  learn  what 
is  good.  All  that  is  sleep. 

And  now  let  us  mark  it.  You  can  not  repair  that  in  after- 
life. Oh  !  remember  every  period  of  human  life  has  its  own 
lesson,  and  you  can  not  learn  that  lesson  in  the  next  period. 
The  boy  has  one  set  of  lessons  to  learn,  and  the  young  man 
another,  and  the  grown-up  man  another.  Let  us  consider 
one  single  instance.  The  boy  has  to  learn  docility,  gentle- 
ness of  temper,  reverence,  submission.  All  those  feelings 
which  are  to  be  transferred  afterwards  in  full  cultivation  to 
God,  like  plants  nursed  in  a  hotbed  and  then  planted  out, 
are  to  be  cultivated  first  in  youth.  Afterwards,  those  habits 
which  have  been  merely  habits  of  obedience  to  an  earthly 
parent,  are  to  become  religious  submission  to  a  heavenly  par- 
ent. Our  parents  stand  to  us  in  the  place  of  God.  Venera- 
tion for  our  parents  is  intended  to  become  afterwards  adora- 
tion for  something  higher.  Take  that  single  instance ;  and 

19 


434  The  Irreparable  Past. 

now  suppose  that  that  is  not  learnt  in  boyhood.  Suppose 
that  the  boy  sleeps  to,  that  duty  of  veneration,  and  learns 
only  flippancy,  insubordination,  and  the  habit  of  deceiving 
his  father — can  that,  my  young  brethren,  be  repaired  after- 
wards? Humanly  speaking,  not.  Life  is  like  the  transition 
from  class  to  class  in  a  school.  The  school-boy  who  has  not 
learnt  arithmetic  in  the  earlier  classes  can  not  secure  it  when 
he  comes  to  mechanics  in  the  higher:  each  section  has  its 
own  sufficient  work.  He  may  be  a  good  philosopher  or  a 
good  historian,  but. a  bad  arithmetician  he  remains  for  life; 
for  he  can  not  lay  the  foundation  at  the  moment  when  he 
must  be  building  the  superstructure.  The  regiment  which 
has  not  perfected  itself  in  its  manoeuvres  on  the  parade- 
ground  can  not  learn  them  before  the  guns  of  the  enemy. 
And  just  in  the  same  way,  the  young  person  who  has  slept 
his  youth  away,  and  become  idle,  and  selfish,  and  hard,  can 
not  make  up  for  that  afterwards.  He  may  do  something, 
he  may  be  religious — yes ;  but  he  can  not  be  what  he 
might  have  been.  There  is  a  part  of  his  heart  which  will 
remain  uncultivated  to  the  end.  The  apostles  could  share 
their  Master's  sufferings — they  could  not  save  Him.  Youth 
has  its  irreparable  past. 

And  therefore,  my  young  brethren,  let  it  be  impressed 
upon  you — NOW  is  a  time,  infinite  in  its  value  for  eternity, 
which  will  never  return  again.  Sleep  not ;  learn  that  there 
is  a  very  solemn  work  of  heart  which  must  be  done  while  the 
stillness  of  the  garden  of  your  Gethsemane  gives  you  time. 
Now — or  never.  The  treasures  at  your  command  are  infinite. 
Treasures  of  time,  treasures  of  youth,  treasures  of  opportuni- 
ty that  grown-up  men  would  sacrifice  every  thing  they  have 
to  possess.  Oh  for  ten  years  of  youth  back  again  with  the 
added  experience  of  age  !  But  it  can  not  be  :  they  must  be 
content  to  sleep  on  now,  and  take  their  rest. 

We  are  to  pass  on  next  to  a  few  remarks  on  the  other  sen- 
tence in  this  passage,  which  brings  before  us  for  considera- 
tion the  future  which  is  still  available  :  for  we  are  to  observe, 
that  our  Master  did  not  limit  His  apostles  to  a  regretful  rec- 
ollection of  their  failure.  Recollection  of  it  He  did  demand. 
There  were  the  materials  of  a  most  cutting  self-reproach  in 
the  few  words  He  said  :  for  they  contained  all  the  desolation 
of  that  sad  word,  never.  Who  knows  not  what  that  word 
wraps  up — never — it  never  can  be  undone.  Sleep  on.  But 
yet  there  was  no  sickly  lingering  over  the  irreparable.  Our 
Master's  words  are  the  words  of  One  who  had  fully  recog- 
nized the  hopelessness  of  His  position,  but  yet  manfully  and 
calmly  had  numbered  His  resources  and  scanned  His  duties, 


The  Irreparable  Past.  435 

and  then  braced  up  His  mind  to  meet  the  exigencies  of  His 
situation  with  no  passive  endurance :  the  moment  was  come 
for  action — "  Rise,  let  us  be  going." 

Now  the  broad  general  lesson  which  we  gain  from  this  is 
not  hard  to  read.  It  is  that  a  Christian  is  to  be  forever  rous- 
ing himself  to  recognize  the  duties  which  lie  before  him  now. 
In  Christ  the  motto  is  ever  this,  "  Let  us  be  going."  Let  me 
speak  to  the  conscience  of  some  one.  Perhaps  yours  is  a 
very  remorseful  past — a  foolish,  frivolous,  disgraceful,  frit- 
tered past.  Well,  Christ  says,  My  servant,  be  sad,  but  no 
languor ;  there  is  work  to  be  done  for  me  yet — rise  up,  be 
going !  Oh  my  brethren,  Christ  takes  your  wretched  rem- 
nants of  life — the  feeble  pulses  of  a  heart  which  has  spent  its 
best  hours  not  for  Him,  but  for  self  and  for  enjoyment,  and 
in  His  strange  love  He  condescends  to  accept  them. 

Let  me  speak  to  another  kind  of  experience.  Perhaps  we 
feel  that  we  have  faculties  which  never  have  and  now  never 
will  find  their  right  field ;  perhaps  we  are  ignorant  of  many 
things  which  can  not  be  learnt  now ;  perhaps  the  seed-time 
of  life  has  gone  by,  and  certain  powers  of  heart  and  mind 
will  not  grow  now ;  perhaps  you  feel  that  the  best  days  of 
life  are  gone,  and  it  is  too  late  to  begin  things  which  were  in 
your  power  once :  still,  my  repentant  brother,  there  is  encour- 
agement from  your  Master  yet.  Wake  to  the  opportunities 
that  yet  remain.  Ten  years  of  life — five  years — one  year — 
say  you  have  only  that — will  you  sleep  that  away  because 
you  have  already  slept  too  long  ?  Eternity  is  crying  out  to 
you  louder  and  louder  as  you  near  its  brink,  Rise,  be  going : 
count  your  resources :  learn  what  you  are  not  fit  for,  and 
give  up  wishing  for  it :  learn  what  you  can  do,  and  do  it  with 
the  energy  of  a  man.  That  is  the  great  lesson  of  this  pas^ 
sage.  But  now  consider  it  a  little  more  closely. 

Christ  impressed  two  things  on  His  apostles'  minds :  1. 
The  duty  of  Christian  earnestness — "  Rise  ;"  2.  The  duty  of 
Christian  energy — "  Let  us  be  going." 

Christ  roused  them  to  earnestness  when  He  said,  "Rise.'- 
A  short,  sharp,  rousing  call.  They  were  to  start  up  and 
wake  to  the  realities  of  their  position.  The  guards  w.ere  on 
them :  their  Master  was  about'  to  be  led  away  to  doom. 
That  was  an  awakening  which  would  make  men  spring  to 
their  feet  in  earnest.  Brethren,  goodness  and  earnestness  are 
nearly  the  same  thing.  In  the  language  in  which  this  Bible 
was  written  there  was  one  word  which  expressed  them  both  : 
what  we  translate  a  good  man,  in  Greek  is  literally  "  ear- 
nest." The  Greeks  felt  that  to  be  earnest  was  nearly  iden- 
tical with  being  good.  But,  however,  there  is  a  day  in  life 


4.36  The  Irreparable  Past. 

when  a  man  must  be  earnest,  but  it  does  not  follow  that  he 
will  be  good.  "  Behold  the  bridegroom  cometh ;  go  ye  out 
to  meet  him."  That  is  a  sound  that  will  thunder  through 
the  most  fast-locked  slumber,  and  rouse  men  whom  sermons 
can  not  rouse.  But  that  will  not  make  them  holy.  Earnest- 
ness of  life,  brethren,  that  is  goodness.  Wake  in  death  you 
must,  for  it  is  an  earnest  thing  to  die.  Shall  it  be  this,  I 
pray  you? — Shall  it  be  the  voice  of  death  which  first  SMVS, 
"Arise,"  at  the  very  moment  when  it  says,  "Sleep  on  for- 
ever?"— Shall  it  be  the  bridal  train  sweeping  by,  and  the 
shutting  of  the  doors,  and  the  discovery  that  the  lamp  is 
gone  out  ? — Shall  that  be  the  first  time  you  know  that  it  is 
an  earnest  thing  to  live  ?  Let  us  feel  that  we  have  been  do- 
ing :  learn  what  time  is — sliding  from  you,  and  not  stopping 
when  you  stop  :  learn  what  sin  is :  learn  what  "  never  "  is  : 
"  Awake,  thou  that  sleepest." 

Lastly,  Christian  energy — "  Let  us  be  going."  There  were 
two  ways  open  to  Christ  in  which  to  submit  to  His  doom. 
He  might  have  waited  for  it :  instead  of  which  He  went  to 
meet  the  soldiers.  He  took  up  the  cross,  the  cup  of  anguish 
was  not  forced  between  His  lips,  He  took  it  with  His  own 
hands,  and  drained  it  quickly  to  the  last  drop.  In  after- 
years  the  disciples  understood  the  lesson,  and  acted  on  it. 
They  did  not  wait  till  persecution  overtook  them ;  they 
braved  the  Sanhedrim:  they  fronted  the  world:  they  pro- 
claimed aloud  the  unpopular  and  unpalatable  doctrines  of 
the  resurrection  and  the  cross.  Now  in  this  there  lies  a  prin- 
ciple. Under  no  conceivable  set  of  circumstances  are  we 
justified  in  sitting 

"By  the  poison 'd  springs  of  life, 
Waiting  for  the  morrow  which  shall  free  us  from  the  strife." 

Under  no  circumstances,  whether  of  pain,  or  grief,  or  disap- 
pointment, or  irreparable  mistake,  can  it  be  true  that  there  is 
not  something  to  be  done,  as  well  as  something  to  be  suffered. 
And  thus  it  is  that  the  spirit  of  Christianity  draws  over  our 
life,  not  a  leaden  cloud  of  remorse  and  despondency,  but  a 
sky — .not  perhaps  of  radiant,  but  yet  of  most  serene  and  chas- 
tened and  manly  hope.  There  is  a  past  which  is  gone  for- 
ever. But  there  is  a  future  which  is  still  our  own. 


SERMONS. 


Serie0. 


THE  TONGUE. 

"  Even  so  the  tongue  is  a  little  member,  and  boasteth  great  things.  Be- 
hold, how  great  a  matter  a  little  fire  kindleth !  And  the  tongue  is  a  fire,  a 
world  of  iniquity :  so  is  the  tongue  among  our  members,  that  it  defileth  the 
whole  body,  and  setteth  on  fire  the  course  of  nature ;  and  it  is  set  on  fire  of 
hell. — St.  James  iii.  5,  6. 

IN  the  development  of  Christian  truth  a  peculiar  office  was 
assigned  to  the  Apostle  James. 

It  was  given  to  St.  Paul  to  proclaim  Christianity  as  the 
spiritual  law  of  liberty,  and  to  exhibit  faith  as  the  most  act- 
ive principle  within  the  breast  of  man.  It  was  St.  John's  to 
say  that  the  deepest  quality  in  the  bosom  of  Deity  is  love  ; 
and  to  assert  that  the  life  of  God  in  man  is  love.  It  was  the 
office  of  St.  James  to  assert  the  necessity  of  moral  rectitude ; 
his  very  name  marked  him  out  peculiarly  for  this  office :  he 
was  emphatically  called, "  the  Just :"  integrity  was  his  peculiar 
characteristic.  A  man  singularly  honest,  earnest,  real.  Ac- 
cordingly, if  you  read  through  his  whole  epistle,  you  will 
find  it  is,  from  first  to  last,  one  continued  vindication  of  the 
first  principles  of  morality  against  the  semblances  of  religion. 

He  protested  against  the  censoriousness  which  was  found 
connected  with  peculiar  claims  of  religious  feelings.  "If 
any  man  among  you  seem  to  be  religious  and  bridleth  not 
his  tongue,  but  deceiveth  his  own  heart,  this  man's  religion 
is  vain."  He  protested  against  that  spirit  which  had  crept 
into  the  Christian  brotherhood,  truckling  to  the  rich  and  de- 
spising the  poor.  "  If  ye  have  respect  of  persons  ye  commit 
sin,  and  are  convinced  of  the  law  as  transgressors."  He 
protested  against  that  sentimental  fatalism  which  induced 
men  to  throw  the  blame  of  their  own  passions  upon  God. 


4.38  The  Tongue. 

*'  Let  no  man  say,  when  he  is  tempted,  I  am  tempted  of  God ; 
for  God  can  not  tempt  to  evil ;  neither  tempteth  He  any 
man."  He  protested  against  that  unreal  religion  of  excite- 
ment which  diluted  the  earnestness  of  real  religion  in  the  en- 
joyment of  listening.  "Be  ye  doers  of  the  word,  and  not 
hearers  only ;  deceiving  your  own  souls."  He  protested 
against  that  trust  in  the  correctness  of  theological  doctrine 
which  neglected  the  cultivation  of  character.  "  What  doth 
it  profit,  if  a  man  say  that  he  hath  faith,  and  have  not  works  ? 
Can  faith  save  him  ?" 

Read  St.  James's  epistle  through,  this  is  the  mind  breath- 
ing through  it  all :  all  this  talk  about  religion,  and  spiritual- 
ity— words,  words,  words — nay,  let  us  have  realities. 

It  is  well  known  that  Luther  complained  of  this  epistle, 
that  it  did  not  contain  the  Gospel ;  for  men  who  are  ham- 
pered by  a  system  will  say — even  of  an  inspired  apostle — 
that  he  does  not  teach  the  Gospel  if  their  own  favorite  doc- 
trine be  not  the  central  subject  of  his  discourse ;  but  St. 
James's  reply  seems  spontaneously  to  suggest  itself  to  us. 
The  Gospel !  how  can  we  speak  of  the  Gospel,  when  the 
first  principles  of  morality  are  forgotten  ?  when  Christians 
are  excusing  themselves,  and  slandering  one  another  ?  How 
can  the  superstructure  of  love  and  faith  be  built,  when  the 
very  foundations  of  human  character — justice,  mercy,  truth 
— have  not  been  laid  ? 

L  The  license  of  the  tongue. 
II.  The  guilt  of  that  license. 

The  first  license  given  to  the  tongue  is  slander.  I  am  not, 
of  course,  speaking  now  of  that  species  of  slander  against 
which  the  law  of  libel  provides  a  remedy,  but  of  that  of 
which  the  Gospel  alone  takes  cognizance ;  for  the  worst  in- 
juries which  man  can  do  to  man  are  precisely  those  which 
are  too  delicate  for  law  to  deal  with.  We  consider  therefore 
not  the  calumny  which  is  reckoned  such  by  the  moralities  of 
an  earthly  court,  but  that  which  is  found  guilty  by  the  spirit- 
ualities of  the  courts  of  heaven — that  is,  the  mind  of  God. 

Now  observe,  this  slander  is  compared  in  the  text  to  poi- 
son— "  the  tongue  is  an  unruly  evil,  full  of  deadly  poison." 
The  deadliest  poisons  are  those  for  which  no  test  is  known : 
there  are  poisons  so  destructive  that  a  single  drop  insinuated 
into  the  veins  produces  death  in  three  seconds,  and  yet  no 
chemical  science  can  separate  that  virus  from  the  contam- 
inated blood,  and  show  the  metallic  particles  of  poison  glit- 
tering palpably,  and  say,  "Behold,  it  is  there  !" 

In  the  drop  of  venom  which  distils  from  the  sting  of  the 


The  Tongue.  439 

smallest  insect,  or  the  spikes  of  the  nettle-leaf,  there  is  con- 
centrated the  quintessence  of  a  poison  so  subtle  that  the  mi- 
croscope can  not  distinguish  it,  and  yet  so  virulent  that  it 
can  inflame  the  blood,  irritate  the  whole  constitution,  and 
convert  day  and  night  into  restless  misery. 

In  St.  James's  day,  as  now,  it  would  appear  that  there 
were  idle  men  and  idle  women,  who  went  about  from  house 
to  house,  dropping  slander  as  they  went,  and  yet  you  could 
not  take  up  that  slander  and  detect  the  falsehood  there. 
You  could  not  evaporate  the  truth  in  the  slow  process  of  the 
crucible,  and  then  show  the  residuum  of  falsehood  glittering 
and  visible.  You  could  not  fasten  upon  any  word  or  sen- 
tence, and  say  that  it  was  calumny ;  for  in  order  to  consti- 
tute slander  it  is  not  necessary  that  the  word  spoken  should 
be  false — half  truths  are  often  more  calumnious  than  whole 
falsehoods.  It  is  not  even  necessary  that  a  word  should  be 
distinctly  uttered ;  a  dropped  lip,  and  arched  eyebrow,  a 
shrugged  shoulder,  a  significant  look,  an  incredulous  expres- 
sion of  countenance,  nay,  even  an  emphatic  silence,  may  do 
the  work :  and  when  the  light  and  trifling  thing  which  has 
done  the  mischief  has  fluttered  off,  the  venom  is  left  behind, 
to  work  and  rankle,  to  inflame  hearts,  to  fever  human  exist- 
ence, and  to  poison  human  society  at  the  fountain  -  springs 
of  life.  Very  emphatically  was  it  said  by  one  whose  whole 
being  had  smarted  under  such  affliction,  "  Adder's  poison  is 
under  their  lips." 

The  second  license  given  to  the  tongue  is  in  the  way  of 
persecution  ;  "therewith  curse  we  men  which  are  made  after 
the  similitude  of  God."  "  We  !" — men  who  bear  the  name  of 
Christ — curse  our  brethren !  Christians  persecuted  Chris- 
tians. Thus  even  in  St.  James's  age  that  spirit  had  begun, 
the  monstrous  fact  of  Christian  persecution ;  from  that  day 
it  has  continued,  through  long  centuries,  up  to  the  present 
time.  The  Church  of  Christ  assumed  the  office  of  denuncia- 
tion, and  except  in  the  first  council,  whose  object  was  not  to 
strain,  but  to  relax  the  bonds  of  brotherhood,  not  a  council 
has  met  for  eighteen  centuries  which  has  not  guarded  each 
profession  of  belief  by  the  too  customary  formula,  "If  any 
rnan  maintain  otherwise  than  this,  let  him  be  accursed." 

Myriad,  countless  curses  have  echoed  through  those  long 
ages  ;  the  Church  has  forgotten  her  Master's  spirit  and  called 
down  fire  from  heaven.  A  fearful  thought  to  consider  this 
as  the  spectacle  on  which  the  eye  of  God  has  rested.  He 
looks  down  upon  the  creatures  He  has  made,  and  hears  every- 
where the  language  of  religious  imprecations :  and,  after  all, 
who  is  proved  right  by  curses  ? 


44-O  The  Tongue. 

The  Church  of  Rome  hurls  her  thunders  against  Protest- 
ants of  every  denomination  :  the  Calvinist  scarcely  recog- 
nizes the  Arminian  as  a  Christian :  he  who  considers  himself 
as  the  true  Anglican,  excludes  from  the  Church  of  Christ  all 
but  the  adherents  of  his  own  orthodoxy;  every  minister  and 
congregation  has  its  small  circle  beyond  which  all  are  her- 
etics :  nay,  even  among  that  sect  which  is  most  lax  as  to  the 
dogmatic  forms  of  truth,  we  find  the  Unitarian  of  the  old 
school  denouncing  the  spiritualism  of  the  new  and  rising 
school. 

This  is  the  state  of  things  to  which  we  are  arrived.  Sis- 
ters of  Charity  refuse  to  permit  an  act  of  charity  to  be  done 
t)y  a  Samaritan ;  ministers  of  the  Gospel  fling  the  thunder- 
bolts of  the  Lord ;  ignorant  hearers  catch  and  exaggerate 
the  spirit — boys,  girls,  and  women  shudder  as  one  goes  by, 
perhaps  more  holy  than  themselves,  who  adores  the  same 
God,  believes  in  the  same  Redeemer,  struggles  in  the  same 
life-battle,  and  all  this  because  they  have  been  taught  to 
look  upon  him  as  an  enemy  of  God. 

There  is  a  class  of  religious  persons  against  whom  this  ve- 
hemence has  been  especially  directed.  No  one  who  can  read 
the  signs  of  the  times  can  help  perceiving  that  we  are  on  the 
eve  of  great  changes,  perhaps  a  disruption  of  the  Church  of 
England.  Unquestionably  there  has  been  a  large  secession 
to  the  Church  of  Rome. 

Now  what  has  been  the  position  of  those  who  are  about 
to  take  this  step  ?  They  have  been  taunted  with  dishonest 
reception  of  the  wages  of  the  Church ;  a  watch  has  been  set 
over  them  :  not  a  word  they  uttered  in  private,  or  in  public, 
but  was  given  to  the  world  by  some  religious  busybody ; 
there  was  not  a  visit  which  they  paid,  not  a  foolish  dress 
which  they  adopted,  but  became  the  subject  of  bitter  scruti- 
ny and  malevolent  gossip.  For  years  the  religious  press  has 
denounced  them  with  a  vehemence  as  virulent,  but  happily 
more  impotent  than  that  of  the  Inquisition.  There  has  been 
an  anguish  and  an  inward  struggle  little  suspected,  endured 
by  men  who  felt  themselves  outcasts  in  their  own  society, 
and  naturally  looked  for  a  home  elsewhere. 

We  congratulate  ourselves  that  the  days  of  persecution 
are  gone  by ;  but  persecution  is  that  which  affixes  penalties 
upon  mews  held,  instead  of  upon  life  led.  Is  persecution  only 
fire  and  sword  ?  But  suppose  a  man  of  sensitive  feeling 
says,  The  sword  is  less  sharp  to  me  than  the  slander :  fire  is 
less  intolerable  than  the  refusal  of  sympathy  ! 

Now  let  us  bring  this  home ;  you  rejoice  that  the  fa«r*jot 
and  the  stake  are  given  up;  you  never  persecuted  —  you 


The  Tongue.  441 

leave  that  to  the  wicked  Church  of  Rome.  Yes,  you  never 
burned  a  human  being  alive — you  never  clapped  your  hands 
as  the  death-shriek  proclaimed  that  the  lion's  fang  had  gone 
home  into  the  most  vital  part  of  the  victim's  frame  ;  but  did 
you  never  rob  him  of  his  friends  ? — gravely  shake  your  head 
and  oracularly  insinuate  that  he  was  leading  souls  to  hell? — 
chill  the  affections  of  his  family  ? — take  from  him  his  good 
name  ?  Did  you  never  with  delight  see  his  Church  placard- 
ed as  the  Man  of  Sin,  and  hear  the  platform  denunciations 
which  branded  it  with  the  spiritual  abominations  of  the 
Apocalypse  ?  Did  you  never  find  a  malicious  pleasure  in  re- 
peating all  the  miserable  gossip  with  which  religious  slander 
fastened  upon  his  daily  acts,  his  words,  and  even  his  uncom- 
municated  thoughts  ?  Did  you  never  forget  that  for  a  man 
to  "  work  out  his  own  salvation  with  fear  and  trembling  "  is 
a  matter  difficult  enough  to  be  laid  upon  a  human  spirit, 
without  intruding  into  the  most  sacred  department  of  an-> 
other's  life — that,  namely,  which  lies  between  himself  and 
God  ?  Did  you  never  say  that  "  it  was  to  be  wished  he 
should  go  to  Rome,"  until  at  last  life,,  became  intolerable — 
until  he  was  thrown  more  and  more  in  upon  himself;  found 
himself,  like  his  Redeemer, in  this  world  alone,  but  unable,  like 
his  Redeemer,  calmly  to  repose  upon  the  thought  that  his 
Father  was  with  him  ?  Then  a  stern  defiant  spirit  took  pos- 
session of  his  soul,  and  there  burst  from  his  lips,  or  heart, 
the  wish  for  rest— rest  at  any  cost,  peace  anywhere,  if  even 
it  is  to  be  found  only  in  the  bosom  of  the  Church  of  Rome  J 

II.  The  guilt  of  this  license. 

1.  The  first  evil  consequence  is  the  harm  that  a  man  does 
himself:  "  so  is  the  tongue  among  the  members,  that  it  de- 
files the  whole  body."  It  is  not  very  obvious,  in  what  way 
a  man  does  himself  harm  by  calumny.  I  will  take  the  sini' 
plest  form  in  which  this  injury  is  done;  it  effects  a  dissipa- 
tion of  spiritual  energy.  There  are  two  ways  in  which  the 
steam  of  machinery  may  find  an  outlet  for  its  force :  it  may 
work,  and  if  so  it  works  silently  ;  or  it  may  escape,  and  that 
takes  place  loudly,  in  air  and  noise.  *  There  are  two  ways  in 
which  the  spiritual  energy  of  a  man's  soul  may  find  its  vent : 
it  may  express  itself  in  action,  silently  ;  or  in  words,  noisily: 
but  just  so  much  offeree  as  is  thrown  into  the  one  mode  of 
expression  is  taken  from  the  other. 

Few  men  suspect  how  much  mere  talk  fritters  away  spir- 
itual energy — that  which  should  be  spent  in  action  spends 
itself  in  words.  The  fluent  boaster  is  not  the  man  who  is 
steadiest  before  the  enemy ;  it  is  well  said  to  him  that  his 

19* 


44 2  The  Tongue. 

courage  is  better  kept  till  it  is  wanted.  Loud  utterance  of 
virtuous  indignation  against  evil  from  the  platform,  or  in  the 
drawing-room,  do  not  characterize  the  spiritual  giant :  so 
much  indignation  as  is  expressed,  has  found  vent,  is  wasted, 
is  taken  away  from  the  work  of  coping  with  evil ;  the  man 
has  so  much  less  left.  And  hence  he  who  restrains  that  love 
of  talk  lays  up  a  fund  of  spiritual  strength. 

With  large  significance,  St.  James  declares,  "  If  any  man 
offend  not  in  word,  the  same  is  a  perfect  man,  able  also  to 
bridle  the  whole  body."  He  is  entire,  powerful,  because  he 
has  not  spent  his  strength.  In  these  days  of  loud  profession, 
and  bitter,  fluent  condemnation,  it  is  well  for  us  to  learn  the 
divine  force  of  silence.  Remember  Christ  in  the  judgment- 
hall,  the  very  symbol  and  incarnation  of  spiritual  strength ; 
and  yet  when  revilings  were  loud  around  Him  and  charges 
multiplied,  "  He  held  His  peace." 

2.  The  next  feature  in  the  guilt  of  calumny  is  its  uncon- 
trollable character :  "  the  tongue  can  no  man  tame."  You 
can  not  arrest  a  calumnious  tongue,  you  can  not  arrest  the 
calumny  itself;  you  jnay  refute  a  slanderer,  you  may  trace 
home  a  slander  to  its  source,  you  may  expose  the  author  of 
it,  you  may  by  that  exposure  give  a  lesson  so  severe  as  to 
make  the  repetition  of  the  offense  appear  impossible ;  but 
the  fatal  habit  is  incorrigible ;  to-morrow  the  tongue  is  at 
work  again. 

Neither  can  you  stop  the  consequences  of  a  slander ;  you 
may  publicly  prove  its  falsehood,  you  may  sift  every  atom, 
explain  and  annihilate  it,  and  yet,  years  after  you  had 
thought  that  all  had  been  disposed  of  forever,  the  mention  of 
a  name  wakes  up  associations  in  the  mind  of  some  one  who 
heard  the  calumny,  but  never  heard  or  never  attended  to 
the  refutation,  or  who  has  only  a  vague  and  confused  recol- 
lection of  the  whole,  and  he  asks  the  question  doubtfully, 
"But  were  there  not  some  suspicious  circumstances  con- 
nected with  him  ?" 

It  is  like  the  Greek  fire  used  in  ancient  warfare,  which 
burnt  unquenched  beneath  the  water,  or  like  the  weeds 
which,  when  you  have  extirpated  them  in  one  place  are 
sprouting  forth  vigorously  in  another  spot,  at  the  distance  of 
many  hundred  yards ;  or,  to  use  the  metaphor  of  St.  James 
himself,  it  is  like  the  wheel  which  catches  fire  as  it  goes,  and 
burns  with  a  fiercer  conflagration  as  its  own  speed  increases; 
"it  sets  on  fire  the  whole  course  of  nature"  (literally,  the 
wheel  of  nature).  You  may  tame  the  wild  beast,  the  con- 
flagration of  the  American  forest  will  cease  when  all  the 
timber  and  the  dry  underwood  is  consumed ;  but  you  can 


The  Tongue.  443 

not  arrest  the  progress  of  that  cruel  word  which  you  uttered 
carelessly  yesterday  or  this  morning — which  you  will  utter, 
perhaps,  before  you  have  passed  from  this  church  one  hun- 
dred yards :  that  will  go  on  slaying,  poisoning,  burning  be- 
yond your  own  control,  now  and  forever. 

3.  The  third  element  of  guilt  lies  in  the  unnaturalness  of 
calumny.  "  My  brethren,  these  things  ought  not  so  to  be ;" 
ought  not  —  that  is,  they  are  unnatural.  That  this  is  St. 
James's  meaning  is  evident  from  the  second  illustration 
which  follows:  "Doth  a  fountain  send  forth  at  the  same 
place,  sweet  water  and  bitter?"  "Can  the  fig-tree,  my 
brethren,  bear  olive-berries,  or  a  vine,  figs." 

There  is  apparently  in  these  metaphors  little  that  affords 
an  argument  against  slander;  the  motive  which  they  sug- 

fest  would  appear  to  many  far-fetched  and  of  small  cogency ; 
ut  to  one  who  looks  on  this  world  as  a  vast  whole,  arid 
who  has  recognized  the  moral  law  as  only  a  part  of  the 
great  law  of  the  universe,  harmoniously  blending  with  the 
whole,  illustrations  such  as  these  are  the  most  powerful  of 
all  arguments.  The  truest  definition  of  evil  is  that  which 
represents  it  as  something  contrary  to  nature :  evil  is  evil, 
because  it  is  unnatural ;  a  vine  which  should  bear  olive- 
berries,  an  eye  to  which  blue  seems  yellow,  would  be  dis- 
eased: an  unnatural  mother,  an  unnatural  son,  an  unnatural 
act,  are  the  strongest  terms  of  condemnation.  It  is  this 
view  which  Christianity  gives  of  moral  evil:  the  teaching 
of  Christ  was  the  recall  of  man  to  nature,  not  an  infusion 
of  something  new  into  humanity.  Christ  came  to  call  out 
all  the  principles  and  powers  of  human  nature,  to  restore 
the  natural  equilibrium  of  all  our  faculties ;  not  to  call  us 
back  to  our  own  individual  selfish  nature,  but  to  human 
nature  as  it  is  in  God's  ideal — the  perfect  type  which  is  to 
be  realized  in  us.  Christianity  is  the  regeneration  of  our 
whole  nature,  not  the  destruction  of  one  atom  of  it. 

Now  the  nature  of  man  is  to  adore  God  and  to  love  what 
is  Godlike  in  man.  The  office  of  the  tongue  is  to  bless. 
Slander  is  guilty  because  it  contradicts  this;  yet  even  in 
slander  itself,  perversion  as  it  is,  the  interest  of  man  in  man 
is  still  distinguishable.  What  is  it  but  perverted  interest 
which  makes  the  acts,  and  words,  and  thoughts  of  his  breth- 
ren, even  in  their  evil,  a  matter  of  such  strange  delight  ? 
Remember,  therefore,  this  contradicts  your  nature  and  your 
destiny ;  to  speak  ill  of  others  makes  you  a  monster  in  God's 
world:  get  the  habit  of  slander,  and  then  there  is  not  a 
stream  which  bubbles  fresh  from  the  heart  of  nature,  there 
is  not  a  tree  that  silently  brings  forth  its  genial  fruit  in  its 


444  T/ie  Tongue. 

appointed  season,  which  does  not  rebuke  and  proclaim  you 
to  be  a  monstrous  anomaly  in  God's  world. 

4.  The  fourth  point  of  guilt  is  the  diabolical  character  of 
slander ;  the  tongue  "  is  set  on  fire  of  hell."  Now,  this  is 
no  mere  strong  expression — no  mere  indignant  vituperation 
— it  contains  deep  and  emphatic  meaning. 

The  apostle  means  literally  what  he  says — slander  is  dia- 
bolical. The  first  illustration  we  give  of  this  is  contained 
in  the  very  meaning  of  the  word  devil.  "Devil,"  in  the 
original,  means  traducer  or  slanderer.  The  first  introduc- 
tion of  a  demon  spirit  is  found  connected  with  a  slanderous 
insinuation  against  the  Almighty,  implying  that  His  com- 
mand had  been  given  in  envy  of  His  creature:  "for  God 
doth  know  that  in  the  day  ye  eat  thereof,  then  your  eyes 
shall  be  opened,  and  ye  shall  be  as  gods,  knowing  good  and 
evil." 

In  the  magnificent  imagery  of  the  book  of  Job,  the  accuser 
is  introduced  with  a  demoniacal  and  malignant  sneer,  attrib- 
uting the  excellence  of  a  good  man  to  interested  motives ; 
"  Doth  Job  serve  God  for  naught  ?"  There  is  another  mode 
in  which  the  fearful  accuracy  of  St.  James's  charge  may  be 
demonstrated.  There  is  one  state  only  from  which  there  is 
said  to  be  no  recovery — there  is  but  one  sin  that  is  called 
unpardonable.  The  Pharisees  beheld  the  works  of  Jesus. 
They  could  not  deny  that  they  were  good  works,  they 
could  not  deny  that  they  were  miracles  of  beneficence,  but 
rather  than  acknowledge  that  they  were  done  by  a  good 
man  through  the  co-operation  of  a  Divine  spirit,  they  pre- 
ferred to  account  for  them  by  the  wildest  and  most  incredi- 
ble hypothesis;  they  said  they  were  done  by  the  power  of 
Beelzebub,  the  prince  of  the  devils.  It  was  upon  this  occa- 
sion that  our  Redeemer  said  with  solemn  meaning,  "For 
every  idle  word  that  men  shall  speak,  they  shall  give  ac- 
count in  the  day  of  judgment."  It  was  then  that  He  said, 
for  a  word  spoken  against  the  Holy  Ghost  there  is  no  for- 
giveness in  this  world,  or  in  the  world  to  come. 

Our  own  hearts  respond  to  the  truth  of  this — to  call  evil, 
good,  and  good,  evil — to  see  the  Divinest  good,  and  call  it 
satanic  evil  —  below  this  lowest  deep  there  is  not  a  lower 
still.  There  is  no  cure  for  mortification  of  the  flesh — there 
is  no  remedy  for  ossification  of  the  heart.  Oh,  that  misera- 
ble state,  when  to  the  jaundiced  eye  all  good  transforms 
itself  into  evil,  and  the  very  instruments  of  health  become 
the  poison  of  disease  !  Beware  of  every  approach  of  this  ! 
beware  of  that  spirit  which  controversy  fosters,  of  watching 
only  for  the  evil  in  the  character  of  an  antagonist!  beware 


The  Tongue.  445 

of  that  habit  which  becomes  the  slanderer's  life,  of  magni- 
fying every  speck  of  evil  and  closing  the  eye  to  goodness  \ 
till  at  last  men  arrive  at  the  state  in  which  generous,  urii 
versal  love  (which  is  heaven)  becomes  impossible,  and  a  sus- 
picious, universal  hate  takes  possession  of  the  heart,  and  that 
is  hell ! 

There  is  one  peculiar  manifestation  of  this  spirit  to  which 
I  desire  specially  to  direct  your  attention. 

The  politics  of  the  community  are  guided  by  the  political 
press.  The  religious  views  of  a  vast  number  are  formed  by 
that  portion  of  the  press  which  is  called  religious;  it  be- 
comes, therefore,  a  matter  of  deepest  interest  to  inquire  what 
is  the  spirit  of  that  "  religious  press."  I  am  not  asking  you 
what  are  the  views  maintained — whether  Evangelical,  An- 
glican,  or  Romish — but  what  is  the  spirit  of  that  fountain 
from  which  the  religious  life  of  so  many  is  nourished? 

Let  any  man  cast  his  eye  over  the  pages  of  this  portion  of 
the  press — it  matters  little  to  which  party  the  newspaper  or 
the  journal  may  belong — he  will  be  startled  to  find  the  char- 
acters of  those  whom  he  has  most  deeply  reverenced,  whose 
hearts  he  knows,  whose  integrity  and  life  are  above  suspi- 
cion, held  up  to  scorn  and  hatred  :  the  organ  of  one  party  is 
established  against  the  organ  of  another,  and  it  is  the  recog- 
nized office  of  each  to  point  out  with  microscopic  care  the 
names  of  those  whose  views  are  to  be  shunned ;  and  in  order 
that  these  may  be  the  more  shrunk  from,  the  characters  of 
those  who  hold  such  opinions  are  .traduced  and'  vilified. 
There  is  no  personality  too  mean — there  is  no  insinuation  too 
audacious  or  too  false  for  the  recklessness  of  these  daring 
slanderers.  I  do  not  like  to  use  the  expression,  lest  it  should 
appear  to  be  merely  one  of  theatrical  vehemence ;  but  I  say 
it  in  all  seriousness,  adopting  the  inspired  language  of  the 
Bible,  and  using  it  advisedly  and  with  accurate  meaning: 
the  spirit  which  guides  the  "religious  press"  of  this  country 
— which  dictates  those  personalities,  which  prevents  contro- 
versialists from  seeing  what  is  good  in  their  opponents,  which 
attributes  low  motives  to  account  for  excellent  lives,  and 
teaches  men  whom  to  suspect  and  shun,  rather  than  point 
out  where  it  is  possible  to  admire  and  love — is  a  spirit  "  set 
on  fire  of  hell." 

Before  we  conclude,  let  us  get  at  the  root  of  the  matter. 
"  Man,"  says  the  Apostle  James,  "  was  made  in  the  image 
of  God:"  to  slander  man  is  to  slander  God:  to  love  what  is 
good  in  man  is  to  love  it  in  God.  Love  is  the  only  remedy 
for  slander :  no  set  of  rules  or  restrictions  can  stop  it ;  we 
may  denounce,  but  we  shall  denounce  in  vain.  The  radical 


44 6  The  Victory  of  Faith. 

cure  of  it  is  charity — "out  of  a  pure  heart  and  faith  unfeign- 
ed," to  feel  what  is  great  in  the  human  character ;  to  recog- 
nize with  delight  all  high,  and  generous,  and  beautiful  ac- 
tions ;  to  tind  a  joy  even  in  seeing  the  good  qualities  of  your 
bitterest  opponents,  and  to  admire  those  qualities  even  in 
those  with  whom  you  have  least  sympathy — be  it  either  the 
Romanist  or  the  Unitarian — this  is  the  only  spirit  which  can 
heal  the  love  of  slander  and  calumny.  If  we  would  bless 
God,  we  must  first  learn  to  bless  man,  who  is  made  in  the 
image  of  God. 


II. 
THE  VICTORY  OF  FAITH. 

"For  whatsoever  is  born  of  God  overcometh  the  world:  and  this  is  the 
victory  that  overcometh  the  world,  even  our  faith.  Who  is  he  that  over- 
cometh the  world,  but  he  that  believeth  that  Jesus  is  the  Son  of  God?" — 
1  John  v.  4,  5. 

THERE  are  two  words  in  the  system  of  Christianity  which 
have  received  a  meaning  so  new,  and  so  emphatic,  as  to  be 
in  a  way  peculiar  to  it,  and  to  distinguish  it  from  all  other 
systems  of  morality  and  religion;  these  two  words  are — the 
world,  and  faith.  We  find  it  written  in  Scripture  that  to 
have  the  friendship  of  the  world  is  to  be  the  enemy  of  God ; 
whereupon  the  question  arises — the  world  ? — did  not  God 
make  the  world  ?  Did  He  not  place  us  in  the  world  ?  Are 
we  not  to  love  what  God  has  made?  And  yet  meeting  this 
distinctly  we  have  the  inspired  record,  "  Love  not  the  world." 

The  object  of  the  statesman  is,  or  ought  to  be,  to  produce 
as  much  worldly  prosperity  as  possible ;  but  Christianity, 
that  is  Christ,  speaks  little  of  this  world's  prosperity,  under- 
rates it — nay,  speaks  of  it  at  times  as  infinitely  dangerous. 

The  legislator  prohibits  crime — the  moralist  transgression 
— the  religionist  sin.  To  these  Christianity  superadds  a  new 
enemy — the  world  and  the  things  of  the  world.  "  If  any 
man  love  the  world,  the  love  of  the  Father  is  not  in  him." 

The  other  word  used  in  a  peculiar  sense  is  faith.  It  is 
impossible  for  any  one  to  have  read  his  Bible  ever  so  negli- 
gently, and  not  to  be  aware  that  the  word  faith,  or  the  grace 
of  faith,  forms  a  large  element  in  the  Christian  system.  It  is 
said  to  work  miracles,  remove  mountains,  justify  the  soul, 
trample  upon  impossibilities.  Every  apostle,  in  his  way,  as- 
signs to  faith  a  primary  importance.  Jude  tells  us  to  "  build 


The  Victory  of  Faith.  447 

up  ourselves  in  our  most  holy  faith."  John  tells  us  that — 
"  he  that  believeth  that  Jesus  is  the  Christ,  is  born  of  God ;" 
and  Paul  tells  us  that,  not  by  merit  nor  by  works,  but  by 
trust  or  reliance  only,  can  be  formed  that  state  of  soul  by 
which  man  is  reckoned  just  before  God.  In  these  expres- 
sions the  apostles  only  develop  their  Master's  meaning,  when 
He  uses  such  words  as  these,  "All  things  are  possible  to  him 
that  believeth :"  "  Oh  thou  of  little  faith,  wherefore  didst 
thou  doubt  ?" 

These  two  words  are  brought  into  diametrical  opposition 
in  the  text,  so  that  it  branches  into  a  twofold  line  of  thought. 

I.  The  Christian's  enemy,  the  world. 
II.  The  victory  of  faith. 

In  endeavoring  to  understand  first  what  is  meant  by 
the  world,  we  shall  feel  that  the  mass  of  evil  which  is  com- 
prehended under  this  expression  can  not  be  told  out  in  any 
one  sermon ;  it  is  an  expression  used  in  various  ways,  some- 
times meaning  one  thing,  sometimes  meaning  another ;  but 
we  will  endeavor  to  explain  its  general  principles— and 
these  we  will  divide  into  three  heads ;  first,  the  tyranny  of 
the  present ;  secondly,  the  tyranny  of  the  sensual ;  and  last- 
ly, the  spirit  of  society. 

1.  The  tyranny  of  the  present. 

"  Christ,"  says  the  Apostle  Paul,  "  hath  redeemed  us  from 
this  present  evil  world  ;"  and  again,  "  Demas  hath  forsaken 
me,  having  loved  this  present  world." 

Let  a  stress  be  laid  on  the  word  present.  World liness  is 
the  attractive  power  of  something  present,  in  opposition  to 
something  to  come.  It  is  this  rule  and  tyranny  of  the  pres- 
ent that  constitutes  Demas  a  worldly  man. 

In  this  respect  worldliness  is  the  spirit  of  childhood  carried 
on  into  manhood.  The  child  lives  in  the  present  hour — to- 
day to  him  is  every  thing.  The  holiday  promised  at  a  distant 
interval  is  no  holiday  at  all — it  must  be'either  now  or  never. 
Natural  in  the  child,  and  therefore  pardonable,  this  spirit, 
when  carried  on  into  manhood,  is  coarse — is  worldliness.  The 
most  distinct  illustration  given  us  of  this,  is  the  case  of  Esau. 
Esau  came  from  the  hunting-field  worn  and  hungry  ;  the  only 
means  of  procuring  the  tempting  mess  of  his  brother's  pot- 
tage was  the  sacrifice  of  his  father's  blessing,  which  in  those 
ages  carried  with  it  a  substantial  advantage ;  but  that  birth- 
right could  be  enjoyed  only  after  years — the  pottage  was 
mesent,  near  and  certain  ;  therefore  he  sacrificed  a  future  and 
higher  blessing  for  a  present  and  lower  pleasure.  For  this 
reason  Esau  is  the  Bible  type  of  worldliness :  he  is  called  in 


44  8  The  Victory  of  Faith. 

Scripture  a  profane,  that  is,  not  a  distinctly  vicious,  but  a 
secular  or  worldly  person — an  overgrown  child  ;  impetuous, 
inconsistent,  not  without  gleams  of  generosity  and  kindliness, 
but  ever  accustomed  to  immediate  gratification. 

In  this  worldliness,  moreover,  is  to  be  remarked  the  game- 
ster's desperate  play.  There  is  a  gambling  spirit  in  hu- 
man nature.  Esau  distinctly  expresses  this :  "  Behold  I  am 
at  the  point  to  die,  and  what  shall  my  birthright  profit  me  ?" 
He  might  never  live  to  enjoy  his  birthright;  but  the  pottage 
was  before  him,  present,  certain,  there. 

Now,  observe  the  utter  powerlessness  of  mere  preaching 
to  cope  with  this  tyrannical  power  of  the  present.  Forty 
thousand  pulpits  throughout  the  land  this  4ay  will  declaim 
against  the  vanity  of  riches,  the  uncertainty  of  life,  the  sin  of 
worldliness — against  the  gambling  spirit  of  human  nature ; 
I  ask  what  impression  will  be  produced  by  those  forty  thou- 
sand harangues  ?  In  every  congregation  it  is  reducible  to  a 
certainty  that,  before  a  year  has  passed,  some  will  be  num- 
bered with  the  dead.  Every  man  knows  this,  but  he  thinks 
the  chances  are  that  it  will  not  be  himself;  he  feels  it  a 
solemn  thing  for  humanity  generally — but  for  himself  there 
is  more  than  a  chance.  Upon  this  chance  he  plays  away 
life. 

It  is  so  with  the  child :  you  tell  him  of  the  consequences 
of  to-day's  idleness — but  the  sun  is  shining  brightly,  and  he 
can  not  sacrifice  to-day's  pleasure,  although  he  knows  the  dis- 
grace it  will  bring  to-morrow.  So  it  is  with  the  intemperate 
man  :  he  says — "  Sufficient  unto  the  day  is  the  evil  and  the 
good  thereof;  let  me  have  my  portion  now."  So  the  one 
great  secret  of  the  world's  victory  lies  in  the  mighty  power 
of  saying  "JVow?." 

2.  The  tyranny  of  the  sensual. 

I  call  it  tyranny,  because  the  evidences  of  the  senses  are 
all-powerful,  in  spite  of  the  protestations  of  the  reason.  In 
vain  you  try  to  persuade  the  child  that  he  is  moving,  and  not 
the  trees  which  seem  to  flit  past  the  carnage — in  vain  we  re- 
mind ourselves  that  this  apparently  solid  earth  on  which  we 
stand,  and  which  seems  so  immovable,  is  in  reality  flying 
through  the  regions  of  space  with  an  inconceivable  rapidity — 
in  vain  philosophers  would  persuade  us  that  the  color  which 
the  eye  beholds  resides  not  in  the  object  itself,  but  in  our  own 
perception  ;  we  are  victims  of  the  apparent,  and  the  verdict 
of  the  senses  is  taken  instead  of  the  verdict  of  the  reason. 

Precisely  so  is  it  with  the  enjoyments  of  the  world.  The 
man  who  died  yesterday,  and  whom  the  world  called  a  suc- 
cessful man — for  what  did  he  live  ?  He  lived  for  this  world 


The  Victory  of  Faith.  449 

— he  gained  this  world.  '  Houses,  lands,  name,  position  in  so- 
ciety—all that  earth  could  give  of  enjoyments — he  had  :  he 
was"  the  man  of  whom  the  Redeemer  said  that  his  thoughts 
were  occupied  in  planning  how  to  pull  down  his  barns  and 
build  greater.  We  hear  men  complain  of  the  sordid  love  of 
gold,  but  gold  is  merely  a  medium  of  exchange  for  other 
things :  gold  is  land,  titles,  name,  comfort — all  that  the  world 
can  give.  If  the  world  be  all,  it  is  wise  to  live  for  gold.  There 
may  be  some  little  difference  in  the  degree  of  degradation 
in  different  forms  of  worldliness  ;  it  is  possible  that  the  am- 
bitious man  who  lives  for  power  is  somewhat  higher  than  he 
who  merely  lives  for  applause,  and  he  again  may  be  a  trifle 
higher  than  the  mere  seeker  after  gold — but,  after  all,  look- 
ing closely  at  the  matter,  you  will  find  that,  in  respect  of  the 
objects  of  their  idolatry,  they  agree  in  this,  that  all  belong 
to  the  present.  Therefore,  says  the  apostle,  all  that  is  in  the 
world — "  the  lust  of  the  flesh,  the  lust  of  the  eye,  and  the 
pride  of  life,  is  not  of  the  Father,  but  of  the  world,"  and  are 
only  various  forms  of  one  great  tyranny.  And  then,  when 
such  a  man  is  at  the  brink  of  death,  the  words  said  t5  the  man 
in  our  Lord's  parable  must  be  said  to  him,  "  Thou  fool,  the 
houses  thou  hast  built,  the  enjoyments  thou  hast  prepared, 
and  all  those  things  which  have  formed  thy  life  for  years — 
when  thy  soul  is  taken  from  them,  what  shall  they  profit 
thee  ?" 

3.  The  spirit  of  society. 

The  world  has  various  meanings  in  Scripture  ;  it  does  not 
always  mean  the  visible,  as  opposed  to  the  invisible  ;  nor  the 
present,  as  opposed  to  the  future :  it  sometimes  stands  for  the 
secular  spirit  of  the  day — the  voice  of  society. 

Our  Saviour  says,  "  If  ye  were  of  the  world,  the  world 
would  love  his  own."  The  apostle  says, "  Be  not  conformed 
to  this  world ;"  and  to  the  Gentiles  he  writes,  "  In  time 
past  ye  walked  according  to  the  course  of  this  world,  the 
spirit  which  now  worketh  in  the  children  of  disobedience."  In 
these  verses,  a  tone,  a  temper,  a  spirit  is  spoken  of.  There 
are  two  things — the  Church  and  the  world — two  spirits  per- 
vading different  bodies  of  men,  brought  before  us  in  these 
verses  —  those  called  the  Spirit-born,  and  those  called  the 
world,  which  is  to  be  overcome  by  the  Spirit-born,  as  in  the 
text,  "  Whatsoever  is  born  of  God  overcometh  the  world." 

Let  us  understand  what  is  meant  by  the  Church  of  God. 
When  we  speak  of  the  Church  we  generally  mean  a  society 
to  aid  men  in  their  progress  Godward ;  but  the  Church  of 
God  is  by  no  means  co-extensive  in  any  age  with  that  organ- 
ized institution  which  we  call  the  Church  ;  sometimes  it  is 


450  The  Victory  of  Fait  I i. 

nearly  co-extensive — that  is,  nearly  all  on  earth  who  are  born 
of  God  are  found  within  its  pale,  nearly  all  who  are  of  the 
world  are  extraneous  to  it — but  sometimes  the  born  of  God 
have  been  found  distinct  from  the  institution  called  the 
Church,  opposed  to  it — persecuted  by  it.  The  institution  of 
the  Church  is  a  blessed  ordinance  of  God,  organized  on  earth 
for  the  purpose  of  representing  the  eternal  Church  and  of 
extending  its  limits,  but  still  ever  subordinate  to  it. 

The  eternal  Church  is  "  the  general  assembly  and  church 
of  the  firstborn  which  are  written  in  heaven ;"  the  selected 
spirits  of  the  Most  High,  who  are  struggling  with  the  evil  of 
their  day ;  sometimes  alone,  like  Elijah,  and  like  him,  long- 
ing that  their  work  was  done ;  sometimes  conscious  of  their 
union  with  each  other.  God  is  forever  raising  up  a  succes- 
sion of  these — His  brave,  His  true,  His  good.  Apostolical 
succession,  as  taught  sometimes,  means  simply  this — a  suc- 
cession of  miraculous  powers  flowing  in  a  certain  line.  The 
true  apostolic  succession  is — not  a  succession  in  a  hereditary 
line,  or  line  marked  by  visible  signs  which  men  can  always 
identify,  *but  a  succession  emphatically  spiritual. 

The  Jews  looked  for  a  hereditary  succession  ;  they  thought 
that  because  they  were  Abraham's  seed,  the  spiritual  succes- 
sion was  preserved ;  the  Redeemer  told  them  that  "  God  was 
able  of  those  stones  to  raise  up  children  unto  Abraham." 
Therefore  is  this  ever  a  spiritual  succession — in  the  hands  of 
God  alone ;  and  they  are  here  called  the  God-born,  coming 
into  the  world  variously  qualified  ;  sometimes  baptized  with 
the  spirit  which  makes  them,  like  James  and  John,  the  "sons 
of  thunder,"  sometimes  with  a  milder  spirit,  as  Barnabas, 
which  makes  them  "  sons  of  consolation,"  sometimes  having 
their  souls  indurated  into  an  adamantine  hardness,  which 
makes  them  living  stones — rocks  like  Peter,  against  which 
the  billows  of  this  world  dash  themselves  in  vain,  and  against 
which  the  gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail.  But  whether  as 
apostles,  or  visitors  of  the  poor,  or  parents  of  a  family,  born 
to  do  a  work  on  earth,  to  speak  a  word,  to  discharge  a  mis- 
sion which  they  themselves  perhaps  do  not  know  till  it  is  ac- 
complished— these  are  the  Church  of  God — the  children  of 
the  Most  High — the  noble  army  of  the  Spirit-born  !  Op- 
posed to  this  stands  the  mighty  confederacy  called  the  world. 
But  beware  of  fixing  on  individual  men  in  order  to  stigmatize 
them  as  the  world.  You  may  not  draw  a  line  and  say — "  We 
are  the  sons  of  God,  ye  are  of  the  world."  The  world  is  not 
so  much  individual  as  it  is  a  certain  spirit ;  the  course  of  this 
world  is  "  the  spirit  which  now  worketh  in  the  children  of 
disobedience."  The  world  and  the  Church  are  annexed  as 


The  Victory  of  Faith.  451 

inseparably  as  the  elements  which  compose  the  atmosphere. 
Take  the  smallest  portion  of  this  that  you  will,  in  a  cubic 
inch  the  same  proportions  are  found  as  in  a  temple.  In  the 
ark  there  was  a  Ham ;  in  the  small  band  of  the  twelve  apos- 
tles there  was  a  Judas. 

The  spirit  of  the  world  is  forever  altering — impalpable ; 
forever  eluding,  in  fresh  forms,  your  attempts  to  seize  it.  In 
the  days  of  Noah,  the  spirit  of  the  world  was  violence.  In 
Elijah's  day  it  was  idolatry.  In  the  day  of  Christ  it  was 
power  concentrated  and  condensed  in  the  government  of 
Home.  In  ours,  perhaps,  it  is  the  love  of  money.  It  enters 
in  different  proportions  into  different  bosoms ;  it  is  found  in 
a  different  form  in  contiguous  towns ;  in  the  fashionable 
watering-place,  and  in  the  commercial  city :  it  is  this  thing 
at  Athens,  and  another  in  Corinth.  This  is  the  spirit  of  the 
world — a  thing  in  my  heart  and  yours:  to  be  struggled 
against,  not  so  much  in  the  case  of  others,  as  in  the  silent 
battle  to  be  done  within  our  own  souls.  Pass  we  on  now  to 
consider — 

II.  The  victory  of  faith. 

Faith  is  a  theological  expression  ;  we  are  apt  to  forget 
that  it  has  any  other  than  a  theological  import ;  yet  it  is  the 
commonest  principle  of  man's  daily  life,  called  in  that  region 
prudence,  enterprise,  or  some  such  name.  It  is  in  effect  the 
principle  on  which  alone  any  human  superiority  can  be 
gained.  Faith,  in  religion,  is  the  same  principle  as  faith  in 
worldly  matters,  differing  only  in  its  object :  it  rises  through 
successive  stages.  When,  in  reliance  upon  your  promise, 
your  child  gives  up  the  half-hour's  idleness  of  to-day  for  the 
holiday  of  to-morrow,  he  lives  by  faith  ;  a  future  supersedes 
the  present  pleasure.  When  he  abstains  from  over-indul- 
gence of  the  appetite,  in  reliance  upon  your  word  that  the 
result  will  be  pain  and  sickness,  sacrificing  the  present  pleas- 
ure for  fear  of  future  punishment,  he  acts  on  faith  :  I  do  not 
say  that  this  is  a  high  exercise  of  faith — it  is  a  very  low  one 
— but  it  is  faith. 

Once  more :  the  same  motive  of  action  may  be  carried  on 
into  manhood ;  in  our  own  times  two  religious  principles 
have  been  exemplified  in  the  subjugation  of  a  vice.  The  hab- 
it of  intoxication  has  been  broken  by  an  appeal  to  the  prin- 
ciple of  combination,  and  the  principle  of  belief.  Men  were 
taught  to  feel  that  they  were  not  solitary  strugglers  against 
the  vice  ;  they  were  enrolled  in  a  mighty  army,  identified  in 
principles  and  interests.  Here  was  the  principle  of  the 
Church — association  for  reciprocated  strength  j  they  were 


452  The  Victory  of  Faith. 

thus  taught  the  inevitable  result  of  the  indulgence  of  the 
vice.  The  missionaries  of  temperance  went  "through  the 
country  contrasting  the  wretchedness  and  the  degradation 
and  the  filth  of  drunkenness,  with  the  domestic  comfort  and 
the  health  and  the  regular  employment  of  those  who  were 
masters  of  themselves.  So  far  as  men  believed  this,  and  gave 
up  the  tyranny  of  the  present  for  the  hope  of  the  future — so 
far  they  lived  by  faith. 

Brethren,  I  do  not  say  that  this  was  a  high  triumph  for 
the  principle  of  faith ;  it  was,  in  fact,  little  more  than  selfish- 
ness ;  it  was  a  high  future  balanced  against  a  low  present ; 
only  the  preference  of  a  future  and  higher  physical  enjoy- 
ment to  a  mean  and  lower  one.  Yet  still,  to  be  ruled  by  this 
influence  raises  a  man  in  the  scale  of  being :  it  is  a  low  vir- 
tue, prudence,  a  form  of  selfishness ;  yet  prudence  is  a  virtue. 
The  merchant  who  forecasts,  saves,  denies  himself  systemati- 
cally through  years,  to  amass  a  fortune,  is  not  a  very  lofty 
being,  yet  he  is  higher,  as  a  man,  than  he  who  is  sunk  in 
mere  bodily  gratifications.  You  would  not  say  that  the  in- 
temperate man — who  has  become  temperate  in  order  merely 
to  gain  by  that  temperance  honor  and  happiness — is  a  great 
man,  but  you  would  say  he  was  a  higher  and  a  better  man 
than  he  who  is  enslaved  by  his  passions,  or  than  the  gambler 
who  improvidently  stakes  all  upon  a  moment's  throw.  The 
worldly  mother  who  plans  for  the  advancement  of  a  family, 
and  sacrifices  solid  enjoyments  for  a  splendid  alliance,  is  only 
worldly  wise,  yet  in  that  manoeuvring  and  worldly  prudence 
there  is  the  exercise  of  a  self-control  which  raises  her  above 
the  mere  giddy  pleasure-hunter  of  the  hour;  for  want  of  self1 
control  is  the  weakness  of  our  nature — to  restrain,  to  wait, 
to  control  present  feeling  with  a  large  foresight,  is  human 
strength. 

Once  more :  instead  of  a  faith  like  that  of  the  child,  which 
overleaps  a  few  hours,  or  that  of  the  worldly  man,  which 
overpasses  years,  there  may  be  a  faith  which  transcends  the 
whole  span  of  life,  and,  instead  of  looking  for  temporal  en- 
joyments, looks  for  rewards  in  a  future  beyond  the  grave, 
instead  of  a  future  limited  to  time. 

This  is  again  a  step.  The  child  has  sacrificed  a  day ;  the 
man  has  sacrificed  a  little  more.  Faith  has  now  reached  a 
stage  which  deserves  to  be  called  religious ;  not  that  this, 
however,  is  very  grand ;  it  does  but  prefer  a  happiness  here- 
after to  a  happiness  enjoyed  here — an  eternal  well-being  in- 
stead of  a  temporal  well-being  ;  it  is  but  prudence  on  a  grand 
scale — another  form  of  selfishness — an  anticipation  of  infinite 
rewards  instead  of  finite,  and  not  the  more  noble  because  of 


The  Victory  of  Faith.  453 

t 

the  infinitude  of  the  gain  :  and  yet  this  is  what  is  often 
taught  as  religion  in  books  and  sermons.  We  are  told  that 
sin  is  wrong,  because  it  will  make  us  miserable  hereafter. 
Guilt  is  represented  as  the  short-sightedness  which  barters 
for  a  home  on  earth — a  home  in  heaven. 

In  the  text-book  of  ethics  studied  in  one  of  our  universi- 
ties, virtue  is  defined  as  that  which  is  done  at  the  command 
of  God  for  the  sake  of  an  eternal  reward.  So,  then,  religion 
is  nothing  more  than  a  calculation  of  infinite  and  finite  quan- 
tities ;  vice  is  nothing  more  than  a  grand  imprudence ;  and 
heaven  is  nothing  more  than  selfishness  rewarded  with  eter- 
nal well-being ! 

Yet  this,  you  will  observe,  is  a  necessary  step  in  the  de- 
velopment of  faith.  Faith  is  the  conviction  that  God  is  a 
rewarder  of  them  who  diligently  seek  Him ;  and  there  is  a 
moment  in  human  progress  when  the  anticipated  rewards 
and  punishments  must  be  of  a  Mohammedan  character — the 
happiness  of  the  senses.  It  was  thus  that  the  Jews  were 
disciplined ;  out  of  a  coarse,  rude,  infantine  state,  they  were 
educated  by  rewards  and  punishments  to  abstain  from  pres- 
ent sinful  gratification:  at  first,  the  promise  of  the  life  which 
now  is,  afterwards  the  promise  of  that  which  is  to  come ; 
but  even  then  the  rewards  and  punishments  of  a  future  state 
were  spoken  of,  by  inspiration  itself,  as  of  an  arbitrary  char- 
acter ;  and  some  of  the  best  of  the  Israelites,  in  looking  to 
the  recompense  of  reward,  seemed  to  have  anticipated,  coarse- 
ly, recompense  in  exchange  for  duties  performed. 

The  last  step  is  that  which  'alone  deserves  to  be  called 
Christian  faith — "  Who  is  he  that  overcometh  but  he  that 
believeth  Jesus  is  the  Christ  ?"  The  difference  between  the 
faith  of  the  Christian  and  that  of  the  man  of  the  world,  or 
the  mere  ordinary  religionist,  is  not  a  difference  in  mental 
operation,  but  in  the  object  of  the  faith-^to  believe  that 
Jesus  is  the  Christ  is  the  peculiarity  of  Christian  faith. 

The  anticipated  heaven  of  the  Christian  differs  from  the 
anticipated  heaven  of  any  other  man,  not  in  the  distinctness 
with  which  its  imagery  is  perceived,  but  in  the  kind  of  ob- 
jects which  are  hoped  for.  The  apostle  has  told  us  the  char- 
acter of  heaven.  "  Eye  hath  not  seen,  nor  ear  heard,  neither 
hath  it  entered  into  the  heart  of  man  to  conceive  the  things 
which  God  hath  prepared  for  them  that  love  Him" — which 
glorious  words  are  sometimes  strangely  misinterpreted,  as  if 
the  apostle  merely  meant  rhetorically  to  exalt  the  conception 
of  the  heavenly  world,  as  of  something  beyond  all  power  to 
imagine  or  to  paint.  The  apostle  meant  something  infinitely 
deeper :  the  heaven  of  God  is  not  only  that  which  u  eye  hath 


454  The  Victory  of  Faith. 

not  seen,"  but  that  which  eye  can  never  see ;  its  glories  are 
not  of  that  kind  at  all  which  can  ever  stream  in  forms  of 
beauty  on  the  eye,  or  pour  in  melody  upon  the  enraptured 
ear — not  such  joys  as  genius  in  its  most  gifted  hour  (here 
called  "  the  heart  of  man ")  can  invent  or  imagine :  it  is 
something  whicli  these  sensuous  organs  of  ours  never  can 
appreciate — bliss  of  another  kind  altogether,  revealed  to  the 
spirit  of  man  by  the  Spirit  of  God — joys  such  as  spirit  alone 
can  receive. 

Do  you  ask  what  these  are  ?  "  The  fruits  of  the  Spirit 
are  love,  joy,  peace,  long-suffering,  gentleness,  goodness,  faith, 
meekness,  temperance."  That  is  heaven,  and  therefore  the 
apostle  tells  us  that  he  alone  who  "  believeth  that  Jesus  is 
the  Christ,"  and  only  he,  feels  that.  What  is  it  to  believe 
that  Jesus  is  the  Christ? — That  He  is  the  Anointed  One, 
that  His  life  is  the  anointed  life,  the  only  blessed  life,  the 
blessed  life  Divine  for  thirty  years  ?  Yes,  but  if  so,  the  bless- 
ed life  still,  continued  throughout  all  eternity :  unless  you 
believe  that,  you  do  not  believe  that  Jesus  is  the  Christ. 

What  is  the  blessedness  that  you  expect? — to  have  the 
joys  of  earth  with  the  addition  of  the  element  of  eternity? 
Men  think  that  heaven  is  to  be  a  compensation  for  earthly 
loss :  the  saints  are  earthly-wretched  here,  the  children  of 
this  world  are  earthly-happy;  but  that,  they  think,  shall  be 
all  reversed — Lazarus,  beyond  the  grave,  shall  have  the  pur- 
ple and  the  fine  linen,  and  the  splendor,  and  the  houses,  and 
the  lands  which  Dives  had  on  earth :  the  one  had  them  for 
time,  the  other  shall  have  them  for  eternity.  That  is  the 
heaven  that  men  expect — this  earth  sacrificed  now,  in  order 
that  it  may  be  re-granted  forever. 

Nor  will  this  expectation  be  reversed  except  by  a  rever- 
sal of  the  nature.  None  can  anticipate  such  a  heaven  as 
God  has  revealed,  except  they  that  are  born  of  the  Spirit ; 
therefore  to  believe  that  Jesus  is  the  Christ,  a  man  must  be 
born  of  God.  You  will  observe  that  no  other  victory  over- 
comes the  world :  for  this  is  what  St.  John  means  by  say- 
ing, "  Who  is  he  that  overcometh  the  world,  but  he  that  be- 
lieveth that  Jesus  is  the  Christ  ?"  For  then  it  comes  to  pass 
that  a  man  begins  to  feel  that  to  do  wrong  is  hell ;  and  that 
to  love  God,  to  be  like  God,  to  have  the  mind  of  Christ,  is 
the  only  heaven.  Until  this  victory  is  gained,  the  world  re- 
tains its  stronghold  in  the  heart. 

Do  you  think  that  the  temperate  man  has  overcome  the 
world,Vho,  instead  of  the  short-lived  rapture  of  intoxication, 
chooses  regular  employment,  health,  and  prosperity?  Is  it 
not  the  world  in  another  form  which  has  his  homage  ?  Or 


The  Dispensation  of  the  Spirit.  455 

do  you  suppose  that  the  so-called  religious  man  is  really  the 
world's  conqueror  by  being  content  to  give  up  seventy 
years  of  enjoyment  in  order  to  win  innumerable  ages  of  the 
very  same  species  of  enjoyment  ?  Has  he  not  only  made 
earth  a  hell,  in  order  that  earthly  things  may  be  his  heaven 
forever  ? 

Thus  the  victory  of  faith  proceeds  from  stage  to  stage : 
the  first  victory  is,  when  the  present  is  conquered  by  the  fu- 
ture ;  the  last,  when  the  visible  and  sensual  is  despised  in 
comparison  of  the  invisible  and  eternal.  Then  earth  has 
lost  its  power  forever  ;  for  if  all  that  it  has  to  give  be  lost 
eternally,  the  gain  of  faith  is  still  infinite. 


III. 
THE  DISPENSATION  OF  THE  SPIRIT. 

"Now  there  are  diversities  of  gifts,  but  the  same  Spirit." — 1  Cor.  xii.  4. 

ACCORDING  to  a  view  which  contains  in  it  a  profound  truth, 
the  ages  of  the  world  are  divisible  into  three  dispensations, 
presided  over  by  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Spirit. 

In  the  dispensation  of  the  Father,  God  was  known  as  a 
Creator;  creation  manifested  His  eternal  power  and  God- 
head, and  the  religion  of  mankind  was  the  religion  of  nature. 

In  the  dispensation  of  the  Son,  God  manifested  Himself  to 
humanity  through  man ;  the  Eternal  Word  spoke,  through 
the  inspired  and  gifted  of  the  human  race,  to  those  that  were 
uninspired  and  ungifted.  This  was  the  dispensation  of  the 
prophets — its  climax  was  the  advent  of  the  Redeemer;  it 
was  completed  when  perfect  Humanity  manifested  God  to 
man.  The  characteristic  of  this  dispensation  was,  that  God 
revealed  Himself  by  an  authoritative  Voice,  speaking  from 
without,  and  the  highest  manifestation  of  God  whereof  man 
was  capable,  was  a  Divine  humanity. 

The  age  in  which  we  at  present  live  is  the  dispensation  of 
the  Spirit,  in  which  God  has  communicated  Himself  by  the 
highest  revelation,  and  in  the  most  intimate  communion,  of 
which  man  is  capable ;  no  longer  through  creation,  no  more 
as  an  authoritative  Voice  from  without,  but  as  a  Law  within 
— as  a  Spirit  mingling  with  a  spirit.  This  is  the  dispensa- 
tion of  which  the  prophet  said  of  old,  that  the  time  should 
come  when  they  should  no  longer  teach  every  man  his  broth- 
er and  every  man  his  neighbor,  saying,  "  Know  the  Lord  " — • 


45 6  The  Dispensation  of  the  Spirit. 

that  is,  by  a  will  revealed  by  external  authority  from  other 
human  minds — "  for  they  shall  all  know  Him,  from  the  least 
of  them  to  the  greatest."  This  is  the  dispensation,  too,  of 
whose  close  the  Apostle  Paul  speaks  thus :  "  Then  shall  the 
Son  also  be  subject  to  Him  that  hath  put  all  things  under 
Him,  that  God  may  be  all  in  all." 

The  outward  humanity  is  to  disappear,  that  the  inward 
union  may  be  complete.  To  the  same  effect,  he  speaks  in 
another  place,  "  Yea,  though  we  have  known  Christ  after  the 
flesh,  yet  henceforth  know  we  Him  no  more."  For  this  rea- 
son the  ascension  was  necessary  before  Pentecost  could  come : 
the  Spirit  was  not  given,  we  are  told,  because  Jesus  was  not 
yet  glorified.  It  was  necessary  for  the  Son  to  disappear  as 
an  outward  authority,  in  order  that  He  might  re-appear  as  an 
inward  principle  of  life.  Our  salvation  is  no  longer  God 
manifested  in  a  Christ  without  us,  but  as  a  Christ  within  us, 
the  hope  of  glory.  To-day  is  the  selected  anniversary  of 
that  memorable  day  when  the  first  proof  was  given  to  the 
senses,  in  the  gift  of  Pentecost,  that  that  spiritual  dispensa- 
tion had  begun. 

There  is  a  twofold  way  in  which  the  operations  of  the 
Spirit  on  mankind  may  be  considered — His  influence  on  the 
Church  as  a  whole,  and  His  influence  on  individuals ;  both 
of  these  are  brought  together  in  the  text.  It  branches,  there- 
fore, into  a  twofold  division. 

I.  Spiritual  gifts  conferred  on  individuals. 
II.  Spiritual  union  of  the  Church. 

Let  us  distinguish  between  the  Spirit  and  the  gifts  of  the 
Spirit:  by  the  Spirit,  the  apostle  meant  the  vital  principle 
of  new  life  from  God,  common  to  all  believers — the  animat- 
ing Spirit  of  the  Church  of  God ;  by  the  gifts  of  the  Spirit,  he 
meant  the  diversities  of  form  in  which  He  operates  on  indi- 
viduals ;  its  influence  varied  according  to  their  respective  pe- 
culiarities and  characteristics.  In  the  twenty-eighth  verse 
of  this  chapter  a  full  catalogue  of  gifts  is  found  ;  looking  at 
them  generally,  we  discover  two  classes  into  which  they  may 
be  divided — the  first  are  natural,  the  second  are  supernatu- 
ral :  the  first  are  those  capacities  which  are  originally  found 
in  human  nature — personal  endowments  of  mind,  a  character 
elevated  and  enlarged  by  the  gift  of  the  Spirit ;  the  second 
are  those  which  were  created  and  called  into  existence  by  the 
sudden  approach  of  the  same  influence. 

Just  as  if  the  temperature  of  this  northern  hemisphere  were 
raised  suddenly,  and  a  mighty  tropical  river  were  to  pour  its 
fertilizing  inundation  over  the  country,  the  result  would  be 


The  Dispensation  of  the  Spirit.  457 

the  impartation  of  a  vigorous  and  gigantic  growth  to  the 
vegetation  already  in  existence,  and  at  the  same  time  the  de- 
velopment of  life  in  seeds  and  germs  which  had  long  lain 
latent  in  the  soil,  incapable  of  vegetation  in  the  unkindly 
climate  of  their  birth.  Exactly  in  the  same  way,  the  flood 
of  a  Divine  life,  poured  suddenly  into  the  souls  of  men,  en- 
larged and  ennobled  qualities  which  had  been  used  already, 
and  at  the  same  time  developed  powers  which  never  could 
have  become  apparent  in  the  cold,  low  temperature  of  natu- 
ral life. 

Among  the  natural  gifts,  we  may  instance  these  :  teaching 
— healing — the  power  of  government.  Teaching  is  a  gift, 
natural  or  acquired.  To  know,  is  one  thing;  to  have  the 
capacity  of  imparting  knowledge,  is  another. 

The  physician's  art,  again,  is  no  supernatural  mystery  ;  long 
and  careful  study  of  physical  laws  capacitate  him  for  his 
task.  To  govern,  again,  is  a  natural  faculty :  it  may  be  ac- 
quired by  habit,  but  there  are  some  who  never  could  acquire 
it.  Some  men  seem  born  to  command :  place  them  in  what 
sphere  you  will,  others  acknowledge  their  secret  influence 
and  subordinate  themselves  to  their  will.  The  faculty  of  or- 
ganization, the  secret  of  rule,  need  no  supernatural  power. 
They  exist  among  the  uninspired.  Now  the  doctrine  of  the 
apostle  was,  that  all  these  are  transformed  and  renovated  by 
the  spirit  of  a  new  life  in  such  a  way  as  to  become  almost 
new  powers,  or,  as  he  calls  them,  gifts  of  the  Spirit.  A  re- 
markable illustration  of  this  is  his  view  of  the  human  body. 
If  there  be  any  thing  common  to  us  by  nature,  it  is  the  mem- 
bers of  our  corporeal  frame ;  yet  the  apostle  taught  that 
these,  guided  by  the  Spirit  as  its  instruments  and  obeying  a 
holy  will,  became  transfigured ;  so  that,  in  his  language,  the 
body  becomes  a  temple  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  the  meanest 
faculties,  the  lowest  appetites,  the  humblest  organs,  are  en- 
nobled by  the  Spirit-mind  which  guides  them.  Thus  he  bids 
the  Romans  yield  themselves  "  unto  God  as  those  that  are 
alive  from  the  dead,  and  their  members  as  instruments  of 
righteousness  unto  God." 

The  second  class  of  gifts  are  supernatural :  of  these  we  find 
two  pre-eminent — the  gift  of  tongues,  and  the  gift  of  proph- 
ecy. 

It  does  not  appear  that  the  gift  of  tongues  was  merely  the 
imparted  faculty  of  speaking  foreign  languages — it  could  not 
be  that  the  highest  gift  of  God  to  His  Church  merely  made 
them  rivals  of  the  linguist;  it  would  rather  seem  that  the 
Spirit  of  God,  mingling  with  the  soul  of  man,  supernaturally 
elevated  its  aspirations  and  glorified  its  conceptions,  so  that 

20 


458  The  Dispensation  of  the  Spirit. 

an  entranced  state  of  ecstacy  was  produced,  and  feelings 
called  into  energy,  for  the  expression  of  which  the  ordinary 
forms  of  speech  were  found  inadequate.  Even  in  a  far  lower 
department,  when  a  man  becomes  possessed  of  ideas  for 
which  his  ordinary  vocabulary  supplies  no  sufficient  expres- 
sion, his  language  becomes  broken,  incoherent,  struggling, 
and  almost  unnaturally  elevated  ;  much  more  was  it  to  be 
expected  that  when  divine  and  new  feelings  rushed  like  a 
flood  upon  the  soul,  the  language  of  men  would  have  be- 
come strange  and  extraordinary ;  but  in  that  supposed  case, 
wild  as  the  expressions  might  appear  to  one  coldly  looking 
on  and  not  participating  in  the  feelings  of  the  speaker,  they 
would  be  quite  sufficient  to  convey  intelligible  meaning  to 
any  one  affected  by  the  same  emotions. 

Where  perfect  sympathy  exists,  incoherent  utterance — a 
word — a  syllable — is  quite  as  efficient  as  elaborate  sentences. 
Now  this  is  precisely  the  account  given  of  the  phenomenon 
which  attended  the  gift  of  tongues.  On  the  day  of  Pente- 
cost, all  who  were  in  the  same  state  of  spiritual  emotion  as 
those  who  spoke,  understood  the  speakers;  each  was  as  intel- 
ligible to  all  as  if  he  spoke  in  their  several  tongues:  to  those 
who  were  coolly  and  skeptically  watching,  the  effects  ap- 
peared like  those  of  intoxication.  A  similar  account  is  given 
by  the  Apostle  Paul :  the  voice  appeared  to  unsympathetic 
ears  as  that  of  a  barbarian ;  the  uninitiated  and  unbelieving 
coming  in,  heard  nothing  that  was  articulate  to  them,  but 
only  what  seemed  to  them  the  ravings  of  insanity. 

The  next  was  the  gift  of  prophecy.  Prophecy  has  several 
meanings  in  Scripture ;  sometimes  it  means  the  power  of  pre- 
dicting future  events,  sometimes  an  entranced  state  accom- 
panied with  ravings,  sometimes  it  appears  to  mean  only  ex- 
position ;  but  prophecy,  as  the  miraculous  spiritual  gift  grant- 
ed to  the  early  Church,  seems  to  have  been  a  state  of  com- 
munion with  the  mind  of  God  lower  than  that  which  was 
called  the  gift  of  tongues,  at  least  less  ecstatic,  less  rapt  into 
the  world  to  come,  more  under  the  guidance  of  the  reason, 
more  within  the  control  of  calm  consciousness — as  we  might 
say,  less  supernatural. 

Upon  these  gifts  we  make  two  observations : 

J.  Even  the  highest  were  not  accompanied  with  spiritual 
faultlessness.  Inspiration  was  one  thing,  infallibility  another. 
The  gifts  of  the  Spirit  were,  like  the  gifts  of  nature,  subor- 
dinated to  the  will — capable  of  being  used  for  good  or  evil, 
sometimes  pure,  sometimes  mixed  with  human  infirmity.  The 
supernaturally  gifted  man  was  no  mere  machine,  no  automa- 
ton ruled  in  spite  of  himself  by  a  superior  spirit.  Disorder, 


The  Dispensation  of  the  Spirit.  459 

vanity,  overweening  self-estimation,  might  accompany  these 
gifts,  and  the  prophetic  utterance  itself  might  be  degraded 
to  a  mere  brawling  in  the  Church ;  therefore  St.  Paul  estab- 
lished laws  of  control,  declared  the  need  of  subjection  and 
rule  over  spiritual  gifts :  the  spirits  of  the  prophets  were  to 
be  subject  to  the  prophets;  if  those  in  the  ecstatic  state  were 
tempted  to  break  out  into  utterance  and  unable  to  interpret 
what  it  meant,  those  so  gifted  were  to  hold  their  peace. 

The  prophet  poured  out  the  truths  supernaturally  impart- 
ed to  his  highest  spirit,  in  an  inspired  and  impassioned  elo- 
quence which  was  intelligible  even  to  the  unspiritual,  and 
was  one  of  the  appointed  means  of  convincing  the  unconvert- 
ed. The  lesson  derivable  from  this  is  not  obsolete  even  in 
the  present  day.  There  is  nothing  perhaps  precisely  identi- 
cal in  our  own  day  with  those  gifts  of  the  early  Church  ; 
but  genius  and  talent  are  uncommon  gifts,  which  stand  in  a 
somewhat  analogous  relation — in  a  closer  one  certainly — than 
more  ordinary  endowments.  The  flights  of  genius,  we  know, 
appear  like  maniac  ravings  to  minds  not  elevated  to  the  same 
spiritual  level.  Now  these  are  perfectly  compatible  with 
misuse,  abuse,  and  moral  disorder.  The  most  gifted  of  our 
countrymen  has  left  this  behind  him  as  his  epitaph,  "The 
greatest,  wisest,  meanest  of  mankind."  The  most  glorious 
gift  of  poetic  insight — itself  in  a  way  divine — having  some- 
thing akin  to  Deity — is  too  often  associated  with  degraded 
life  and  vicious  character.  Those  gifts  which  elevate  us  above 
the  rest  of  our  species,  whereby  we  stand  aloof  and  separate 
from  the-crowd,  convey  no  moral — nor  even  mental — infalli- 
bility :  nay,  they  have  in  themselves  a  peculiar  danger,  where- 
as, that  gift  which  is  common  to  us  all  as  brethren,  the  ani- 
mating spirit  of  a  divine  life,  in  whose  soil  the  spiritual  being 
of  all  is  rooted,  can  not  make  us  vain  ;  we  can  not  pride  our- 
selves on  that,  for  it  is  common  to  us  all. 

2.  Again,  the  gifts  which  were  higher  in  one  sense  were 
lower  in  another;  as  supernatural  gifts  they  would  rank  thus 
— the  gift  of  tongues  before  prophecy,  and  prophecy  before 
teaching ;  but  as  blessings  to  be  desired,  this  order  is  reversed : 
rather  than  the  gift  of  tongues,  St.  Paul  bids  the  Corinthians 
desire  that  they  might  prophesy.  Inferior,  again,  to  prophecy 
was  the  quite  simple,  and  as  we  should  say,  lower  faculty  of 
explaining  truth.  Now  the  principle  upon  which  that  was 
tried  was  that  of  utility — not  utility  in  the  low  sense  of  the 
utilitarian,  who  measures  the  value  of  a  thing  by  its  suscep- 
tibility of  application  to  the  purpose  of  this  present  life,  but 
a  utility  whose  measure  was  love,  charity.  The  apostle  con- 
sidered that  gift  most  desirable  by  which  men  might  most 


460  The  Dispensation  of  the  Spirit. 

edify  one  another.  And  hence  that  noble  declaration  of  one 
of  the  most  gifted  of  mankind — "I  had  rather  speak  five 
words  with  my  understanding,  that  I  might  teach  others  also, 
than  ten  thousand  words  in  an  unknown  tongue." 

Our  estimate  is  almost  the  reverse  of  this  :  we  value  a  gift 
in  proportion  to  its  rarity,  its  distinctive  character,  separating 
its  possessor  from  the  rest  of  his  fellow-men ;  whereas,  in 
truth,  those  gifts  which  leave  us  in  lonely  majesty  apart  from 
our  species,  useless  to  them,  benefiting  ourselves  alone,  are 
not  the  most  Godlike,  but  the  least  so ;  because  they  are  dis- 
severed from  that  beneficent  charity  which  is  the  very  being 
of  God.  Your  lofty  incommunicable  thoughts,  your  ecsta- 
sies, and  aspirations,  and  contemplative  raptures — in  virtue 
of  which  you  have  estimated  yourself  as  the  porcelain  of  the 
earth,  of  another  nature  altogether  than  the  clay  of  common 
spirits — tried  by  the  test  of  charity,  what  is  there  grand  in 
these  if  they  can  not  be  applied  as  blessings  to  those  that  are 
beneath  you  ?  One  of  our  countrymen  has  achieved  for  him- 
self extraordinary  scientific  renown ;  he  pierced  the  mysteries 
of  nature,  he  analyzed  her  processes,  he  gave  new  elements 
to  the  world.  The  same  man  applied  his  rare  intellect -to  the 
construction  of  a  simple  and  very  common  instrument — that 
well-known  lamp  which  has  been  the  guardian  of  the  miner's 
life  from  the  explosion  of  fire.  His  discoveries  are  his  nobil- 
ity in  this  world,  his  trifling  invention  gives  him  rank  in  the 
world  to  come.  By  the  former  he  shines  as  one  of  the  bright- 
est luminaries  in  the  firmament  of  science,  by  the  latter,  evinc- 
ing a  spirit  animated  and  directed  by  Christian  love,  he  takes 
his  place  as  one  of  the  Church  of  God. 

And  such  is  ever  the  true  order  of  rank  which  graces  oc- 
cupy in  reference  to  gifts.  The  most  trifling  act  wThich  is 
marked  by  usefulness  to  others  is  nobler  in  God's  sight  than 
the  most  brilliant  accomplishment  of  genius.  To  teach  a 
few  Sunday-school  children,  week  after  wreek,  commonplace, 
simple  truths — persevering  in  spite  of  dullness  and  mean  ca- 
pacities— is  a  more  glorious  occupation  than  the  highest 
meditations  or  creations  of  genius  which  edify  or  instruct 
only  our  own  solitary  soul. 

II.  The  spiritual  unity  of  the  Church — "the  same  Spirit." 
Men  have  formed  to  themselves  two  ideas  of  unity :  the 
first  is  a  sameness  of  form — of  expression  ;  the  second  an 
identity  of  spirit.  Some  of  the  best  of  mankind  have  fondly 
hoped  to  realize  an  unity  for  the  Church  of  Christ  which 
should  be  manifested  by  uniform  expressions  in  every  thing  ; 
their  imaginations  have  loved  to  paint,  as  the  ideal  of  a 


The  Dispensation  of  the  Spirit.  46 1 

Christian  Church,  a  state  in  which  the  same  liturgy  should 
be  used  throughout  the  world,  the  same  ecclesiastical  gov- 
ernment, even  the  same  vestments,  the  same  canonical  hours, 
the  same  form  of  architecture.  They  could  conceive  noth- 
ing more  entirely  one  than  a  Church  so  constituted  that  the 
same  prayers,  in  the  very  same  expressions,  at  the  very  same 
moment,  should  be  ascending  to  the  Eternal  Ear. 

There  are  others  who  have  thrown  aside  entirely  this  idea 
as  chimerical ;  who  have  not  only  ceased  to  hope  it,  but  even 
to  wish  it ;  who,  if  it  could  be  realized,  would  consider  it  a 
matter  of  regret ;  who  feel  that  the  minds  of  men  are  vari- 
ous— their  modes  and  habits  of  thought,  their  original  ca- 
pacities and  acquired  associations,  infinitely  diverse ;  and 
who,  perceiving  that  the  law  of  the  universal  system  is 
manifoldness  in  unity,  have  ceased  to  expect  any  other  one- 
ness for  the  Church  "of  Christ  than  that  of  a  sameness  of 
spirit,  showing  itself  through  diversities  of  gifts.  Among 
these  last  was  the  Apostle  Paul :  his  large  and  glorious 
mind  rejoiced  in  the  contemplation  of  the  countless  mani- 
festations of  spiritual  nature  beneath  which  he  detected  one 
and  the  same  pervading  Mind.  Now  let  us  look  at  this' 
matter  somewhat  more  closely. 

1.  All  real  unity  is  manifold.  Feelings  in  themselves 
identical  find  countless  forms  of  expression  ;  for  instance, 
sorrow  is  the  same  feeling  throughout  the  human  race ;  but 
the  Oriental  prostrates  himself  upon  the  ground,  throws  dust 
upon  his  head,  tears  his  garments,  is  not  ashamed  to  break 
out  into  the  most  violent  lamentations.  In  the  north,  we 
rule  our  grief  in  public ;  suffer  not  even  a  quiver  to  be  seen 
upon  the  lip  or  brow,  and  consider  calmness  as  the  appropri- 
ate expression  of  manly  grief.  Nay,  two  sisters  of  different 
temperament  will  show  their  grief  diversely ;  one  will  love 
to  dwell  upon  the  theme  of  the  qualities  of  the  departed,  the 
other  feels  it  a  sacred  sorrow,  on  which  the  lips  are  sealed 
forever ;  yet  would  it  not  be  idle  to  ask  which  of  them  has 
the  truest  affection?  Are  they  not  both  in  their  own  way 
true  ?  In  the  same  East,  men  take  off  their  sandals  in  de- 
votion ;  we  exactly  reverse  the  procedure,  and  uncover  the 
head.  The  Oriental  prostrates  himself  in  the  dust  before 
his  sovereign  ;  even  before  his  (rod  the  Briton  only  kneels ; 
yet  would  it  not  again  be  idle  to  ask  which  is  the  essential 
and  proper  form  of  reverence  ?  Is  not  true  reverence  in  all 
cases  modified  by  the  individualities  of  temperament  and 
education  ?  Should  we  not  say,  in  all  these  forms  worketh 
one  and  the  same  spirit  of  reverence  ? 

Again,  in  the  world  as  God  has  made  it,  one  law  shows 


462  The  Dispensation  of  the  Spirit. 

itself  under  diverse,  even  opposite  manifestations  ;  lead  sinks 
in  water,  wood  floats  upon  the  surface.  In  former  times 
men  assigned  these  different  results  to  different  forces,  laws, 
and  gods.  A  knowledge  of  nature  has  demonstrated  that 
they  are  expressions  of  one  and  the  same  law ;  and  the  great 
difference  between  the  educated  and  the  uneducated  man  is 
this — the  uneducated  sees  in  this  world  nothing  but  an  in- 
finite collection  of  unconnected  facts — a  broken,  distorted, 
and  fragmentary  system,  which  his  mind  can  by  no  means 
reduce  to  order.  The  educated  man,  in  proportion  to  his 
education,  sees  the  number  of  laws  diminished — beholds  in 
the  manifold  appearances  of  nature  the  expression  of  a  few 
laws,  by  degrees  fewer,  till  at  last  it  becomes  possible  to  his 
conception  that  they  are  all  reducible  to  one,  and  that  that 
which  lies  beneath  the  innumerable  phenomena  of  nature  is 
the  One  Spirit — God. 

2.  All  living  unity  is  spiritual,  not  formal ;  not  sameness, 
but  manifoldness.  You  may  have  a  unity  shown  in  identity 
of  form  ;  but  it  is  a  lifeless  unity.  There  is  a  sameness  on 
the  sea-beach — that  unity  which  the  ocean  waves  have  pro- 
duced by  curling  and  forcibly  destroying  the  angularities  of 
individual  form,  so  that  every  stone  presents  the  same  mo- 
notony of  aspect,  and  you  must  fracture  each  again  in  order 
to  distinguish  whether  you  hold  in  your  hand  a  mass  of  flint 
or  fragment  of  basalt.  There  is  no  life  in  unity  such  as 
this. 

But  as  soon  as  you  arrive  at  a  unity  that  is  living,  the 
form  becomes  more  complex,  and  you  search  in  vain  for  uni- 
formity. In  the  parts,  it  must  be  found,  if  found  at  all,  in 
the  sameness  of  the  pervading  life.  The  illustration  given 
by  the  apostle  is  that  of  the  human  body — a  higher  unity, 
he  says,  by  being  composed  of  many  members,  than  if  every 
member  were  but  a  repetition  of  a  single  type.  It  is  con- 
ceivable that  God  might  have  moulded  such  a  form  for  hu- 
man life ;  it  is  conceivable  that  every  cause,  instead  of  pro- 
ducing in  different  nerves  a  variety  of  sensations,  should 
have  affected  every  one  in  a  mode  precisely  similar;  that 
instead  of  producing  a  sensation  of  sound — a  sensation  of 
color — a  sensation  of  taste — the  outward  causes  of  nature, 
be  they  what  they  may,  should  have  given  but  one  unvaried 
feeling  to  every  sense,  and  that  the  whole  universe  should 
have  been  light  or  sound. 

That  would  have  been  unity ;  if  sameness  be  unity ;  but, 
says  the  apostle,  "if  the  whole  body  were  seeing,  where 
were  the  hearing?"  That  uniformity  would  have  been  ir- 
reparable loss  — the  loss  of  every  part  that  was  merged  into 


Tke  Dispensation  of  the  Spirit.  463 

the  one.  What  is  the  body's  unity  ?  Is  it  not  this  ?  The 
unity  of  a  living  consciousness  which  marvellously  animates 
every  separate  atom  of  the  frame,  and  reduces  each  to  the 
performance  of  a  function  fitted  to  the  welfare  of  the  whole 
— its  own,  not  another's :  so  that  the  inner  spirit  can  say  of 
the  remotest,  and  in  form  most  unlike,  member,  "  That,  too, 
is  myself*" 

3.  None  but  a  spiritual  unity  can  preserve  the  rights  both 
of  the  individual  and  the  Church.  All  other  systems  of 
unity,  except  the  apostolic,  either  sacrifice  the  Church  to  the 
individual,  or  the  individual  to  the  Church. 

Some  have  claimed  the  right  of  private  judgment  in  such 
a  way  that  every  individual  opinion  becomes  truth,  and 
every  utterance  of  private  conscience  right :  thus  the  Church 
is  sacrificed  to  the  individual ;  and  the  universal  conscience, 
the  common  faith,  becomes  as  nothing ;  the  spirits  of  the 
prophets  are  not  subject  to  the  prophets.  Again,  there  are 
others,  who,  like  the  Church  of  Rome,  would  surrender  the 
conscience  of  each  man  to  the  conscience  of  the  Church,  and 
coerce  the  particulars  of  faith  into  exact  coincidence  with  a 
formal  creed.  Spiritual  unity  saves  the  right  of  both  in 
God's  system.  The  Church  exists  for  the  individual,  just  as 
truly  as  the  individual  for  the  Church.  The  Church  is  then 
most  perfect  when  all  its  powers  converge,  and  are  concen- 
trated on  the  formation  and  protection  of  individual  charac- 
ter ;  and  the  individual  is  then  most  complete — that  is,  most 
a  Christian — when  he  has  practically  learned  that  his  life  is 
not  his  own,  but  owed  to  others — "  that  no  man  Jiveth  to 
himself,  and  no  man  dieth  to  himself." 

Now,  spiritual  unity  respects  the  sanctity  of  the  individu- 
al conscience.  How  reverently  the  Apostle  Paul  considered 
its  claims,  and  how  tenderly !  When  once  it  became  a  mat- 
ter of  conscience,  this  was  his  principle  laid  down  in  matters 
of  dispute :  "  Let  every  man  be  fully  persuaded  in  his  own 
mind."  The  belief  of  the  whole  world  can  not  make  that 
thing  true  to  me  which  to  me  seems  false.  The  conscience 
of  the  whole  world  can  not  make  a  thing  right  to  me,  if  I  in 
my  heart  believe  it  wrong.  You  may  coerce  the  conscience, 
you  may  control  men's  belief,  and  you  may  produce  a  unity 
by  so  doing;  but  it  is  the  unity  of  pebbles  on  the  sea-shore 
— a  lifeless  identity  of  outward  form  with  no  cohesion  be- 
tween the  parts — a  dead  sea-beach  on  which  nothing  grows, 
and  where  the  very  sea-weed  dies. 

Lastly,  it  respected  the  sanctity  of  individual  character. 
Out  of  eight  hundred  millions  of  the  human  race,  a  few  feat- 
Mres  diversify  themselves  into  so  many  forms  of  counte* 


464  The  Trinity. 

nance,  that  scarcely  two  could  be  mistaken  for  each  other. 
There  are  no  two  leaves  on  the  same  tree  alike ;  nor  two 
sides  of  the  same  leaf,  unless  you  cut  and  kill  it.  There  is  a 
sacredness  in  individuality  of  character ;  each  one  born  into 
this  world  is  a  fresh  new  soul  intended  by  his  Maker  to  de- 
velop himself  in  a  new  fresh  way ;  we  are  what  we  are  ;  we 
can  not  be  truly  other  than  ourselves.  We  reach  perfection 
not  by  copying,  much  less  by  aiming  at  originality  ;  but  by 
consistently  and  steadily  working  out  the  life  which  is  com- 
mon to  us  all,  according  to  the  character  which  God  has 
given  us. 

And  thus  will  the  Church  of  God  be  one  at  last — will  pre- 
sent an  unity  like  that  of  heaven.  There  is  one  universe,  in 
which  each  separate  star  differs  from  another  in  glory ;  one 
Church,  in  which  a  single  Spirit,  the  Life  of  God,  pervades 
each  separate  soul ;  and  just  in  proportion  as  that  Life  be- 
comes exalted  does  it  enable  every  one  to  shine  forth  in  the 
distinctness  of  his  own  separate  individuality,  like  the  stars 
of  heaven. 


IV. 
THE  TRINttTY. 

"And  the  very  God  of  peace  sanctify  you  wholly;  and  I  pray  God  your 
whole  spirit  and  soul  and  body  be  preserved  blameless  unto  the  coming  of 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ."— 1  Thess.  v.  23. 

THE  knowledge  of  God  is  the  blessedness  of  man.  To 
know  God,  arid  to  be  known  by  him — to  love  God,  and  to  be 
loved  by  Him — is  the  most  precious  treasure  which  this  life 
has  to  give ;  properly  speaking,  the  only  treasure  ;  properly 
speaking,  the  only  knowledge  ;  for  all  knowledge  is  valuable 
only  so  far  as  it  converges  towards  and  ends  in  the  knowl- 
edge of  God,  and  enables  us  to  acquaint  ourselves  with  God, 
and  be  at  peace  with  Him.  The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is 
the  sum  of  all  that  knowledge  which  has  as  yet  been  gained 
by  man.  I  say  gained  as  yet.  For  we  presume  not  to  main- 
tain that  in  the  ages  which  are  to  come  hereafter,  our  knowl- 
edge shall  not  be  superseded  by  a  higher  knowledge;  we 
presume  not  to  say  that  in  a  state  of  existence  future — yea 
even  here  upon  this  earth,  at  that  period  which  is  mysteri- 
ously referred  to  in  Scripture  as  "the  coming  of  the  Son  of 
Man" — there  shall  not  be  given  to  the  soul  an  intellectual 
conception  of  the  Almighty,  a  vision  of  the  Eternal,  in  coin- 


The  Trinity.  465 

parison  with  whose  brightness  and  clearness  our  present 
knowledge  of  the  Trinity  shall  be  as  rudimentary  and  as 
childlike  as  the  knowledge  of  the  Jew  was  in  comparison 
with  the  knowledge  of  the  Christian. 

Now  the  passage  which  I  have  undertaken  to  expound  to- 
day is  one  in  which  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is  brought 
into  connection  practically  with  the  doctrine  of  our  humani- 
ty. Before  entering  into  it,  brethren,  let  us  lay  down  these 
two  observations  and  duties  for  ourselves.  In  the  first 
place,  let  us  examine  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  ever  in  the 
spirit  of  charity. 

A  clear  statement  of  the  deepest  doctrine  that  man  can 
know,  and  the  intellectual  conception  of  that  doctrine,  are 
by  no  means  easy.  We  are  puzzled  and  perplexed  by 
words  •  we  fight  respecting  words.  Quarrels  are  nearly  al- 
ways verbal  quarrels.  Words  lose  their  meaning  in  the 
course  of  time ;  nay,  the  very  words  of  the  Athanasian  creed 
which  we  read  to-day  mean  not  in  this  age  the  same  thing 
which  they  meant  in  ages  past.  Therefore  it  is  possible 
that  men,  externally  Trinitarians,  may  differ  from  each  other 
though  using  the  same  words,  as  greatly  as  a  Unitarian  dif- 
fers from  a  Trinitarian.  There  may  be  found,  in  the  same 
Church  and  in  the  same  congregation,  men  holding  all  possi- 
ble shades  of  opinion,  though  agreeing  externally  and  in 
words. 

I  speak  within  the  limit  of  my  own  experience  when  I  say 
that  persons  have  been  known  and  heard  to  express  the  lan- 
guage of  bitter  condemnation  respecting  Unitarianism,  who 
when  examined  and  calmly  required  to  draw  out  verbally 
the  meaning  of  their  own  conceptions,  have  been  proved  to 
be  holding  all  the  time,  unconsciously,  the  very  doctrine  of 
Sabellianism.  And  this  doctrine  is  condemned  by  the 
Church  as  distinctly  as  that  of  Unitarianism.  Therefore  let 
us  learn  from  all  this  a  large  and  catholic  charity.  There 
are  in  almost  every  congregation,  themselves  not  knowing 
it,  Trinitarians  who  are  practically  Tri-theists,  worshipping 
three  Gods;  and  Sabellians,  or  worshippers  of  one  person 
under  three  different  manifestations.  To  know  God  so  that 
we  may  be  said  intellectually  to  appreciate  Him,  is  blessed: 
to  be  unable  to  do  so  is  a  misfortune.  Be  content  with  your 
own  blessedness,  in  comparison  with  others'  misfortunes. 
Do  not  give  to  that  misfortune  the  additional  sting  of  illib- 
eral and  unchristian  vituperation. 

The  next  observation  we  have  to  lay  down  for  ourselves 
is,  that  we  should  examine  this  doctrine  in  the  spirit  of  mod- 
esty. There  are  those  who  are  inclined  to  sneer  at  the  Triu- 

20* 


466  The  Trinity. 

itarian  ;  those  to  whom  the  doctrine  appears  merely  a  con- 
tradiction— a  puzzle — an  entangled,  labyrinthine  enigma,  in 
which  there  is  no  meaning  whatever.  But  let  all  such  re- 
member, that  though  the  doctrine  may  appear  to  them  ab- 
surd, because  they  have  not  the  proper  conception  of  it,  some 
of  the  profoundest  thinkers,  and  some  of  the  holiest  spirits 
among  mankind,  have  believed  in  this  doctrine — have  clung 
to  it  as  a  matter  of  life  or  death.  Let  them  be  assured  of 
this,  that  whether  the  doctrine  be  true  or  false,  it  is  not  nec- 
essarily a  doctrine  self-contradictory.  Let  them  be  assured 
of  this,  in  all  modesty,  that  such  men  never  could  have  held 
it  unless  there  was  latent  in  the  doctrine  a  deep  truth — per- 
chance the  truth  of  God. 

We  pass  on  now  to  the  consideration  of  this  verse  under 
the  following  divisions.  In  the  first  place,  we  shall  view  it 
as  a  triad  in  discord :  "  I  pray  God  your  whole  spirit  and 
soul  and  body  be  preserved  blameless;"  in  the  second  place, 
as  a  Trinity  in  unity:  "the  God  of  peace  sanctify  you 
wholly."  We  take  then,  first  of  all,  for  our  consideration  the 
triad  in  discord :  "  I  pray  God  your  whole  body  and  soul 
and  spirit  be  preserved  blameless." 

The  apostle  here  divides  human  nature  into  a  threefold 
division ;  and  here  we  have  to  observe  again  the  difficulty 
often  experienced  in  understanding  words.  Thus  words  in 
the  Athanasian  creed  have  become  obsolete,  or  lost  their 
meaning :  so  that  in  the  present  day  the  words  "  person," 
"  substance,"  "  procession,"  "  generation,"  to  an  ordinary 
person,  mean  almost  nothing.  So  this  language  of  the 
apostle,  when  rendered  into  English,  shows  no  difference 
whatever  between  "  soul "  and  "  spirit."  We  say,  for  instance, 
that  the  soul  of  a  man  has  departed  from  him.  We  also  say 
that  the  spirit  of  a  man  has  departed  from  him.  There  is  no 
distinct  difference  between  the  two ;  but  in  the  original  two 
very  different  kinds  of  thoughts — two  very  different  modes 
of  conception — are  represented  by  the  two  English  words 
"  soul  "  and  "  spirit." 

It  is  our  business,  therefore,  in  the  first  place,  to  under- 
stand what  is  meant  by  this  threefold  division.  When  the 
apostle  speaks  of  the  body,  what  he  means  is  the  ar.imal  liie 
— that  which  we  share  in  common  with  beasts,  birds,  and 
reptiles;  for  our  life,  my  Christian  brethren — our  sensational 
existence — differs  but  little  from  that  of  the  lower  animals. 
There  is  the  same  external  form,  the  same  material  in  the 
blood-vessels,  in  the  nerves,  and  in  the  muscular  system. 
Nay,  more  than  that,  our  appetites  and  instincts  "are  alike,  our 
lower  pleasures  like  their  lower  pleasures,  our  lower  pain  like 


The  Trinity.  467 

their  lower  pain,  our  life  is  supported  by  the  same  means,  and 
our  animal  functions  are  almost  indistinguishably  the  same. 

But,  once  more,  the"  apostle  speaks  of  what  he  calls  the 
"soul."  What  the-  apostle  meant  by  what  is  translated 
"  soul,"  is  the  immortal  part  of  man — the  immaterial  as 
distinguished  from  the  material :  those  powers,  in  fact,  which 
man  has  by  nature — powers  natural,  which  are  yet  to  survive 
the  grave.  There  is  a  distinction  made  in  Scripture 'by  our 
Lord  between  these  two  things,  "  Fear  not,"  says  He, "  them 
who  can  kill  the  body ;  but  rather  fear  Him  who  can  destroy 
both  body  and  soul  in  hell." 

We  have  again  to  observe  respecting  this,  that  what  the 
apostle,  called  the  "  soul,"  is  not  simply  distinguishable  from 
the  body,  but  also  from  the  spirit ;  and  on  that  distinction  I 
have  already  touched.  By  the  soul  the  apostle  means  our 
powers  natural — the  powers  which  we  have  by  nature. 
Herein  is  the  soul  distinguishable  from  the  spirit.  In  the 
Epistle  to  the  Corinthians  we  read — "  But  the  natural  man 
receiveth  not  the  things  of  the  Spirit  of  God;  for  they  are 
foolishness  unto  him  ;  neither  can  he  know  them,  because  they 
are  spiritually  discerned.  But  he  that  is  spiritual  judgeth 
all  things."  Observe,  there  is  a  distinction  drawn  between 
the  natural  man  and  the  spiritual.  What  is  there  translated 
"natural"  is  derived  from  precisely  the  same  word  as  that 
which  is  here  translated  "soul."  So  that  we  may  read  just 
as  correctly:  "The  man  under  the  dominion  of  the  soul 
receiveth  not  the  things  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  for  they  are 
foolishness  unto  him  ;  neither  can  l\e  know  them,  because 
they  are  spiritually  discerne'd.  But  he  that  is  spiritual 
judgeth  all  things."  And  again,  the  apostle,  in  the  same 
Epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  writes :  "  That  is  not  first  which 
is  spiritual,  but  that  which  is  natural :"  that  is,  the  endow- 
ments of  the  soul  precede  the  .endowments  of  the  spirit. 
You  have  the  same  truth  in  other  places.  The  powers  that 
belong  to  the  spirit  were  not  the  first  developed ;  but  the 
powers  which  belong  to  the  soul — that  'is,  the  powers  of 
nature.  Again  in  the  same  chapter,  reference  is  made  to 
the  natural  and  sp  iritual  body.  "  There  is  a  natural  body 
and  there  is  a  spiritual  body."  Literally,  there  is  a  body 
governed  by  the  soul — that  is,  powers  natural :  and  there  is 
a  body  governed  by  the  spirit — that  is,  higher  nature. 

Let  then  this  be  borne  in  mind,  that  what  the  apostle 
calls  "  soul "  is  the  samev  as  that  which  he  calls?  in  another 
place,  the  "  natural  man."  These  powers  are  divisible  into 
two  branches — the  intellectual  powers  and  the  moral  sense. 
The  intellectual  powers  man  has  by  nature.  Man  need  not 


468  The  Trinity. 

be  regenerated  in  order  to  possess  the  power  of  reasoning, 
or  in  order  to  invent  The  intellectual  powers  belong  to 
what  the  apostle  calls  the  "  soul."  The  moral  sense  dis- 
tinguishes between  right  and  wrong.  The  apostle  tells  us, 
in  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  that  "the  heathen — manifestly 
natural  men — had  the  "work  of  the  law  written  in  their 
Jiearts ;  their  conscience  also  bearing  witness." 

The  third  division  of  which  the  apostle  speaks,  he  calls 
the  "  spirit ;"  and  by  the  spirit  he  means  that  life  in  man 
wrhich,  in  his  natural  state,  is  in  such  an  embryo  condition 
that  it  can  scarcely  be  said  to  exist  at  all — that  which  is 
called  out  into  power  and  vitality  by  regeneration — the 
perfection  of  the  powers  of  human  nature.  And  y^m  will 
observe,  that  it  is  not  merely  the  instinctive  life,  nor  the 
intellectual  life,  nor  the  moral  life,  but  it  is  principally  our 
nobler  affections — that  existence,  that  state  of  being  which 
wre  call  love.  That  is  the  department  of  human  nature 
which  the  apostle  calls  the  spirit ;  and  accordingly,  when  the 
Spirit  of  God  was  given  on  the  day  of  Pentecost,  you  will 
remember  that  another  power  of  man  was  called  out,  differ- 
ing from  what  he  had  before.  That  Spirit  granted  on  the 
day  of  Pentecost  did  subordinate  to  Himself,  and  was  in- 
tended to  subordinate  to  Himself,  the  will,  the  understand- 
ing, and  the  affection  of  man ;  but  you  often  find  these  spir- 
itual powers  were  distinguished  from  the  natural  powers,  and 
existed  without  tnem. 

So  in  the  highest  state  of  religious  life,  we  are  told,  men 
prayed  in  the  spirit.  %  Till  the  spirit  has  subordinated  the 
understanding,  the  gift  of  God  is  not  complete — has  not 
done  its  work.  It  is  abundantly  evident  that  a  new  life  was 
called  out.  It  was  not  merely  the  sharpening  of  the  in- 
tellectual powers ;  it  was  calling  out  powers  ^of  aspiration 
and  love  to  God ;  those  affections  which  have  in  them  some- 
thing boundless,  that  are  not  limited  to  this  earth,  but  seek 
their  completion  in  the  mind  of  God  Himself. 

Now,  what  wre  have  to  say  respecting  this  threefold  state 
of  man  is,  it  is  a  state  of  discord.  Let  us  take  up  a  very 
simple,  popular,  everyday  illustration.  We  hear  it  remarked 
frequently  in  conversation  of  a  man,  that  if  only  his  will 
were  commensurate  with  his  knowledge,  he  would  be  a  great 
man.  His  knowledge  is  great — his  powers  are  almost  un- 
bounded ;  he  has  gained  knowledge  from  nearly  every  de- 
partment of  science;  but  somehow  or  other — you  can  not 
tell  why — there  is  such  an  indecision,  such  a  vacillation 
about  the  man,  that  he  scarcely  knows  what  to  do,  and,  per- 
haps does  nothing  in  this  world.  You  find  it  remarked, 


The  Trinity.  469 

respecting  another  class  of  men,  that  their  will  is  strong, 
almost  unbounded  in  its  strength — they  have  iron  wills,  yet 
there  is  something  so  narrow  in  their  conceptions,  something 
so  bounded  in  their  views,  so  much  of  stagnation  in  their 
thoughts,  so  much  of  prejudice  in  all  their  opinions,  that 
their  will  is  prevented  from  being  directed  to  any  thing  in  a 
proper  manner.  Here  is  the  discord  in  human  nature. 
There  is  a  distinction  between  the  will  and  the  under- 
standing. And  sometimes  a  feeble  will  goes  with  a  strong 
understanding,  or  a  powerful  will  is  found  in  connection 
with  great  feebleness  or  ignorance  of  the  understanding. 

Let  us,  however,  go  into  this  more  specially.  The  first 
cause  of  discord  in  this  threefold  state  of  man  is  the  state  in 
which  the  body  is  the  ruler ;  and  this,  my  Christian  brethren, 
you  find  most  visibly  developed  in  the  uneducated  and  irre- 
ligious poor.  I  say  uneducated  and  irreligious,  because  it  is 
by  no  means  education  alone  which  can  subordinate  the  flesh 
to  the  higher  man.  The  religious  uneducated  poor  man  may 
be  master  of  his  lower  passions  ;  but  in  the  uneducated  and 
irreligious  poor  man  these  show  themselves  in  full  force ;  this 
discord,  this  want  of  unity,  appears,  as  it  were,  in  a  magnified 
form.  There  is  a  strong  man — health  bursting,  as  it  were,  at 
every  pore,  with  an  athletic  body  ;  but  coarse,  and  rude,  and 
intellectually  weak — almost  an  animal.  When  you  are  re- 
garding the  upper  classes  of  society,  you  see  less  distinctly 
the  absence  of  the  spirit,  unless  you  look  with  a  spiritual  eye. 
The  coarseness  has  passed  away,  the  rudeness  is  no  longer 
seen  :  there  is  a  refinement  in  the  pleasure.  But  if  you  take 
the  life  led  by  the  young  men  of  our  country — strong,  ath- 
letic, healthy  men — it  is  still  the  life  of  the  flesh:  the  un- 
thinking and  the  unprincipled  life  in  which  there  is  as  yet  no 
higher  life  developed.  It  is  a  life  which,  in  spite  of  its  re- 
finement, the  Bible  condemns  as  the  life  of  the  sensualist. 

We  pass  on  now  to  another  state  of  discord — a  state  in 
which  the  soul  is  ruined.  Brethren,  this  is  a  natural  result — 
this  is  what  might  have  been  expected.  The  natural  man 
gradually  subordinates  the  flesh,  the  body,  to  the  soul.  It  is 
natural  in  the  development  of  individuals,  it  is  natural  in  the 
development  of  society :  in  the  development  of  individuals, 
because  that  childlike,  infantine  life  which  exists  at  first, 
mid  is  almost  entirely  a  life  of  appetites,  gradually  subsides. 
Higher  wants,  higher  desires,  loftier  inclinations  arise  ;  the 
passions  of  the  young  man  gradually  subside,  and  by  degrees 
the  more  rational  life  comes  :  the  life  is  changed — the  pleas- 
ures of  the  senses  are  forsaken  for  those  of  the  intellect. 

It  appears  natural,  again,  in  the  development  of  society. 


470  The  'Inmty. 

Civilization  will  subordinate  the  flesh  to  the  soul.  In  the 
savage  state  you  find  the,  life  of  the  animal.  Civilization  is 
teaching  a  man,  on  the  principle  of  this  world,  to  subordinate 
his  appetites  ;  to  rule  himself;  and  there  comes  a  refinement, 
and  a  gentleness,  and  a  polish,  and  an  enjoyment  of  intellect- 
ual pleasures  ;  so  that  the  man  is  no  longer  what  the  apostle 
calls  a  sensual  man,  but  he  becomes  now  what  the  apostle 
calls  a  natural  man.  We  can  see  this  character  delineated  in 
the  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians.  "  Then  we  were,"  says  the 
apostle,  "  in  our  Gentile  state,  fulfilling  the  desires  of  the  flesh 
and  of  the  mind."  Man  naturally  fulfills  not  merely  the  de- 
sires of  the  flesh,  but  the  desires  of  the  mind.  "And  were," 
says  the  apostle,  "  children  of  wrath." 

One  of  the  saddest  spectacles  is  the  decay  of  the  natural 
man  before  the  work  of  the  Spirit  has  been  accomplished  in 
him.  When  the  savage  dies — when  a  mere  infant  dies — when 
an  animal  dies — there  is  nothing  that  is  appalling  or  depress- 
ing there;  but  when  the  high,  the  developed  intellect — when 
the  cultivated  man  conies  to  the  last  hours  of  life,  and  the 
memory  becomes  less  powerful,  and  the  judgment  fails,  and 
all  that  belongs  to  nature  and  to  earth  visibly  perishes,  and 
the  higher  life  has  not  been  yet  developed,  though  it  is  des- 
tined to  survive  the  grave  forever — even  the  life  of  God — 
there  is  here  ample  cause  for  grief;  and  it  is  no  wonder  that 
the  man  of  genius  merely  should  shed  tears  at  the  idea  of 
decaying  life. 

We  pass  on  to  consider  the  Trinity  in  unity.  All  this  is 
contained  in  that  simple  expression,  "  The  God  of  peace." 
God  is  a  God  of  unity.  He  makes  one  where  before  there 
were  two.  He  is  the  God  of  peace,  and  therefore  can  make 
peace.  Now  this  peace,  according  to  the  Trinitarian  doctrine, 
consists  in  a  threefold  unity.  Brethren,  as  we  remarked,  re- 
specting this  first  of  all,  the  distinction  in  this  Trinity  is  not 
a  physical  distinction,  but  a  metaphysical  one.  The  illustra- 
tions which  are  often  given  are  illustrations  drawn  from  ma- 
terial sources  :  if  we  take  only  those,"  we  get  into  contradic- 
tion :  for  example,  when  we  talk  of  personality,  our  idea  is 
of  a  being  bounded  by  space ;  and  then  to  say  in  this  sense 
that  three  persons  are  one,  and  one  is  three,  is  simply  con- 
tradictory and  absurd.  Remember  that  the  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity  is  a  metaphysical  doctrine.  It  is  a  Trinity — a  division 
in  the  mind  of  God.  It  is  not  three  materials  ;  it  is  three  per- 
sons in  a  sense  we  shall  explain  by-and-by. 

In  the  next  place  I  will  endeavor  to  explain  the  doctrine 
— not  to  prove  it,  but  to  show  its  rationality,  and  to  explain 
what  it  is. 


The  Trinity.  471 

The  first  illustration  we  endeavor  to  give  in  this  is  taken 
from  the  world  of  matter.  We  will  take  any  material  sub- 
stance :  we  find  in  that  substance  qualities-,  we  will  say  three 
qualities — color,  shape  and  size.  Color  is  not  shape,  shape  is 
not  size,  size  is  not  color.  They  are  three  distinct  essences, 
three  distinct  qualities,  and  yet  they  all  form  one  unity,  one 
single  conception,  one  idea — the  idea,  for  example,  of  a  tree. 

Now  we  will  ascend  from  that  into  the  immaterial  world ; 
and  here  we  come  to  something  more  distinct  still.  Kith* 
erto  we  have  had  but  three  qualities ;  we  now  come  to  the 
mind  of  man — where  we  find  something  more  than  qual- 
ities. We  will  take  three — the  will,  the  affections,  and  the 
thoughts  of  man.  Hife  will  is  not  his  aifections,  neither  are 
his  affections  his  thoughts;  and  it  would  be  imperfect  and 
incomplete  to  say  that  these  are  mere  qualities  in  the  man. 
They  are  separate  consciousnesses — living  consciousnesses — 
as  distinct  and  as  really  sundered  as  it  is  possible  for  three 
things  to  be,  yet  bound  together  by  one  unity  of  conscious- 
ness. Now  we  have  distincter  proof  than  even  this  that 
these  things  are  three.  The  anatomist  can  tell  you  that  the 
localities  of  these  powers  are  different.  He  can  point  out  the 
seat  of  the  nerve  of  sensation  ;  he  can  localize  the  feeling  of 
affection  ;  he  can  point  to  a  nerve  and  say,  "  There  resides 
the  locality  of  thought." 

There  are  three  distinct  localities  for  three  distinct  quali- 
ties, personalities,  consciousnesses ;  yet  all  these  three  are 
one. 

Once  more,  we  will  give  proof  even  beyond  all  that.  The 
act  that  a  man  does  is  done  by  one  particular  part  of  that 
man.  You  may  say  it  was  a  work  of  his  genius,  or  of  his 
fancy ;  it  may  have  been  a  manifestation  of  his  love,  or  an 
exhibition  of  his  courage ;  yet  that  work  was  the  work  of  the 
whole  man  :  his  courage,  his  intellect,  his  habits  of  persever 
ance,  all  helped  towards  the  completion  of  that  single  work. 
Just  in  this  way  certain  special  w>>rks  are  attributed  to  cer- 
tain personalities  of  the  Deity  ;  the  work  of  redemption  being 
attributed  to  one,  the  work  of  sanctification  to  another.  And 
yet  just  as  the  whole  man  was  engaged  in  doing  that  work, 
8O  does  the  whole  Deity  perform  that  work  which  is  at- 
tributed to  one  essential. 

Once  more,  let  us  remember  that  principle  which  we  ex- 
pounded last  Sunday,  that  it  is  the  law  of  being  that  in  pro- 
portion as  you  rise  from  lower  to  higher  life,  the  parts  are 
more  distinctly  developed,  while  yet  the  unity  becomes  more 
entire.  You  find,  for  example,  in  the  lowest  forms  of  animal 
life  one  organ  performs  several  functions,  one  organ  being  at 


472  The  Trinity. 

the  same  time  heart  and  brain  and  blood-vessels.  But  when 
you  come  to  man,  you  find  all  these  various  functions  exist- 
ing in  different  organs,  and  every  organ  more  distinctly  de« 
veloped ;  and  yet  the  unity  of  a  man  is  a  higher  unity  than 
that  of  a  limpet.  When  you  come  from  the  material  world 
to  the  wrorld  immaterial,  you  find  that  the  more  society  is 
cultivated,  the  more  man  is  cultivated,  the  more  marvellous 
is  the  power  of  developing  distinct  powers.  In  the  savage 
life  it  is  almost  all  one  feeling ;  but  in  proportion  as  the 
higher  education  advances  and  the  higher  life  appears,  every 
power  and  faculty  develops  and  distinguishes  itself  and  be- 
comes distinct  and  separate.  And  yet  just  in  proportion  as 
in  a  naticm  every  part  is  distinct,  the  unity  is  greater,  and 
just  in  proportion  as  in  an  individual  every  power  is  most 
complete,  and  stands  out  most  distinct,  just  in  that  propor- 
tion has  the  man  reached  the  entireness  of  his  humanity. 

Now,  brethren,  we^apply  all  this  to  the  mind  of  God.  The 
Trinitarian, maintains  against  the  Unitarian  and  the  Sabellian, 
that  the  higher  you  ascend  in  the  scale  of  being,  the  more  dis- 
tinct are  the  consciousnesses,  and  that  the  law  of  unity  im- 
plies and  demands  a  manifold  unity.  The  doctrine  of  Sabel- 
lianism,  for  example,  is  this  :  that  God  is  but  one  essence — 
but  one  person  under  different  manifestations ;  and  that  when 
He  made  the  world  He  was  called  the  Father,  wrhen  He  re- 
deemed the  world  He  was  called  the  Son,  and  when  he  sanc- 
tified the  world  He  was  called  the  Holy  Ghost.  The  Sabel- 
lian and  the  Unitarian  maintain  that  the  unity  of  God  con- 
sists simply  in  a  unity  of  person,  and  in  opposition  to  this  does 
the  Trinitarian  maintain  that  grandness,  either  in  man  or  in 
God,  must  be  a  unity  of  manifoldness. 

But  we  will  enter  into  this  more  deeply.  The  first  power 
of  consciousness  in  which  God  is  made  known  to  us  is  as  the 
Father,  the  Author  of  our  being.  It  is  written, "  In  Him  we 
live,  and  move,  and  have  our  being."  He  is  the  Author  of 
all  life.  In  this  sense  He  Is  not  merely  our  Father  as  Chris- 
tians, but  the  Father  of  mankind ;  and  not  merely  the  Fa- 
ther of  mankind,  but  the  Father  of  creation ;  and  in  thia 
way  the  sublime  language  of  the  prophets  may  be  taken  ae 
true  literally,  "  The  morning  stars  sang  together,  and  all  the 
sons  of  God  shouted  for  joy  ;"  and  the  language  of  the  can- 
ticle which  belongs  to  our  morning  service,  "  the  deeps,  the 
fountains,  the  wells,"  all  unite  in  one  hymn  of  praise,  one  ev- 
erlasting hallelujah  to  God  the  Father,  the  Author  of  their 
being,  "in  this  respect,  simply  as  the  Author  of  life,  merely 
as  the  Supreme  Being,  God  has  reference  to  us  in  relation  to 
the  body.  He  is  the  Lord  of  life  :  in  Him  we  live,  and 


The  Trinity.  473 

move,  and  have  our  being.  In  this  respect  God  to  us  is  as 
jaw — as  the  collected  laws  of  the  universe  ;  and  therefore  to 
offend  against  law,  and  bring  down  the  result  of  transgress- 
ing law,  is  said  in  Scripture  language,  because  applied  to  a 
person,  to  be  provoking  the  wrath  of  God  the  Father. 

In  the  next  place,  the  second  way  through  which  the  per- 
sonality and  consciousness  of  God  has  been  revealed  to  us  is 
as  the  Son.  Brethren,  we  see  in  all  those  writers  who  have 
treated  of  the  Trinity,  that  much  stress  is  laid  upon  this 
eternal  generation  of  the  Son,  the  everlasting  sonship.  It  is 
this  which  we  have  in  the  creed — the  creed  which  was  read 
to-day — "  God,  of  the  substance  of  the  Father,  begotten  be- 
fore the  worlds ;"  and,  again,  in  the  Nicene  creed,  that  ex- 
pression, which  is  so  often  wrongly  read,  "  God  of  God, 
Light  of  Light,  very  God  of  very  God,"  means  absolutely 
nothing.  There  are  two  statements  made  there.  The  first 
is  this,  "  The  Son  was  God :"  the  sepond  is  this,  "  The  Son 
was— of  God,"  showing  his  derivation.  And  in  that,  breth- 
ren, we  have  one  of  the  deepest  and  most  blessed  truths  of 
revelation.  The  Unitarian  maintains  a  divine  humanity — a 
blessed,  blessed  truth.  There  is  a  truth  more  blessed  still — 
the  humanity  of  Deity.  Before  the  world  was,  there  was 
that  in  the  mind  of  God  which  we  may  call  the  humanity  of 
His  Divinity.  It  is  called  in  Scripture  the  Word  :  the  Son  : 
the  Form  of  God.  It  is  in  virtue  of  this  that  we  have  a  right 
to  attribute  to  Him  our  own  feelings  ;  it  is  in  virtue  of  this 
that  Scripture  speaks  of  His  wisdom,  His  justice,  His  love. 
Love  in  God  is  what  love  is  in  man;  justice  in  God  is  what 
justice  is  in  man;  creative  power  in  God  is  what  creative 
power  is  in  man  ;  indignation  in  God  is  that  which  indigna- 
tion is  in  man,  barring  only  this,  that  the  one  is  emotional, 
but  the  other  is  calm,  and  pure,  and  everlastingly  still.  It 
is  through  this  humanity  in  the  mind  of  God,  if  I  may  dare 
so  to  speak  of  Deity,  that  a  revelation  became  possible  to 
man.  It  was  the  Word  that  was  made  flesh  ;  it  was  the 
Word  that  manifested  itself  to  man.  It  is  in  virtue  of  the 
connection  between  God  and  man,  that  God  made  man  in 
Plis  own  image  ;  that  through  a  long  line  of  prophets  the  hu- 
man truth  of  God  could  be  "made  known  to  man,  till  it  came 
forth  developed  most  entirely  and  at  large  in  the  incarnation 
of  the  Redeemer.  Now  in  this  respect,  it  will  be  observed 
that  God  stands  connected  with  us  in  relation  to  the  soul  as 
"  the  Light  which  lighteth  every  man  that  cometh  into  the 
world." 

Once  more :  there  is  a  nearer,  a  closer,  and  a  more  enduring 
relation  in  which  God  stands  to  us — that  is,  the  relation  of 


474  The  Trinity. 

the  Spirit.  It  is  to  the  writings  of  St.  John  that  we  have  to 
turn  especially,  if  we  desire  to  know  the  doctrines  of  the 
Spirit.  You  will  remember  the  strange  way  in  which  he 
speaks  of  God.  It  would  almost  seem  as  if  the  external  God 
has  disappeared  to  him ;  nay,  as  if  an  external  Christ  were 
almost  forgotten,  because  the  internal  Christ  has  been  formed. 
He  speaks  of  God  as  kindred  with  us  ;  he  speaks  of  Christ  as 
Christ  in  us ;  and  "  if  we  love  one  another,"  he  says, "  God 
dwelleth  in  us."  If  a  man  keep  the  commandments,  "  God 
dwelleth  in  him,  and  he  in  God."  So  that  the  spiritual  man- 
ifestation of  God  to  us  is  that  whereby  He  blends  Himself 
with  the  soul  of  man. 

These,  then,  my  Christian  brethren,  are  the  three  con- 
sciousnesses by  which  He  becomes  known  to  us.  Three,  we 
said,  known  to  us.  We  do  not  dare  to  limit  God ;  we  do  not 
presume  to  say  that  there  are  in  God  only  three  personali- 
ties, only  three  consciousnesses  :  all  that  we  dare  presume  to 
say  is  this,  that  there  are  three  in  reference  to  us,  and  only 
three ;  that  a  fourth  there  is  not ;  that,  perchance,  in  the 
present  state  a  fourth  you  can  not  add  to  these — Creator, 
Redeemer,  Sanctifier. 

Lastly,  let  us  turn  to  the  relation  which  the  Trinity  in 
unity  bears  to  the  triad  in  discord.  It  is  intended  for  the 
entireness  of  our  sanctification :  "  the  very  God  of  peace 
sanctify  you  wholly."  Brethren,  we  dwell  upon  that  expres- 
sion "  wholly"  There  is  this  difference  between  Christianity 
and  every  other  system :  Christianity  proposes  to  ennoble 
the  whole  man  ;  every  other  system  subordinates  parts  to 
parts.  Christianity  does  not  despise  the  intellect,  but  it 
does  not  exalt  the  intellect  in  a  one-sided  way :  it  only 
dwells  with  emphasis  on  the  third  and  highest  part  of  man 
— his  spiritual  affections ;  and  these  it  maintains  are  the 
chief  and  real  seat  of  everlasting  life,  intended  to  subordi- 
nate the  other  to  themselves. 

Asceticism  would  crush  the  natural  affections,  destroy  the 
appetites.  Asceticism  feels  that  there  is  a  conflict  between 
the  flesh  and  the  spirit,  and  it  would  put  an  end  to  that  con- 
flict ;  it  would  bring  back  unity  by  the  excision  of  all  our 
natural  appetites,  and  all  the  desires  and  feelings  which  we 
have  by  nature.  But  when  the  Apostle  Paul  comes  forward 
to  proclaim  the  will  of  God,  he  says  it  is  not  by  the  crushing 
of  the  body  but  by  the  sanctification  of  the  body :  "  I  pray 
God  your  whole  spirit  and  soul  and  body  be  preserved 
blameless  unto  the  coming  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ." 

In  this,  my  Christian  brethren,  there  is  one  of  the  deepest 
of  all  truths.  Does  a  man  feel  himself  the  slave  and  the  vie- 


The  Trinity.  475 

tira  of  his  lower  passions  ?  Let  not  that  man  hope  to  subdue 
them  merely  by  struggling  against  them.  Let  him  not  by 
fasting,  by  austerity,  by  any  earthly  rule  that  he  can  con- 
ceive, expect  to  subdue  the  flesh.  The  more  he  thinks  of  his 
vile  and  lower  feelings,  the  more  will  they  be  brought  into 
distinctness,  and  therefore  into  power;  the  more  hopelessly 
will  he  become  their  victim.  The  only  way  in  which  a  man 
can  subdue  the  flesh  is  not  by  the  extinction  of  those  frel- 
ings,  but  by  the  elevation  of  their  character.  Let  there  be 
added  to  that  character,  sublimity  of  aim.  purity  of  affection  ; 
let  there  be  given  grandeur,  spiritual  nobleness ;  and  then, 
just  as  the  strengthening  of  the  whole  constitution  of  the 
body  makes  any  particular  and  local  affection  disappear,  so 
by  degrees,  by  the  raising  of  the  character,  do  these  lower 
affections  become,  not  extinguished  or  destroyed  by  excision, 
but  ennobled  by  a  new  and  loftier  spirit  breathed  through 
them. 

This  is  the  account  given  by  the  apostle.  He  speaks  of 
the  conflict  between  the  flesh  and  the  spirit.  And  his  reme- 
dy is  to  give  vigor  to  the  higher,  rather  than  to  struggle 
with  the  lower.  "  This  I  say,  then,  Walk  in  the  spirit,  and 
ye  shall  not  fulfill  the  lust  of  the  flesh." 

Once  more :  the  apostle  differs  from  the  world  in  this, 
that  the  world  would  restore  this  unity  and  sanctify  man 
simply  from  the  soul.  It  is  this  which  civilization  pretends 
to  effect.  We  hear  much  in  these  modern  days  of  "  the 
progress  of  humanity."  We  hear  of  man's  invention,  of 
man's  increase  of  knowledge ;  and  it  would  seem  in  all  this, 
as  if  man  were  necessarily  becoming  better.  Brethren,  it  al- 
ways must  be  the  case  in  that  state  in  which  God  is  looked 
upon  as  the  Supreme  Being  merely,  where  the  intellect  of 
man  is  supposed  to  be  the  chief  thing — that  which  makes 
him  most  kindred  to  his  Maker. 

The  doctrine  of  Christianity  is  this — that  unity  of  all  this 
discord  must  be  made.  Man  is  to  be  made  one  with  God, 
not  by  soaring  intellect,  but  by  lowly  love.  It  is  the  Spirit 
which  guides  him  to  all  truth  ;  not  merely  by  rendering 
more  acute  the  reasoning  powers,  but  by  convincing  of  sin, 
by  humbling  the  man.  It  is  the  graces  of  the  Spirit  which 
harmonize  the  man,  and  make  him  one ;  and  that  is  the  ei\d, 
and  aim,  and  object  of  all  the  Gospel :  the  entireness  of  sanc- 
tification  to  produce  a  perfectly  developed  man. 

Most  of  us  in  this  world  are  monsters,  with  some  part  of 
our  being  bearing  the  development  of  a  "giant  and  others 
showing  the  proportions  of  a  dwarf:  a  feeble,  dwarfish  will 
— mighty,  full-blown  passions  ;  and  therefore  it  is  that  there 


476  Absolution. 

is  to  be  visible  through  the  Trinity  in  us,  a  noble  manifold 
unity ;  and  when '  the  triune  power  of  God  shall  so  have 
done  its  work  on  the  entireness  of  our  humanity,  that  the 
body,  soul,  and  spirit  have  been  sanctified,  then  shall  there 
be  exhibited,  and  only  then,  a  perfect  affection  in  man  to  his 
Maker,  and  body,  soul,  and  spirit  shall  exhibit  a  Trinity  ID 
unity. 


V. 
ABSOLUTION. 

"And  the  scribes  and  the  Pharisees  began  to  reason,  saying,  Who  is  this 
which  speaketh  blasphemies?  Who  can  forgive  sins,  but  God  alone?" — 
Luke  v.  21. 

THERE  are  questions  which  having  been  again  and  again 
settled,  still  from  time  to  time  present  themselves  for  re-so- 
lution ;  errors  which  having  been  refuted,  and  cut  up  by  the 
roots,  re-appear  in  the  next  century  as  fresh  and  vigorous  as 
ever.  Like  the  fabled  monsters  of  old,  from  whose  dissever- 
ed neck  the  blood  sprung  forth  and  formed  fresh  heads,  mul- 
tiplied and  indestructible;  or  like  the  weeds,  which,  extir- 
pated in  one  place,  sprout  forth  vigorously  in  another. 

In  every  such  case  it  may  be  taken  for  granted  that  the 
root  of  the  matter  has  not  been  reached  ;  the  error  has  been 
exposed,  but  the  truth  which  lay  at  the  bottom  of  the  error 
has  not  been  disengaged.  Every  error  is  connected  with  a 
truth ;  the  truth  being  perennial,  springs  up  again  as  often 
as  circumstances  foster  it,  or  call  for  it,  and  the  seeds  of  er- 
ror which  lay  about  the  roots  spring  up  again  in  the  form  of 
weeds,  as  before. 

A  popular  illustration  of  this  may  be  found  in  the  belief 
in  the  appearance  of  the  spirits  of  the  departed.  You  may 
examine  the  evidence  for  every  such  alleged  apparition  ;  you 
may  demonstrate  the  improbability  ;  you  may  reduce  it  to 
an  impossibility ;  still  the  popular  feeling  will  remain  ;  and 
there  is  a  lurking  superstition  even  among  the  enlightened, 
which  in  the  midst  of  professions  of  incredulity  shows  itself 
in  a  readiness  to  believe  the  wildest  new  tale,  if  it  possess 
but  the  semblance  of  an  authentication.  Now  two  truths 
lie  at  the  root  of  this  superstition.  The  first  is  the  re- 
ality of  the  spirit-world  and  the  instinctive  belief  in  it.  The 
second  is  the  fact  that  there  are  certain  states  of -health  in 
which  the  eye  creates  the  objects  which  it  perceives.  The 


Absolution.  477 

death-blow  to  such  superstition  is  only  struck  when  we  have 
not  only  proved  that  men  have  been  deceived,  but  shown  be- 
sides how  they  came  to  be  deceived  ;  when  science  has  ex- 
plained the  optical  delusion,  and  shown  the  physiological 
state  in  which  such  apparitions  become  visible.  Ridicule 
will  not  do  it.  Disproof  will  not  do  it.  So  long  as  men  feel 
that  there  is  a  spirit-world,  and  so  long  as  to  some  the  im- 
pression is  vivid  that  they  have  seen  it,  you  spend  your 
rhetoric  in  vain.  You  must  show  the  truth  that  lies  below 
the  error. 

The  principle  we  gain  from  this  is,  that  you  can  not  over- 
throw falsehood  by  negation,  but  by  establishing  the  antag- 
onistic truth.  The  refutation  which  is  to  last  must  be  posi- 
tive, not  negative.  It  is  an  endless  work  to  be  uprooting 
weeds :  plant  the  ground  with  wholesome  vegetation,  and 
then  the  juices  which  would  have  otherwise  fed  rankness 
will  pour  themselves  into  a  more  vigorous  growth ;  the  dwin- 
dled weeds  will  be  easily  raked  out  then.  It  is  an  endless 
task  to  be  refuting  error.  Plant  truth,  and  the  error  will 
pine  away. 

The  instance  to  which  all  this  is  preliminary,  is  the  perti- 
nacious hold  which  the  belief  in  a  human  absolving  power 
retains  upon  mankind.  There  has  perhaps  never  yet  been 
known  a  religion  without  such  a  belief.  There  is  not  a  sav- 
age in  the  islands  of  the  South  Pacific  who  does  not  believe 
that  his  priest  can  shield  him  from  the  consequences  of  sin. 
There  was  not  a  people  in  antiquity  who  had  not  dispensers 
of  Divine  favor.  That  same  belief  passed  from  Paganism 
into  Romanism.  It  was  exposed  at  the  period  of  the  Refor- 
mation. A  mighty  reaction  was  felt  against  it  throughout 
Europe.  Apparently  the  whole  idea  of  human  priesthood 
was  proved,  once  and  forever,  to  be  baseless  ;  human  media- 
tion, in  every  possible  form,  was  vehemently  controverted ; 
men  were  referred  back  to  God  as  the  sole  Absolver. 

Yet  now  again,  three  centuries  after,  the  belief  is  still  as 
strong  as  ever.  That  which  we  thought  dead  is  alive  again, 
and  not  likely,  it  seems,  to  die.  Recent  revelations  have 
shown  that  confession  is  daily  made  in  the  country  whose 
natural  manners  are  most  against  it ;  private  absolution  ask- 
ed by  English  men  and  given  by  English  priests.  A  fact  so 
significant  might  lead  us  well  to  pause,  and  ask  ourselves 
whether  we  have  found  the  true  answer  to  the  question. 
The  negation  we  have  got,  the  vehement  denial;  we  are 
weary  of  its  reiteration  :  but  the  positive  truth  which  lies  at 
the  bottom  of  this  craving — where  is  that  ? 

Parliaments  and  pulpits,  senators   and  clergymen,  have 


478  Absolution. 

vied  with  each  other  in  the  vehemence  with  which  they  de« 
clare  absolution  uu-Christian,  un-English.  All  that  is  most 
abominable  in  the  confessional  has  been  with  unsparing  and 
irreverent  indelicacy  forced  before  the  public  mind.  Still, 
men  and  women,  whose  holiness  and  purity  are  beyond  slan- 
der's reach,  come  and  crave  assurance  of  forgiveness.  How 
shall  we  reply  to  such  men?  Shall  we  say,  "Who  is  this 
that  speaketh  blasphemies?  who  can  forgive  sins,  but  God 
only  ?"  Shall  we  say  it  is  all  blasphemy  ;  an  impious  intru- 
sion upon  the  prerogatives  of  the  One  Absolver  ?  Well,  we 
may ;  it  is  popular  to  say  we  ought ;  but  you  will  observe, 
if  we  speak  so,  we  do  no  more  than  the  Pharisees  in  this 
text :  we  establish  a  negation  ;  but  a  negation  is  only  one 
side  of  truth. 

Moreover,  we  have  been  asserting  that  for  three  hundred 
years,  with  small  fruits.  We  keep  asserting,  Man  can  not 
give  assurance  that  sin  is  pardoned ;  in  other  words,  man 
can  not  absolve  :  but  still  the  heart  craves  human  assurance 
of  forgiveness.  What  truth  have  we  got  to  supply  that 
craving  ?  We  shall  therefore  rather  try  to  fathom  the  deeps 
of  the  positive  truth  which  is  the  true  reply  to  the  error;  we 
shall  try  to  see  whether  there  is  not  a  real  answer  to  the 
craving  contained  in  the  Redeemer's  words,  "  The  Son  of 
Man  hath  power  on  earth  to  forgive  sins."  What  power  is 
there  in  human  forgiveness  ?  What  does  absolution  mean 
in  the  lips  of  a  son  of  man  ?  These  are  our  questions  for  to- 
day. We  shall  consider  two  points. 

I.  The  impotency  of  the  negation. 
II.  The  power  of  the  positive  truth. 

The  Pharisees  denied  the  efficacy  of  human  absolution : 
they  said,  "  None  can  forgive  sins,  but  God  only :"  that  was 
a  negation.  What  did  they  effect  by  their  system  of  nega- 
tions ?  They  conferred  no  peace ;  they  produced  no  holi- 
ness. It  would  be  a  great  error  to  suppose  that  the  Phari- 
sees were  hypocrites  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  term — that 
is,  pretending  to  be  anxious  about  religion  when  they  knew 
that  they  felt  no  anxiety.  They  were  anxious,  in  their  way. 
They  heard  a  startling  free  announcement  of  forgiveness  by 
a  man.  To  them  it  appeared  license  given  to  sin.  If  this 
new  teacher,  this  upstart — in  their  owTn  language,  "  this  fel- 
low— of  whom  every  man  knew  whence  he  wras,"  were  to  go 
about  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land,  telling  sinners  to 
be  at  peace ;  telling  them  to  forget  the  past,  and  to  work  on- 
wards ;  bidding  men's  consciences  be  at  rest ;  and  command- 
ing them  not  to  fear  the  God  whom  they  had  offended,  but 


Absolution.  479 

lo  trust  in  Him — what  would  become  of  morality  and  relig- 
ion ?  This  presumptuous  Absolver  would  make  men  careless 
about  both.  If  the  indispensable  safeguards  of  penalty  were 
removed,  what  remained  to  restrain  men  from  sin  ? 

For  the  Pharisees  had  no  notion  of  any  other  goodness 
than  that  which  is  restrained  ;  they  could  conceive  no  good- 
ness free,  but  only  that  which  is  produced  by  rewards  and 
punishments  —  law-goodness,  law-righteousness:  to  dread 
God,  not  to  love  and  trust  Him,  was  their  conception  of  re- 
ligion. And  this,  indeed,  is  the  ordinary  conception  of  re- 
ligion— the  ordinary  meaning  implied  to  most  minds  by  the 
word  religion.  The  word  religion  means,  by  derivation,  re- 
striction or  obligation — obligation  to  do,  obligation  to  avoid. 
And  this  is  the  negative  system  of  the  Pharisees — scrupulous 
avoidance  of  evil  rather  than  positive  and  free  pursuit  of  ex- 
cellence. Such  a  system  never  produced  any  thing  but  bar- 
ren denial.  "This  is  wrong;"  "that  is  heresy  j"  "that  is 
dangerous." 

There  was  another  class  of  men  who  denied  human  power 
of  absolution.  They  were  called  Scribes  or  writers — ped- 
ants, men  of  ponderous  learning  and  accurate  definitions ; 
from  being  mere  transcribers  of  the  law,  they  had  risen  to 
be  its  expounders.  They  could  define  the  exact  number  of 
yards  that  might  be  travelled  on  the  sabbath-day  without 
infringement  of  the  law  ;  they  could  decide,  according  to  the 
most  approved  theology,  the  respective  importance  of  each 
duty ;  they  would  tell  you,  authoritatively,  which  was  the 
great  commandment  of  the  law.  The  Scribe  is  a  man  who 
turns  religion  into  etiquette :  his  idea  of  God  is  that  of  a 
monarch,  transgression  against  whom  is  an  offense  against 
statute  law,  and  he,  the  Scribe,  is  there  to  explain  the  pre- 
scribed conditions  upon  which  the  offense  may  be  expiated ; 
he  has  no  idea  of  admission  to  the  sovereign's  presence,  ex- 
cept by  compliance  with  certain  formalities  which  the  Scribe 
is  commissioned  to  declare. 

There  are  therefore  Scribes  in  all  ages — Romish  Scribes, 
who  distinguish  between  venial  arid  mortal  sin,  and  appor- 
tion to  each  its  appointed  penance  and  absolution.  There 
are  Protestant  Scribes,  who  have  no  idea  of  God  but  as  an 
incensed  judge,  and  prescribe  certain  methods  of  appeasing 
Him — a  certain  price,  in  consideration  of  which  He  is  willing 
to  sell  forgiveness ;  men  who  accurately  draw  the  distinc- 
tion between  the  different  kinds  of  faith — faith  historical  and 
faith  saving ;  who  bewilder  and  confuse  all  natural  feeling ; 
who  treat  the  natural  love  of  relations  as  if  it  were  an  idola- 
try as  great  as  bowing  down  to  mammon ;  who  make  intel- 


480  Absolution. 

ligible  distinction  between  the  work  that  may  and  the  worls 
that  may  not  be  done  on  the  sabbath-day ;  who  seYid  you 
into  a  perilous  consideration  of  the  workings  of  your  own 
feelings,  and  the  examination  of  your  spiritual  experiences, 
to  ascertain  whether  you  have  the  feelings  which  give  you  a 
right  to  call  God  a  Father.  They  hate  the  Romish  Scribe 
as  much  as  the  Jewish  Scribe  hated  the  Samaritan  and  called 
him  heretic.  But  in  their  way  they  are  true  to  the  spirit  of 
the  Scribe. 

Now  the  result  of  this  is  fourfold.  Among  the  tender- 
minded,  despondency ;  among  the  vainer,  spiritual  pride ;  in 
the  case  of  the  slavish,  superstition ;  with  the  hard-minded, 
infidelity.  Ponder  it  well,  and  you  will  find  these  four 
things  rife  amongst  us :  despondency,  spiritual  pride,  super- 
stition, and  infidelity.  In  this  way  we  have  been  going  on 
for  many  years.  In  the  midst  of  all  this,  at  last  we  are  in- 
formed that  the  confessional  is  at  work  again ;  whereupon 
astonishment  and  indignation  are  loudly  expressed.  It  is 
not  to  be  borne  that  the  priests  of  the  Church  of  England 
should  confess  and  absolve  in  private.  Yet  it  is  only  what 
might  have  been  expected. 

With  our  Evangelicalism,  Tractarianism,  Scribeism,  Phar- 
isaism, we  have  ceased  to  front  the  living  fact — we  are  as 
zealous  as  Scribes  and  Pharisees  ever  were  for  negatives; 
but  in  the  mean  time  human  nature,  oppressed  and  over- 
borne, gasping  for  breath,  demands  something  real  and  living. 
It  can  not  live  on  controversies.  It  can  not  be  fed  on  pro- 
tests against  heresy,  however  vehement.  We  are  trying 
wTho  can  protest  loudest.  Every  book,  every  journal,  rings 
with  warnings.  "Beware!"  is  written  upon  every  thing. 
Beware  of  Rome;  beware  of  Geneva;  beware  of  Germany; 
some  danger  on  every  side ;  Satan  everywhere — God  no- 
where; everywhere  some  man  to  be  shunned  or  dreaded — 
nowhere  one  to  be  loved  freely  and  without  suspicion.  Is  it 
any  wonder  if  men  and  women,  in  the  midst  of  negations, 
cry,  "Ye  warn  me  from  the  error,  but  who  will  guide  me 
into  truth  ?  I  want  guidance.  I  am  sinful,  full  of  evil !  I 
want  forgiveness.  Absolve  me  ;  tell  me  that  I  am  pardon- 
ed ;  help  me  to  believe  it.  Your  quarrels  do  not  help  me ; 
if  you  can  not  do  that,  it  matters  little  what  you  can  do. 
You  have  restricted  God's  love,  and  narrowed  the  path  to 
heaven ;  you  have  hampered  religion  with  so  many  mysteri- 
ous questions  and  quibbles  that  I  can  not  find  the  wray  to 
God ;  you  have  terrified  me  with  so  many  snares  and  pitfalls 
on  every  side,  that  I  dare  not  tread  at  all.  Give  me  peace ; 
give  me  human  guidance:  I  want  a  human  arm  to  lean  on." 


Absolution.  481 

Tliis  is  a  cry,  I  believe,  becoming  daily  more  passionate 
and  more  common.  And  no  wonder  that  all  our  information, 
public  and  private,  is  to  the  same  effect — that  the  recent 
converts  have  found  peace  in  Rome ;  for  the  secret  of  the 
power  of  Rome  is  this — that  she  grounds  her  teaching,  not 
on  variable  feelings  and  correct  opinions,  but  on  facts.  God 
is  not  a  highly  probable  God,  but  afact.  God's  forgiveness 
is  not  a  feeling,  but  a  fact ;  and  a  material  symbolic  fact  is 
the  witness  of  the  invisible  one.  Rome  puts  forward  her  ab- 
solution—  her  false,  priestly,  magical  absolution  —  a  visible 
fact,  as  a  witness  of  the  invisible.  And  her  perversion  pre- 
vails because  founded  on  a  truth. 

II.  The  power  of  the  positive  truth. 

Is  it  any  wonder,  if,  taught  on  every  side  distrust  of  man, 
the  heart  should  by  a  violent  reaction,  and  by  an  extrava- 
gant confidence  in  a  priest,  proclaim  that  its  normal,  natural 
state  is  not  distrust,  but  trust  ? 

What  is  forgiveness  ?  It  is  God  reconciled  to  us.  What 
is  absolution  ?  It  is  the  authoritative  declaration  that  God 
is  reconciled.  Authoritative:  that  is  a  real  power  of  con- 
veying a  sense  and  feeling  of  forgiveness.  It  is  the  power 
of  the  Son  of  Man  on  earth  to  forgive  sins.  It  is  man,  God's 
image,  representing,  by  his  forgiveness  on  earth,  God's  for- 
giveness in  heaven. 

Now  distinguish  God's  forgiveness  of  sin  from  an  arresting 
of  the  consequence  of  sin.  When  God  forgives  a  sin  it  does 
not  follow  that  He  stops  its  consequences:  for  example, 
when  He  forgives  the  intemperate  man  whose  health  is 
ruined,  forgiveness  does  not  restore  his  health.  Divine  par- 
don does  not  interfere  with  the  laws  of  the  universe,  for  it  is 
itself  one  of  those  laws.  It  is  a  law  that  penalty  follows 
transgression.  Forgiveness  will  not  save  from  penalty  ;  but 
it  alters  the  feelings  with  which  the  penalty  is  accepted. 
Pain  inflicted  with  a  surgeon's  knife  for  a  man's  good  is  as 
keen  as  that  which  results  from  the  knife  of  the  torturer ;  but 
in  the  one  case  it  is  calmly  borne  because  remedial — in  the 
other  it  exasperates  because  it  is  felt  to  be  intended  by  ma- 
levolence. So  with  the  difference  between  suffering  which 
comes  from  a  sin  which  we  hope  God  has  forgiven,  and  suf- 
fering which  seems  to  fall  hot  from  the  hand  of  an  angry 
God.  It  is  a  fearful  truth,  that,  so  far  as  we  know  at  least, 
the  consequences  of  an  act  are  connected  with  it  indissolubly. 
Forgiveness  does  not  arrest  them  ;  but  by  producing  softness 
and  grateful  penitence,  it  transforms  them  into  blessings. 
This  is  God's  forgiveness ;  and  absolution  is  the  conveyance 

21 


482  Absolution. 

to  the  conscience  of  the  conviction  of  forgiveness :  to  absolve 
is  to  free — to  comfort  by  strengthening — to  afford  repose 
from  fear. 

Now  it  was  the  way  of  the  Redeemer  to  emancipate  from 
sin  by  the  freeness  of  absolution.  The  dying  thief,  an  hour 
before  a  blasphemer,  was  unconditionally  assured ;  the  mo- 
ment the  sinner's  feelings  changed  towards  God,  He  pro- 
claimed that  God  was  reconciled  to  him:  "This  day  thou 
shalt  be  with  me  in  Paradise."  And  hence,  speaking  human- 
ly, hence,  from  this  absolving  tone  and  spirit,  came  His  won- 
drous and  unparalleled  power  with  sinful,  erring  hearts; 
hence  the  life  and  fresh  impulse  which  He  imparted  to  the 
being  and  experience  to  those  with  whom  He  dealt.  Hence 
the  maniac,  freed  from  the  legion,  sat  at  His  feet,  clothed, 
and  in  his  right  mind.  Hence  the  outcast  woman,  whom 
human  scorn  would  have  hardened  into  brazen  effrontery, 
hearing  an  unwonted  voice  of  human  sympathy,  "  washed 
His  feet  with  her  tears,  and  wiped  them  with  the  hairs  of 
her  head." 

And  this  is  what  we  have  forgotten:  we  have  not  yet 
learned  to  trust  the  power  of  redeeming  love  ;  we  do  not  be- 
lieve in  the  omnipotence  of  grace,  and  the  might  oif  an  ap- 
peal to  the  better  parts,  and  not  the  slavish  parts  of  human 
nature.  Settle  it  in  your  minds,  the  absolving  power  is  the 
central  secret  of  the  Gospel.  Salvation  is  unconditional ;  not 
an  offer,  but  a  gift;  not  clogged  with  conditions,  but  free  as 
the  air  we  breathe.  God  welcomes  back  the  prodigal.  God 
loves  without  money  and  without  price.  To  this  men  reply 
gravely,  It  is  dangerous  to  speak  thus ;  it  is  perilous  to  dis- 
pense with  the  safeguards  of  restriction.  Law !  law  !  there 
is  nothing  like  law — a  salutary  fear — for  making  men  holy. 
Oh  blind  Pharisee !  had  you  ever  known  the  spring,  the  life 
which  comes  from  feeling  free,  the  gush  of  gratitude  with 
which  the  heart  springs  to  duty  when  all  chains  are  shat- 
tered, and  it  stands  fearless  and  free  in  the  light,  and  in  the 
love  of  God — you  would  understand  that  a  large  trusting 
charity,  which  can  throw  itself  on  the  better  and  more  gen* 
erous  impulses  of  a  laden  spirit,  is  the  safest  as  well  as  the 
most  beautiful  means  of  securing  obedience. 

So  far,  however,  there  will  not  be  much  objection  to  the 
doctrine:  it  will  be  admitted  that  absolution  is  true  in  the 
lips  of  Christ,  because  of  His  Divinity.  It  will  be  said  He 
was  God,  and  Grod  speaking  on  earth  is  the  same  thing  as 
God  speaking  in  heaven.  No,  my  brethren,  it  is  not  the 
same  thing.  Christ  forgiving  on  earth  is  a  new  truth  added 
to  that  of  God's  forgiving  in  heaven.  It  is  not  the  sam« 


Absolution.  483 

truth.  The  one  is  forgiveness  by  Deity;  the  other  is  the 
declaration  of  forgiveness  by  humanity.  He  bade  the  pal- 
sied man  walk,  that  they  might  know  that  "  the  Son  of  Man 
hath  power  on  earth  to  forgive  sins."  Therefore  we  proceed 
a  step  farther.  The  same  power  He  delegated  to  His  Church 
which  He  had  exercised  Himself.  "  Whosesoever  sins  ye  re- 
mit, they  are  remitted."  Now  perhaps  it  will  be  replied  to 
this,  that  that  promise  belongs  to  the  apostles ;  that  they 
were  supernaturally  gifted  to  distinguish  genuine  from 
feigned  repentance ;  to  absolve,  therefore,  was  their  natural 
prerogative,  but  that  we  have  no  right  to  say  it  extends  be- 
yond the  apostles. 

We  therefore  bring  the  question  to  a  point  by  referring  to 
an  instance  in  which  an  apostle  did  absolve.  Let  us  ex- 
amine whether  St.  Paul  confined  the  prerogative  to  himself. 
"  To  whom  ye  forgive  any  thing,  I  forgive  also :  for  to 
whom  I  forgave  any  thing  for  your  sakes,  forgave  I  it  in  the 
person  of  Christ." 

Observe  now :  it  is  quite  true  here  that  the  apostle  ab- 
solved a  man  whose  excommunication  he  had  formerly  re- 
quired: but  he  absolved  him  because  the  congregation  ab- 
solved him ;  not  as  a  plenipotentiary  supernaturally  gifted 
to  convey  a  mysterious  benefit,  but  as  himself  an  organ  and 
representative  of  the  Church.  The  power  of  absolution 
therefore  belonged  to  the  Church,  and  to  the  apostle  through 
the  Church.  It  was  a  power  belonging  to  all  Christians :  to 
the  apostle,  because  he  was  a  Christian,  not  because  he  was 
an  apostle.  A  priestly  power,  no  doubt,  because  Christ  has 
machB  all  Christians  kings  and  priests. 

Now  let  us  turn  again,  with  this  added  light,  to  examine 
the  meaning  of  that  expression,  "  The  Son  of~Man  hath  pow- 
er on  earth  to  forgive  sins."  Mark  that  form  of  words — not 
Christ  as  God,  but  Christ  as  Son  of  Man.  It  was  manifestly 
said  by  Him,  not  solely  as  Divine,  but  rather  as  human,  as 
the  Son  of  Man  ;  that  is,  as  man.  For  we  may  take  it  as  a 
rule:  when  Christ  calls  himself  Son  of  Man,  He  is  asserting 
His  humanity.  It  was  said  by  the  High-Priest  of  humanity 
in  the  name  of  the  race.  It  was  said  on  the  principle  that 
human  nature  is  the  reflection  of  God's  nature :  that  human 
love  is  the  image  of  God's  love ;  and  that  human  forgiveness 
is  the  type  and  assurance  of  Divine  forgiveness. 

In  Christ  humanity  was  the  perfect  type  of  Deity,  and 
therefore  Christ's  absolution  was  always  the  exact  measure 
and  counterpart  of  God's  forgiveness.  Herein  lies  the  deep 
truth  of  the  doctrine  of  His  eternal  priesthood — the  Eternal 
•Son — the  humanity  of  the  being  of  God — the  ever-human 


4.84  Absolution. 

inind  of  God.  The  Absolver  ever  lives.  The  Father  judgeth 
no  man,  but  hath  committed  all  judgment  to  the  Son — hath 
given  Him  authority  to  execute  judgment  also  because  He 
is  the  Son  of  Man. 

But  further  than  this.  In  a  subordinate,  because  less  per- 
fect degree,  the  forgiveness  of  a  man  as  man  carries  with  it 
an  absolving  power.  Who  has  not  felt  the  load  taken  from 
his  mind  when  the  hidden  guilt  over  which  he  had  brooded 
long  has  been  acknowledged,  and  met  by  forgiving  human 
sympathy,  especially  at  a  time  when  he  expected  to  be  treat- 
ed with  coldness  and  reproof?  Who  has  not  felt  how  such 
a  moment  was  to  him  the  dawn  of  a  better  hope,  and  how 
the  merciful  judgment  of  some  wise  and  good  human  being 
seemed  to  be  the  type  and  the  assurance  of  God's  pardon, 
making  it  credible*  Unconsciously,  it  may  be,  but  still  in 
substance  really,  I  believe  some  such  reasoning  as  this  goes 
on  in  the  whispers  of  the  heart — "He  loves  me,  and  has  com- 
passion on  me — will  not  God  forgive  ?  He,  this  man,  made 
in  God's  image,  does  not  think  my  case  hopeless.  Well, 
then,  in  the  larger  love  of  God  it  is  not  hopeless."  Thus, 
and  only  thus,  can  we  understand  the  ecclesiastical  act.  Ab- 
solution, the  prerogative  of  our  humanity,  is  represented  by 
a  formal  act  of  the  Church. 

Much  controversy  and  angry  bitterness  has  been  spent  on 
the  absolution  put  by  the  Church  of  England  into  the  lips 
of  her  ministers — I  can  not  think  with  justice — if  we  try  to 
get  at  the  root  of  these  words  of  Christ.  The  priest  pro- 
claims forgiveness  authoritatively  as  the  organ  of  the  con- 
gregation— as  the  voice  of  the  Church,  in  the  name  of -man 
and  God.  For  human  nature  represents  God.  The  Church 
represents  what  human  nature  is  and  ought  to  be.  The  min- 
ister represents  the  Church.  He  speaks  therefore  in  the 
name  of  our  Godlike  human  nature.  He  declares  a  Divine 
fact ;  he  does  not  create  it.  There  is  no  magic  in  his  absolu- 
tion :  he  can  no  more  forgive  whom  God  has  not  forgiven, 
by  the  formula  of  absolution,  or  reverse  the  pardon  of  him 
whom  God  has  absolved  by  a  formula  of  excommunication, 
than  he  can  transfer  a  demon  into  an  angel  by  the  formula 
of  baptism.  He  declares  what  every  one  has  a  right  to  de- 
clare, and  ought  to  declare  by  his  lips  and  by  his  conduct : 
but  being  a  minister,  he  declares  it  authoritatively  in  the 
name  of  every  Christian  who  by  his  Christianity  is  a  priest 
to  God ;  he  specializes  what  is  universal ;  as  in  baptism,  he 
seals  the  universal  Sonship  on  the  individual  by  name,  say- 
ing, "  The  Sonship  with  which  Christ  has  redeemed  all  men, 
I  hereby  proclaim  for  this  child ;"  so  by  absolution  he  spe- 


Absolution.  485 

cializes  the  universal  fact  of  the  love  of  God  to  those  who 
are  listening  then  and  there,  saying,  "  The  love  pf  God  the 
Absolver  I  authoritatively  proclaim  to  be  yours" 

In  the  service  for  the  visitation  of  the  sick,  the  Church  of 
England  puts  into  the  lips  of  her  ministers  words  quite  un 
conditional:  "I  absolve  thee  from  all  thy  sins."  You  know 
that  passage  is  constantly  objected  to  as  Romish  and  super- 
stitious, I  would  not  give  up  that  precious  passage.  I  love 
the  Church  of  England,  because  she  has  dared  to  claim  her 
inheritance — because  she  has  courage  to  assert  herself  as 
what  she  ought  to  be — God's  representative  on  earth.  She 
says  to  her  minister,  Stand  there  before  a  darkened  spirit,  on 
whom  the  shadows  of  death  have  begun  to  fall :  in  human 
flesh  and  blood  representing  the  Invisible — with  words  of 
human  love  making  credible  the  love  eternal.  Say  boldly,  I 
am  here  to  declare  not  a  perhaps,  but  a  fact.  I  forgive  thee 
in  the  name  of  humanity.  And  so  far  as  humanity  represents 
Deity,  that  forgiveness  is  a  type  of  God's.  She  does  not  put 
into  her  ministers'  lips  words  of  incantation.  He  can  not 
bless  whom  God  has  not  blessed — he  can  not  curse  whom 
God  has  not  cursed.  If  the  Son  of  Absolution  be  there,  his 
absolution  will  rest.  If  you  have  ever  tried  the  slow  and 
apparently  hopeless  task  of  ministering  to  a  heart  diseased, 
and  binding  up  the  wound  that  will  bleed  afresh,  to  which  no 
assurances  can  give  comfort,  because  they  are  not  authorita- 
tive, it  must  have  crossed  your  mind  that  such  a  power  as 
that  which  the  Church  of  England  claims,  if  it  were  believed, 
is  exactly  the  remedy  you  want.  You  must  have  felt  that 
even  the  formula  of  the  Church  of  Rome  would  be  a  blessed 
power  to  exercise,  could  it  but  once  be  accepted  as  a  pledge 
that  all  the  past  was  obliterated,  and  that  from  that  moment 
a  free  untainted  future  lay  before  the  soul — you  must  have 
felt  that ;  you  must  have  wished  you  had  dared  to  say  it. 
My  whole  spirit  has  absolved  my  erring  brother.  Is  God 
less  merciful  than  I  ?  Can  I — dare  I — say  or  think  it  condi- 
tionally ?  Dare  I  say,  I  hope  ?  May  I  not,  must  I  not,  say, 
I  know  God  has  forgiven  you? 

Every  man  whose  heart  has  truly  bled  over  another's  sin, 
and  watched  another's  remorse  with  pangs  as  sharp  as  if  the 
crime  had  been  his  own,  has  said  it.  Every  parent  has  said 
it  who  ever  received  back  a  repentant  daughter,  and  opened 
out  for  her  a  new  hope  for  life.  Every  mother  has  said  it 
who  ever,  by  her  hope  against  hope  for  some  profligate,  pro- 
tested for  a  love  deeper  and  wider  than  that  of  society. 
Every  man  has  said  it  who  forgave  a  deep  wrong.  See,  then, 
why  and  how  the  Church  absolves.  She  only  exercises  that 


486  Absolution. 

power  which  belongs  to  every  son  of  man.  If  society  were 
Christian — -^f  society,  by  its  forgiveness  and  its  exclusion, 
truly  represented  the  mind  of  God — there  would  be  no  ne- 
cessity for  a  Church  to  speak ;  but  the  absolution  of  society 
and  the  world  does  not  represent  by  any  means  God's  for« 
giveness.  Society  absolves  those  whom  God  has  not  ab- 
solved— the  proud,  the  selfish,  the  strong,  the  seducer ;  so- 
ciety refuses  return  and  acceptance  to  the  seduced,  the  frail, 
and  the  sad  penitent  whom  God  has  accepted ;  therefore  it 
is  necessary  that  a  selected  body,  through  its  appointed  or- 
gans, should  do  in  the  name  of  man  what  man,  as  such,  does 
not.  The  Church  is  the  ideal  of  humanity.  It  represents 
what  God  intended  man  to  be — what  man  is  in  God's  sight 
as  beheld  in  Christ  by  Him ;  and  the  minister  of  the  Church 
speaks  as  the  representative  of  that  ideal  humanity.  Church 
absolution  is  an  eternal  protest,  in  the  name  of  God  the  Ab- 
solver,  against  the  false  judgments  of  society. 

One  thing  more  :  beware  of  making  this  a  dead  formula. 
If  absolution  be  not  a  living  truth  it  becomes  a  monstrous 
falsehood  ;  if  you  take  absolution  as  a  mystical  gift  conveyed 
to  an  individual  man  called  a  priest,  and  mysteriously  effica- 
cious in  his  lips,  and  his  alone,  you  petrify  a  truth  into  death 
and  unreality.  I  have  been  striving  to  show  that  absolution 
is  not  a  Church  figment,  invented  by  priestcraft,  but  a  living, 
blessed,  human  power.  It  is  a  power  delegated  to  you  and 
to  me,  and  just  so  far  as  we  exercise  it  lovingly  and  wisely, 
in  our  lives,  and  with  our  lips,  we  help  men  away  from  sin  : 
just  so  far  as  we  do  not  exercise  it,  or  exercise  it  falsely,  we 
drive  men  to  Rome.  For  if  the  heart  can  not  have  a  truth 
it  will  take  a  counterfeit  of  truth.  By  every  magnanimous 
act,  by  every  free  forgiveness  with  which  a  pure  man  for- 
gives, or  pleads  for  mercy,  or  assures  the  penitent,  he  pro- 
claims this  truth,  that  "  the  Son  of  Man  hath  power  on  earth 
to  forgive  sins  " — he  exhibits  the  priestly  power  of  humanity 
— he  does  absolve ;  let  theology  say  what  it  will  of  absolu- 
tion, he  gives  peace  to  the  conscience — he  is  a  type  and  as- 
eurance  of  what  God  is — he  breaks  the  chains  and  lets  the 
captive  go  free. 


The  Illusiveness  of  Life.  487 


VI. 
THE  ILLUSIVENESS  OF  LIFE. 

"By  faith  Abraham,  when  he  was  called  to  go  out  into  a  place  which  ht 
should  after  receive  for  an  inheritance,  obeyed  ;  and  he  went  out,  not  know- 
ing whither  he  went.  By  faith  he  sojourned  in  the  land  of  promise,  as  in  a 
strange  country,  dwelling  in  tabernacles  with  Isaac  and  Jacob,  the  heirs  with 
him  of  the  same  promise:  for  he  looked  for  a  city  which  hath  foundations, 
whose  builder  and  maker  is  God." — Heb.  xi.  8-10. 

LAST  Sunday  we  touched  upon  a  thought  which  deserves 
further  development.  God  promised  Canaan  to  Abraham, 
and  yet  Abraham  never  inherited  Canaan :  to  the  last  he  was 
a  wanderer  there  ;  he  had  no  possession  of  his  own  in  its  ter- 
ritory ;  if  he  wanted  even  a  tomb  to  bury  his  dead,  he  could 
only  obtain  it  by  purchase.  This  difficulty  is  expressly  ad- 
mitted in  the  text,  "  In  the  land  of  promise  he  sojourned  as 
in  a  strange  country ;"  he  dwelt  there  in  tents — in  changeful, 
movable  tabernacles — not  permanent  habitations ;  he  had  no 
home  there. 

It  is  stated  in  all  its  startling  force,  in  terms  still  more  ex- 
plicit, in  the  7th  chapter  of  the  Acts,  5th  verse,  "And  He 
gave  him  none  inheritance  in  it,  no,  not  so  much  as  to  set  his 
foot  on  :  yet  He  promised  that  He  would  give  it  to  him  for  a 
possession,  and  to  his  seed  after  him,  when  as  yet  he  had  no 
child." 

Now  the  surprising  point  is  that  Abraham,  deceived,  as 
you  might  almost  say,  did  not  complain  of  it  as  a  deception ; 
he  was  even  grateful  for  the  non-fulfillment  of  the  promise : 
he  does  not  seem  to  have  expected  its  fulfillment ;  he  did  not 
look  for  Canaan,  but  for  "  a  city  which  had  foundations ;"  his 
faith  appears  to  have  consisted  in  disbelieving  the  letter,  al- 
most as  much  as  in  believing  the  spirit  of  the  promise. 

And  herein  lies  a  principle,  which,  rightly  expounded,  can 
help  us  to  interpret  this  life  of  ours.  God's  promises  never 
are  fulfilled  in  the  sense  in  which  they  seem  to  have  been 
given.  Life  is  a  deception ;  its  anticipations,  which  are  God's 
promises  %to  the  imagination,  are  never  realized;  they  who 
know  life  best,  and  have  trusted  God  most  to  fill  it  with 
blessings,  are  ever  the  first  to  say  that  life  is  a  series  of  dis- 
appointments. And  in  the  spirit  of  this  text  we  have  to  say 
that  it  is  a  wise  and  merciful  arrangement  which  ordains  it 
thus. 


488  The  Illusiveness  of  Life. 

The  wise  and  holy  do  not  expect  to  find  it  otherwise- 
would  not  wish  it  otherwise  ;  their  wisdom  consists  in  disbe- 
lieving its  promises.  To  develop  this  idea  would  be  a  glori- 
ous task ;  for  to  justify  God's  ways  to  man,  to  expound  the 
mysteriousness  of  our  present  being,  to  interpret  God — is  not 
this  the  very  essence  of  the  ministerial  office  ?  All  that  I 
can  hope,  however,  to-day,  is  not  to  exhaust  the  subject  but 
to  furnish  hints  for  thought.  Over-statements  may  be  made, 
illustrations  may  be  inadequate,  the  new  ground  of  an  almost 
untrodden  subject  may  be  torn  up  too  rudely ;  but  remem- 
ber, we  are  here  to  live  and  die ;  in  a  few  years  it  will  be  all 
over ;  meanwhile,  what  we  have  to  do  is  to  try  to  under- 
stand, and  to  help  one  another  to  understand,  what  it  all 
means — what  this  strange  and  contradictory  thing,  which 
we  call  life,  contains  within  it.  Do  not  stop  to  ask,  there- 
fore, whether  the  subject  was  satisfactorily  worked  out ;  let 
each  man  be  satisfied  to  have  received  a  germ  of  thought 
which  he  may  develop  better  for  himself. 

I.  The  deception  of  life's  promise. 
II.  The  meaning  of  that  deception. 

Let  it  be  clearly  understood,  in  the  first  place,  the  promise 
never  was  fulfilled.  I  do  not  say  the  fulfillment  was  delay- 
ed. I  say  it  never  was  fulfilled.  Abraham  had  a  few  feet 
of  earth,  obtained  by  purchase — beyond  that  nothing ;  he 
died  a  stranger  and  a  pilgrim  in  the  land.  Isaac  had  a  little. 
So  small  was  Jacob's  hold  upon  his  country  that  the  last 
years  of  his  life  were  spent  in  Egypt,  and  he  died  a  foreigner 
in  a  strange  land.  His  descendants  came  into  the  land  of 
Canaan,  expecting  to  find  it  a  land  flowing  with  milk  and 
honey ;  they  found  hard  work  to  do — war  and  unrest,  in- 
stead of  rest  and  peace. 

During  one  brief  period,  in  the  history  of  Israel,  the  prom- 
ise may  seem  to  have  been  fulfilled.  It  was  during  the  later 
years  of  David  and  the  earlier  years  of  Solomon ;  but  we 
have  the  warrant  of  Scripture  itself  for  affirming,  that  even 
then  the  promise  was  not  fulfilled.  In  the  Book  of  Psalms, 
David  speaks  of  a  hope  of  entering  into  &  future  rest.  The 
writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  quoting  this  passage, 
infers  from  "it  that  God's  promise  had  not  been  exhausted 
nor  fulfilled  by  the  entrance  into  Canaan  ;  for  he  says, "  If 
Joshua  had  given  them  rest,  then  would  he  not  have  spoken 
of  another  day."  Again,  in  this  very  chapter,  after  a  long 
list  of  Hebrew  saints — "  These  all  died  in  faith,  not  having 
received  the  promises."  To  none  therefore  had  the  promise 
been  fulfilled.  Accordingly  writers  on  prophecy,  in  order  tc 


The  Illusiveness  of  Life.  489 

get  over  this  difficulty,  take  for  granted  that  there  must  be 
a  future  fulfillment,  because  the  first  was  inadequate. 

They  who  believe  that  the  Jews  will  be  restored  to  their 
native  land,  expect  it  on  the  express  ground  that  Canaan 
has  never  been  actually  and  permanently  theirs.  A  certain 
tract  of  country — three  hundred  miles  in  length,  by  two 
hundred  in  breadth — must  be  given,  or  else  they  think  the 
promise  has  been  broken.  To  quote  the  expression  of  one 
of  the  most  eloquent  of  their  writers,  "  If  there  be  nothing 
yet  future  for  Israel,  then  the  magnificence  of  the  promise 
has  been  lost  in  the  poverty  of  its  accomplishment." 

I  do  not  quote  this  to  prove  the  correctness  of  the  inter- 
pretation of  the  prophecy,  but  as  an  acknowledgment  which 
may  be  taken  so  far  as  a  proof  that  the  promise  made  to 
Abraham  has  never  been  accomplished. 

And  such  is  life's  disappointment.  Its  promise  is,  you 
shall  have  a  Canaan  ;  it  turns  out  to  be  a  baseless  airy 
dream — toil  and  warfare — nothing  that  we  can  call  our  own  ; 
not  the  land  of  rest  by  any  means.  But  we  will  examine 
this  in  particulars. 

1.  Our  senses  deceive  us;   we  begin  life  with  delusion. 
Our  senses  deceive  us  with  respect  to  distance,  shape,  and 
color.     That  which  afar  off  seems  oval  turns  out  to  be  circu- 
lar, modified  by  the  perspective  of  distance;  that  which  ap- 
pears a  speck,  upon  nearer  approach  becomes  a  vast  body. 
To  the  earlier  ages  the  stars  presented  the  delusion  of  small 
lamps  hung  in  space.     The  beautiful  berry  proves  to  be  bit- 
ter and  poisonous :  that  which  apparently  moves  is  really  at 
rest:  that  which  seems  to  be  stationary  is  in  perpetual  mo- 
tion :  the  earth  moves :  the  sun  is  still.     All  experience  is  a 
correction  of  life's  delusions — a  modification,  a  reversal  of  the 
judgment  of  the  senses :  and  all  life  is  a  lesson  on  the  false- 
hood of  appearances. 

2.  Our  natural  anticipations  deceive  us — I  say  natural  in 
contradistinction  to  extravagant  expectations.      Every  hu- 
man life  is  a  fresh  one,  bright  with  hopes  that  will  never  be 
realized.     There  may  be  differences   of  character  in   these 
hopes;  finer  spirits  may  look  on  life  as  the  arena  of  success- 
ful deeds,  the  more  selfish  as  a  place  of  personal  enjoyment. 

With  man  the  turning-point  of  life  may  be  a  profession — 
with  woman,  marriage ;  the  one  gilding  the  future  with  the 
triumphs  of  intellect,  the  other  with  the  dreams  of  affeciion ; 
but  in  every  case,  life  is  not  what  any  of  them  expects,  but 
something  else.  It  would  almost  seem  a  satire  on  existence 
to  compare  the  youth  in  the  outset  of  his  career,  flushed  and 
sanguine,  with  the  aspect  of  the  same  being  when  it  is  near- 

21* 


490  The  Illusiveness  of  Life. 

ly  done — worn,  sobered,  covered  with  the  dust  of  life,  and 
confessing  that  its  days  have  been  few  and  evil.  Where  is 
the  land  flowing  with  milk  and  honey  ? 

With  our  affections  it  is  still  worse,  because  they  promise 
more.  Man's  affections  are  but  the  tabernacles  of  Canaan — 
the  tents  of  a  night ;  not  permanent  habitations  even  for  this 
life.  Where  are  the  charms  of  character,  the  perfection,  and 
the  purity,  and  the  truthfulness,  which  seemed  so  resplendent 
in  our  friend  ?  They  were  only  the  shape  of  our  own  con- 
ceptions— our  creative  shaping  intellect  projected  its  own 
fantasies  on  him :  and  hence  we  outgrow  our  early  friend- 
ships ;  outgrow  the  intensity  of  all :  we  dwell  in  tents ;  we 
never  find  a  home,  even  in  the  land  of  promise.  Life  is  an 
unenjoyable  Canaan,  with  nothing  real  or  substantial  in  it. 

3.  Our  expectations,  resting  on  revelation,  deceive  us. 
The  world's  history  has  turned  round  two  points  of  hope ; 
one,  the  first — the  other,  the  second  coming  of  the  Messiah. 
The  magnificent  imagery  of  Hebrew  prophecy  had  described 
the  advent  of  the  Conqueror;  He  came — "a  root  out  of  a 
dry  ground,  with  no  form  or  comeliness:  and  when  they  saw 
Him  there  was  no  beauty  in  Him  that  they  should  desire 
Him."  The  victory,  predicted  in  such  glowing  terms,  turned 
out  to  be  the  victory  of  submission — the  law  of  our  hu- 
manity, which  wins  by  gentleness  and  love.  The  promise 
in  the  letter  was  unfulfilled.  For  ages  the  world's  hope  has 
been  the  second  advent.  The  early  church  expected  it  in 
their  own  day.  "  We,  \vhich  are  alive,  and  remain  until  the 
coming  of  our  Lord." 

The  Saviour  Himself  had  said,  "  This  generation  shall 
not  pass  till  all  things  be  fulfilled."  Yet  the  Son  of  Man  has 
never  come ;  or  rather,  He  has  been  ever  coming.  Unnum- 
bered times  the  judgment-eagles  have  gathered  together 
over  corruption  ripe  for  condemnation.  Times  innumerable 
the  separation  has  been  made  between  good  and  bad.  The 
promise  has  not  been  fulfilled,  or  it  has  been  fulfilled,  but 
in  either  case  anticipation  has  been  foiled  and  disappointed.- 

There  are  two  ways  of  considering  this  aspect  of  life. 
One  is  the  way  of  sentiment ;  the  other  is  the  way  of  faith. 
The  sentimental  way  is  trite  enough.  Saint,  sage,  sophist, 
moralist,  and  preacher,  have  repeated  in  every  possible 
image,  till  there  is  nothing  new  to  say,  that  life  is  a  bubble, 
a  dream,  a  delusion,  a  phantasm.  The  other  is  the  way  of 
faith:  the  ancient  saints  ielt  as  keenly  as  any  moralist  could 
feel  the  brokenness  of  its  promises ;  they  confessed  that  they 
were  strangers  and  pilgrims  here ;  they  said  that  they  had 
here  no  continuing  city ;  but  they  did  not  mournfully  moralize 


The  Illusiveness  of  Life.  491 

on  this ;  they  said  it  cheerfully,  and  rejoiced  that  it  was  so. 
They  i'elt  that  all  was  right ;  they  knew  that  the  promise 
itself  had  a  deeper  meaning :  they  looked  undauntedly  for 
"  a  city  which  hath  foundations." 

II.  The  second  inquiry,  therefore,  is  the  meaning  of  this 
delusiveness. 

1.  It  serves  to  allure  us  on.  Suppose  that  a  spiritual, 
promise  had  been  made  at  first  to  Israel ;  imagine  that  they 
had  been  informed  at  the  outset  that  God's  rest  is  inward ; 
that  the  promised  land  is  only  found  in  the  Jerusalem  which 
is  above — not  material,  but  immaterial.  That  rude,  gross 
people,  yearning  after  the  fleshpots  of  Egypt — willing  to  go 
back  into  slavery,  so  as  only  they  might  have  enough  to  eat 
and  drink — would  they  have  quitted  Egypt  on  such  terms  ? 
Would  they  have  begun  one  single  step  of  that  pilgrimage 
which  was  to  find  its  meaning  in  the  discipline  of  ages  ? 

We  are  led  through  life  as  we  are  allured  upon  a  journey. 
Could  a  man  see  his  route  before  him — a  flat,  straight  road, 
unbroken  by  bush,  or  tree,  or  eminence,  with  the  sun's  heat 
burning  down  upon  it,  stretched  out  in  dreary  monotony — 
he  could  scarcely  find  energy  to  begin  his  task ;  but  the  un- 
certainty of  what  may  be  seen  beyond  the  next  turn  keeps 
expectation  alive.  The  view  that  may  be  seen  from  yonder 
summit — the  glimpse  that  may  be  caught,  perhaps,  as  the 
road  winds  round  yonder  knoll — hopes  like  these,  not  far 
distant,  beguile  the  traveller  on  from  mile  to  mile,  and  from 
league  to  league. 

In  fact,  life  is  an  education.  The  object  for  which  you 
educate  your  son  is  to  give  him  strength  of  purpose,  self- 
command,  discipline  of  mental  energies  ;  but  you  do  not  re- 
veal to  your  son  this  aim  of  his  education  ;  you  tell  him  of 
his  place  in  his  class,  of  the  prizes  at  the  end  of  the  year,  of 
the  honors  to  be  given  at  college. 

These  are  not  the  true  incentives  to  knowledge ;  such  in- 
centives are  not  the  highest — they  are  even  mean,  and  par- 
tially injurious  ;  yet  these  mean  incentives  stimulate  and 
lead  on,  from  day  to  day  and  from  year  to  year,  by  a  process 
the  principle  of  which  the  boy  himself  is  not  aware  o£  So 
does  God  lead  on,  through  life's  unsatisfying  and  false  re- 
ward, ever  educating  :  Canaan  first ;  then  the  hope  of  a  Re- 
deemer ;  then  the  millennial  glory. 

Now  what  is  remarkable  in  this  is,  'that  the  delusion 
continued  to  the  last ;  they  all  died  in  faith^  not  having  re- 
ceived the  promises ;  all  were  hoping  up  to  the  very  last, 
and  all  died  in  faith,  not  in  realization  j  for  thus  God  has 


49 2  The  Illusiveness  of  Life. 

constituted  the  human  heart.  It  never  will  be  believed  that 
this  world  is  unreal.  God  has  mercifully  so  arranged  it,  that 
the  idea  of  delusion  is  incredible.  You  may  tell  the  boy  or 
girl  as  you  will  that  life  is  a  disappointment ;  yet  however 
you  may  persuade  them  to  adopt  your  tone,  and  catch  the 
language  of  your  sentiment,  they  are  both  looking  forward 
ito  some  bright  distant  hope — the  rapture  of  the  next  vaca- 
tion, or  the  unknown  joys  of  the  next  season — and  throwing 
into  it  an  energy  of  expectation  which  only  a  whole  eternity 
is  worth.  YoiMnay  tell  the  man  who  has  received  the  heart- 
shock  from  which  in  this  world  he  will  not  recover,  that  life 
has  nothing  left ;  yet  the  stubborn  heart  still  hopes  on,  ever 
near  the  prize — "  wealthiest  when  most  undone  :"  he  has 
reaped  the  whirlwind,  but  he  will  go  on  still,  till  life  is  over, 
sowing  the  wind. 

Now  observe  the  beautiful  result  which  comes  from  this 
indestructible  power  of  believing  in  spite  of  failure.  In  the 
first  centuries,  the  early  Christians  believed  that  the  millen- 
nial advent  was  close;  they  heard  the  warning  of  the  apos- 
tle, brief  and  sharp,  "The  time  is  short."  Now  suppose 
that,  instead  of  this,  they  had  seeu  all  the  dreary  page  of 
Church  history  unrolled  ;  suppose  that  they  had  known  that 
after  two  thousand  years  the  world  would  have  scarcely 
spelled  out  three  letters  of  the  meaning  of  Christianity, 
where  would  have  been  those  gigantic  efforts,  that  life  spent 
as  on  the  very  brink  of  eternity,  which  characterize  the  days 
of  the  early  Church,  and  which  was,  after  all,  only  the  true 
life  of  man  in  time  ?  It  is  thus  that  God  has  led  on  His 
world.  He  has  conducted  it  as  a  father  leads  his  child,  when 
the  path  homeward  lies  over  many  a  dreary  league.  He 
suffers  him  to  beguile  the  thought  of  time,  by  turning  aside 
to  pluck  now  and  then  a  flower,  to  chase  now  a  butterfly ; 
the  butterfly  is  crushed,  the  flower  fades,  but  the  child  is 
so  much  nearer  home,  invigorated  and  full  of  health,  and 
scarcely  wearied  yet. 

2.  This  non-fulfillment  of  promise  fulfills  it  in  a  deeper 
way.  The  account  we  have  given  already,  were  it  to  end 
there,  would  be  insufficient  to  excuse  the  failure  of  life's 
promise ;  by  saying  that  it  allures  us  would  be  really  to 
charge  God  with  deception.  Now  life  is  not  deception, 
but  illusion.  We  distinguish  between  illusion  and  delusion. 
We  may  paint  wood  so  as  to  be  taken  for  stone,  iron,  or 
marble ;  this  is  delusion  :  but  you  may  paint  a  picture,  in 
which  rocks,  trees,  and  sky  are  never  mistaken  for  what 
they  seem,  yet  produce  all  the  emotion  which  real  rocks, 
trees,  and  sky  would  produce.  This  is  illusion,  and  this 


The  Illusiveness  of  Life.  493 

is  the  painter's  art :  never  for  one  moment  to  deceive  by  at- 
tempted imitation,  but  to  produce  a  mental  state  in  which  the 
feelings  are  suggested  which  the  natural  objects  themselves 
would  create.  Let  us  take  an  instance  drawn  from  life. 

To  a  child  a  rainbow  is  a  real  thing — substantial  and  pal- 
pable ;  its  limb  rests  on  the  side  of  yonder  hill ;  he  believes 
that  he  can  appropriate  it  to  himself;  and  when,  instead  of 
gems  and  gold  hid  in  its  radiant  bow,  he  finds  nothing  but 
damp  mist,  cold,  dreary  drops  of  disappointment — that  dis- 
appointment tells  that  his  belief  has  been  delusion. 

To  the  educated  man  that  bow  is  a  blessed  illusion,  yet  it 
never  once  deceives  ;  he  does  not  take  it  for  what  it  is  not ; 
he  does  not  expect  to  make  it  his  own ;  he  feels  its  beauty 
as  much  as  the  child  could  feel  it,  nay  infinitely  more — more 
even  from  the  fact  that  he  knows  that  it  will  be  transient ; 
but  besides  and  beyond  this,  to  him  it  presents  a  deeper 
loveliness  ;  he  knows  the  laws  of  light,  and  the  laws  of  the 
human  soul  which  gave  it  being.  He  has  linked  it  with  the 
laws  of  the  universe,  and  with  the  invisible  mind  of  God ; 
and  it  brings  to  him  a  thrill  of  awe,  and  the  sense  of  a  mys- 
terious, nameless  beauty,  of  which  the  child  did  not  con- 
ceive. It  is  illusion  still ;  but  it  has  fulfilled  the  promise. 
In  the  realm  of  spirit,  in  the  temple  of  the  soul,  it  is  the 
same.  All  is  illusion ;  "  but  we  look  for  a  city  which  hath 
foundations  ;"  and  in  this  the  promise  is  fulfilled. 

And  such  was  Canaan  to  the  Israelites.  To  some,  doubt- 
less, it  was  delusion.  They  expected  to  find  their  reward  in 
a  land  of  milk  and  honey.  They  were  bitterly  disappointed, 
and  expressed  their  disappointment  loudly  enough  in  their 
murmurs  against  Moses,  and  their  rebellion  against  his  suc- 
cessors. But  to  others,  as  to  Abraham,  Canaan  was  the 
bright  illusion  which  never  deceived,  but  forever  shone  be- 
fore as  the  type  of  something  more  real.  And  even  taking 
the  promise  literally,  though  they  built  in  tents,  and  could 
not  call  a  foot  of  land  their  own,  was  not  its  beauty  theirs  ? 
Were  not  its  trellised  vines,  and  glorious  pastures,  and  rich 
olive-fields,  ministers  to  the  enjoyment  of  those  who  had  all 
in  God,  though  its  milk,  and  oil,  and  honey,  could  not  be  en- 
joyed with  exclusiveness  of  appropriation  ?  Yet  over  and 
above  and  beyond  this,  there  was  a  more  blessed  fulfillment 
of  the  promise  ;  there  was  "  a  city  which  had  foundations" 
— built  and  made  by  God — towards  which  the  anticipation 
of  this  Canaan  was  leading  them.  The  kingdom  of  God  was 
forming  in  their  souls,  forever  disappointing  them  by  the  un- 
real, and  teaching  them  that  what  is  spirituals  and  belongs 
to  mind  and  character,  alone  can  be  eternal. 


494  The  Iliusiveness  of  Life. 

We  will  illustrate  this  principle  from  the  common  walks 
of  life.  The  principle  is,  that  the  reward  we  get  is  not  the 
reward  for  which  we  worked,  but  a  deeper  one ;  deeper  and 
more  permanent.  The  merchant  labors  all  his  life,  and  the 
hope  which  leads  him  on  is  perhaps  wealth  :  well,  at  sixty 
years  of  age  he  attains  wealth  ;  is  that  the  reward  of  sixty 
years  of  toil  ?  Ten  years  of  enjoyment,  when  the  senses  can 
enjoy  no  longer — a  country-seat,  splendid  plate,  a  noble  es- 
tablishment ?  Oh,  no !  a  reward  deeper  than  he  dreamed 
of — habits  of  perseverance  :  a  character  trained  by  indus- 
try: that  is  his  reward.  He  was  carried  on  from  year  to 
year  by,  if  he  were  wise,  illusion ;  if  he  were  unwise,  delu- 
sion ;  but  he  reaped  a  more  enduring  substance-  in  himself. 

Take  another  instance  :  the  public  man,  warrior,  or  states- 
man, who  has  served  his  country,  and  complains  a,t  last,  in 
bitter  disappointment,  that  his  country  has  not  fulfilled  his 
expectations  in  rewarding  him — that  is,  it  has  not  given  him 
titles,  honors,  wealth.  But  titles,  honors,  wealth — are  these 
the  rewards  of  well-doing?  can  they  reward  it  ?  would  it  be 
well-doing  if  they  could  ?  To  be  such  a  man,  to  have  the 
power  of  doing  such  deeds,  what  could  be  added  to  that  re- 
ward by  having?  This  same  apparent  contradiction,  which 
was  found  in  Judaism,  subsists  too  in  Christianity ;  we  will 
state  it  in  the  words  of  an  apostle  :  "  Godliness  is  profitable 
for  all  things  ;  having  the  promise  of  the  life  that  now  is,  as 
well  as  of  that  which  is  to  come."  Now  for  the  fulfillment : 
"  If  in  this  life  only  we  have  hope  in  Christ,  then  are  we  of 
all  men  most  miserable." 

Godliness  is  profitable  ;  but  its  profit,  it  appears,  consists  in 
finding  that  all  is  loss :  yet  in  this  way  you  teach  your  son. 
You  will  tell  him  that  if  he  will  be  good  all  men  will  love 
him.  You  say  that  "  Honesty  is  the  best  policy,"  yet  in 
your  heart  of  hearts  you  know  that  you  are  leading  him  on 
by  a  delusion.  Christ  was  good.  Was  he  loved  by  all?  In 
proportion  as  he,  your  son,  is  like  Christ,  he  will  be  loved, 
not  by  the  many,  but  by  the  few.  Honesty  is  not  the  best 
policy;  the  commonplace  honesty  of  the  market-place  may 
be — the  vulgar  honesty  which  goes  no  farther  than  paying 
debts  accurately  ;  but  that  transparent  Christian  honesty  of 
a  life  which  in  every  act  is  bearing  witness  to  the  truth,  that 
is  not  the  way  to  get  on  in  life — the  reward  of  such  a  life  is 
the  cross.  Yet  you  were  right  in  teaching  your  son  this: 
you  told  him  what  was  true ;  truer  than  he  could  compre- 
hend. It  is  better  to  be  honest  and  good;  better  than 
he  can  know  or  dream  :  better  even  in  this  life ;  better  by  so 
much  as  being  good  is  better  than  having  good.  But,  in  a 


The  Sacrifice  of  Christ.  495 

rade  coarse  way,  you  must  express  the  blessedness  on  a  level 
with  his  capacity;  you  must  state  the  truth  in  a  way 
which  he  will  inevitably  interpret  falsely.  The  true  inter- 
pretation nothing  but  experience  can  teach. 

And  this  is  what  God  does.  His  promises  are  true,  though 
illusive;  far  truer  than  we  at  first  take  them  to  be.  We 
work  for  a  mean,  low,  sensual  happiness,  all  the  while  He  is 
leading  us  on  to  a  spiritual  blessedness,  unfathomably  deep. 
This  is  the  life  of  faith.  We  live  by  faith,  and  not  by  sight 
We  do  not  preach  that  all  is  disappointment — the  dreary 
creed  of  sentimentalism  ;  but  we  preach  that  nothing  here  is 
disappointment,  if  rightly  understood.  We  do  not  comfort 
the  poor  man,  by  saying  that  the  riches  that  he  has  not  now 
he  will  have  hereafter — the  difference  between  himself  and 
the  man  of  wealth  being  only  this,  that  the  one  has  for  time 
what  the  other  will  have  for  eternity ;  but  what  we  say  is, 
'that  that  which  you  have  failed  in  reaping  here  you  never 
will  reap,  if  you  expected  the  harvest  of  Canaan.  God  has 
no  Canaan  for  His  own ;  no  milk  and  honey  for  the  luxury 
of  the  senses :  for  the  city  which  hath  foundations  is  built  in 
the  soul  of  man.  He  in  whom  Godlike  character  dwells  has 
all  the  universe  for  his  own — "All  things,"  saith.  the  apostle, 
"  are  yours ;  whether  life  or  death,  or  things  present,  or 
things  to  come ;  if  ye  be  Christ's,  then  are  ye  Abraham's 
Heed,  and  heirs  according  to  the  promise." 


VII. 
THE  SACRIFICE  OF  CHRIST. 

"  For  the  love  of  Christ  constraineth  us :  because  we  thus  judge,  that  if 
one  died  for  all,  then  were  all  dead  :  and  that  he  died  for  all,  that  they  which 
live  should  not  henceforth  live  unto  themselves,  but  unto  him  which  died  for 
them,  and  rose  again." — 2  Cor.  v.  14,  15. 

IT  may  be,  that  in  reading  these  verses  some  of  us  have 
understood  them  in  a  sense  foreign  to  that  of  the  apostle, 
It  may  have  seemed  that  the  arguments  ran  thus — Because 
Christ  died  upon  the  cross  for  all,  therefore  all  must  have 
been  in  a  state  of  spiritual  death  before ;  and  if  they  were 
asked  what  doctrines  are  to  be  elicited  from  this  passao,\, 
they  would  reply,  "  the  doctrine  of  universal  depravity,  and 
the  constraining  power  of  the  gratitude  due  to  Him  who 
died  to  redeem  us  from  it."  There  is,  however,  in  the  first 
place,  this  fatal  objection  to  such  an  interpretation,  that  the 


496  The  Sacrifice  of  Christ. 

death  here  spoken  of  is  used  in  two  diametrically  opposite 
senses.  In  reference  to  Christ,  death  literal — in  reference  to 
all,  death  spiritual.  Now,  in  the  thought  of  St.  Paul,  the 
death  of  Christ  was  always  viewed  as  liberation  from  the 
power  of  evil :  "  in  that  He  died,  He  died  unto  sin  once,"  and 
again, "  he  that  is  dead  is  free  from  sin."  The  literal  death, 
then,  in  one  clause,  means  freedom  from  sin  ;  the  spiritual 
death  of  the  next  is  slavery  to  it.  Wherein,  then,  lies  the  co- 
gency of  the  apostle's  reasoning  ?  How  does  it  follow  that 
because  Christ  died  to  evil,  all  before  that  must  have  died  to 
God  ?  Of  course  that  doctrine  is  true  in  itself,  but  it  is  not 
the  doctrine  of  the  text. 

In  the  next  place,  the  ambiguity  belongs  only  to  the  Eng- 
lish word — it  is  impossible  to  make  the  mistake  in  the  orig- 
inal :  the  word  which  stands  for  were,  is  a  word  which  does 
not  imply  a  continued  state,  but  must  imply  a  single  finish- 
ed act.  It  can  not  by  any  possibility  imply  that  before  the 
death  of  Christ  men  were  in  a  state  of  death — it  can  only 
mean,  they  became  dead  at  the  moment  when  Christ  died. 
If  you  read  it  thus,  the  meaning  of  the  English  will  emerge 
— "  if  one  died  for  all,  then  all  died  ;"  and  the  apostle's  ar- 
gument runs  thus,  that  if  one  acts  as  the  representative  of 
all,  then  his  act  is  the  act  of  all.  If  the  ambassador  of  a  na- 
tion makes  reparation  in  a  nation's  name,  or  does  homage  for 
a  nation,  that  reparation,  or  that  homage,  is  the  nation's  act 
— if  one  did  it  for  all,  then  all  did  it.  So  that  instead  of  in- 
ferring that  because  Christ  died  for  all,  therefore  before  that 
all  were  dead  to  God,  his  natural  inference  is  that  therefore 
all  are  now  dead  to  sin. 

Once  more,  the  conclusion  of  the  apostle  is  exactly  the  re- 
verse of  that  which  this  interpretation  attributes  to  him :  he 
does  not  say  that  Christ  died  in  order  that  men  might  not 
die,  but  exactly  for  this  very  purpose,  that  they  might  die ; 
and  this  death  he  represents  in  the  next  verse  by  an  equiva- 
lent expression — the  life  of  unselfishness :  "that  they  which 
live  might  henceforth  live  not  unto  themselves."  The 
"  dead "  of  the  first  verse  are  "  they  that  live "  of  the  sec- 
ond. 

The  form  of  thought  finds  its  exact  parallel  in  Romans  vi. 
10, 11.  Two  points  claim  our  attention  : 

I.  The  vicarious  sacrifice  of  Christ. 
IL  The  influence  of  that  sacrifice  on  man. 

I.  The  vicariousness  of  the  sacrifice  is  implied  in  the  word 
"for."  A  vicarious  act  is  an  act  done  for  another.  When 
the  Pope  calls  himself  the  vicar  of  Christ,  he  implies  that  he 


The  Sacrifice  of  Christ.  497 

acts  for  Christ.  The  vicar  or  viceroy  of  a  kingdom  is  one 
who  acts  for  the  king — a  vicar's  act,  therefore,  is  virtually 
the  act  of  the  principal  whom  he  represents ;  so  that  if  the 
Papal  doctrine  were  true,  when  the  vicar  of  Christ  pardons, 
Christ  has  pardoned.  When  the  viceroy  of  a  kingdom  has 
published  a  proclamation  or  signed  a  treaty,  the  sovereign 
himself  is  bound  by  those  acts. 

The  truth  of  the  expression  for  all,  is  contained  in  this 
fact,  that  Christ  is  the  representative  of  humanity — properly 
speaking,  the  representative  of  human  nature.  This  is  the 
truth  contained  in  the  emphatic  expression,  "  Son  of  Man." 
What  Christ  did  for  humanity  was  done  by  humanity,  be- 
cause in  the  name  of  humanity.  For  a  truly  vicarious  act 
does  not  supersede  the  principal's  duty  of  performance,  but 
rather  implies  and  acknowledges  it.  Take  the  case  from 
which  this  very  word  of  vicar  has  received  its  origin.  In 
the  old  monastic  times,  when  the  revenues  of  a  cathedral  or 
a  cure  fell  to  the  lot  of  a  monastery,  it  became  the  duty  of 
that  monastery  to  perform  the  religious  services  of  the  cure. 
But  inasmuch  as  the  monastery  was  a  corporate  body,  they 
appointed  one  of  their  number,  whom  they  denominated  their 
vicar,  to  discharge  those  offices  for  them.  His  service  did 
not  supersede  theirs,  but  was  a  perpetual  and  standing  ac- 
knowledgment that  they,  as  a  whole  and  individually,  were 
under  the  obligation  to  perform  it.  The  act  of  Christ  is  the 
act  of  humanity — that  which  all  humanity  is  bound  to  do. 
His  righteousness  does  not  supersede  our  righteousness,  nor 
does  His  sacrifice  supersede  our  sacrifice.  It  is  the  repre- 
sentation of  human  life  and  human  sacrifice — vicarious  for 
all,  yet  binding  upon  all. 

That  He  died  for  all  is  true — 

1.  Because  He  was  the  victim  of  the  sin  of  all.  In  the  pe- 
culiar phraseology  of  St.  Paul,  He  died  unto  sin.  He  was 
the  victim  of  sin — He  died  by  sin.  It  is  the  appalling  mys- 
tery of  our  redemption  that  the  Redeemer  took  the  attitude 
of  subjection  to  evil.  There  was  scarcely  a  form  of  evil  with 
which  Christ  did  not  come  in  contact,  and  by  which  He  did 
not  suffer.  He  was  the  victim  of  false  friendship  and  in- 
gratitude, the  victim  of  bad  government  and  injustice.  He 
fell  a  sacrifice  to  the  vices  of  all  classes — to  the  selfishness  of 
the  rich  and  the  fickleness  of  the  poor :  intolerance,  formal 
ism,  skepticism,  hatred  of  goodness,  were  the  foes  which 
crushed  Him. 

In  the  proper  sense  of  the  word  He  was  a  victim.  He  did 
not  adroitly  wind  through  the  dangerous  forms  of  evil,  meet- 
ing it  with  expedient  silence.  Face  to  face,  and  front  to 


498  The  Sacrifice  of  Christ. 

front,  He  met  it,  rebuked  it,  and  defied  it ;  and  just  as  truly 
as  he  is  a  voluntary  victim  whose  body,  opposing  the  prog' 
ress  of  the  car  of  Juggernaut,  is  crushed  beneath  its  mon- 
strous wheels,  was  He  a  victim  to  the  world's  sin  :  because 
pure,*He  was  crushed  by  impurity;  because  just  and  real 
and  true,  He  waked  up  the  rage  of  injustice,  hypocrisy  and 
falsehood. 

Now  this  sin  was  the  sin  of  all.  Here  arises  at  once  a  dif- 
ficulty :  it  seems  to  be  most  unnatural  to  assert  that  in  any 
one  sense  He  was  the  sacrifice  of  the  sin  of  all.  We  did  not 
betray  Him — that  was  Judas's  act — Peter  denied  Him — 
Thomas  doubted — Pilate  pronounced  sentence — it  must  be  a 
figment  to  say  that  these  were  our  acts ;  we  did  not  watch 
Him  like  the  Pharisees,  nor  circumvent  Him  like  the  Scribes 
and  lawyers  ;  by  what  possible  sophistry  can  we  be  involved 
in  the  complicity  of  that  guilt  ?  The  savage  of  New  Zealand 
who  never  heard  of  Him,  the  learned  Egyptian,  and  the  vo- 
luptuous Assyrian  who  died  before  He  came  ;  how  was  it  the 
sin  of  all  ? 

The  reply  that  is  'often  given  to  this  query  is  wonderfully 
unreal.  It  is  assumed  that  Christ  was  conscious,  by  His 
omniscience,  of  the  sins  of  all  mankind ;  that  the  duplicity 
of  the  child,  and  the  crime  of  the  assassin,  and  every  unholy 
thought  that  has  ever  passed  through  a  human  bosom,  were 
present  to  His  mind  in  that  awful  hour  as  if  they  were  His 
own.  This  is  utterly  unscriptural.  Where  is  the  single  text 
from  which  it  can  be,  except  by  force,  extracted  ?  Besides 
this,  it  is  fanciful  and  sentimental ;  and  again  it  is  dangerous, 
for  it  represents  the  whole  Atonement  as  a  fictitious  and 
shadowy  transaction.  There  is  a  mental  state  in  which  men 
have  felt  the  burden  of  sins  which  they  did  not  commit. 
There  have  been  cases  in  which  men  have  been  mysteriously 
excruciated  with  the  thought  of  having  committed  the  un- 
pardonable sin.  But  to  represent  the  mental  phenomena  of 
the  Redeemer's  mind  as  in  any  way  resembling  this — to  say 
that  His  conscience  was  oppressed  with  the  responsibility  of 
sins  which  He  had  not  committed — is  to  confound  a  state  of 
sanity  with  the  delusions  of  a  half  lucid  mind,  and  the  work- 
ings of  a  healthy  conscience  with  those  of  one  unnatural  and 
morbid. 

There  is  a  way,  however,  much  more  appalling  and  much 
more  true,  in  which  this  may  be  true,  without  resorting  to 
any  such  fanciful  hypothesis.  Sin  has  a  great  power  in  this 
world :  it  gives  laws  like  those  of  a  sovereign,  which  bind  us 
all,  and  to  which  we  are  all  submissive.  There  are  current 
maxims  in  Church  and  State,  in  society,  in  trade,  in  law,  to 


The  Sacrifice  of  Christ,  499 

which  we  yield  obedience.  For  this  obedience  every  one  is 
responsible ;  for  instance,  in  trade,  and  in  the  profession  of 
law,  every  one  is  the  servant  of  practices  the  rectitude  of 
which  his  heart  can  only  half  approve — every  one  complains 
of  them,  yet  all  are  involved  in  them.  Now,  when  such  sins 
reach  their  climax,  as  in  the  case  of  national  bankruptcy  or 
an  unjust  acquittal,  there  may  be  some  who  are  in  a  special 
sense  the  actors  in  the  guilt ;  but  evidently,  for  the  bank- 
ruptcy, each  member  of  the  community  is  responsible  in  that 
degree  and  so  far  as  he  himself  acquiesced  in  the  duplicities 
of  public  dealing  ;  every  careless  juror,  every  unrighteous 
judge,  every  false  witness,  has  done  his  part  in  the  reduction 
of  society  to  that  state  in  which  the  monster  injustice  has 
been  perpetrated.  In  the  riot  of  a  tumultuous  assembly  by 
night,  a  house  may  be  burnt,  or  a  murder  committed  ;  in.  the 
eye  of  the  law,  all  who  are  aiding  and  abetting  there  are 
each  in  his  degree  responsible  for  that  crime ;  there  may  be 
difference  in  guilt,  from  the  degree  in  which  he  is  guilty 
who  with  his  own  hand  perpetrated  the  deed,  to  that  of  him 
who  merely  joined  the  rabble  from  mischievous  curiosity — • 
degrees  from  that  of  willful  murder  to  that  of  more  or  less 
excusable  homicide. 

The  Pharisees  were  declared  by  the  Saviour  to  be  guilty 
of  the  blood  of  Zacharias,  the  blood  of  righteous  Abel,  and 
of  all  the  saints  and  prophets  wrho  fell  before  He  came.  But 
how  were  the  Pharisees  guilty  ?  They  built  the  sepulchres 
of  the  prophets,  they  honored  and  admired  them  ;  but  they 
were  guilty,  in  that  they  were  the  children  of  those  that  slew 
the  prophets ;  children  in  this  sense,  that  they  inherited 
their  spirit,  they  opposed  the  good  in  the  form  in  which  it 
showed  itself  in  their  day,  just  as  their  fathers  opposed  the 
form  displayed  to  theirs ;  therefore  He  said  that  they  belong- 
ed to  the  same  confederacy  of  evil,  and  that  the  guilt  of  the 
blood  of  all  who  had  been  slain  should  rest  on  that  genera 
tion.  Similarly  we  are  guilty  of  the  death  of  Christ.  If 
you  have  been  a  false  friend,  a  skeptic,  a.  cowardly  disciple, 
a  formalist,  selfish,  an  opposer  of  goodness,  an  oppressor, 
whatever  evil  you  have  done,  in  that  degree  and  so  far  you 
participate  in  the  evil  to  which  the  Just  One  fell  a  victim— 
you  are  one  of  that  mighty  rabble  which  cry, "  Crucify  Him  ! 
Crucify  Him  !"  for  your  sin  He  died ;  His  blood  lies  at  your 
threshold. 

Again,  He  died  for  all,  in  that  His  sacrifice  represents 
the  sacrifice  of  all.  We  have  heard  of  the  doctrine  of  "  im- 
puted righteousness ;"  it  is  a  theological  expression  to  which 
meanings  foolish  enough  are  sometimes  attributed,  but  it 


500  The  Sacrifice  of  Christ. 

contains  a  very  deep  truth,  which  it  shall  be  our  endeavof 
to  elicit. 

Christ  is  the  realized  idea  of  our  humanity.  He  is  God's 
idea  of  man  completed.  There  is  every  difference  between 
the  ideal  and  the  actual — between  what  a  man  aims  to  be 
and  what  he  is ;  a  difference  between  the  race  as  it  is,  and 
the  race  as  it  existed  in  God's  creative  idea  when  He  pro- 
nounced it  very  good. 

In  Christ,  therefore,  God  beholds  humanity ;  in  Christ 
He  sees  perfected  every  one  in  whom  Christ's  spirit  exists 
in  germ.  He  to  whom  the  possible  is  actual,  to  wThom  what 
will  be  already  is,  sees  all  things  present,  gazes  on  the  imper- 
fect, and  sees  it  in  its  perfection.  Let  me  venture  an  illus- 
tration. He  who  has  never  seen  the  vegetable  world  except 
in  Arctic  regions,  has  but  a  poor  idea  of  the  majesty  of 
vegetable  life — a  microscopic  red  moss  tinting  the  surface 
of  the  snow,  a  few  stunted  pines,  and  here  and  there  per- 
haps a  dwindled  oak ;  but  to  the  botanist  who  has  seen  the 
luxuriance  of  vegetation  in  its  tropical  magnificence,  all  that 
wretched  scene  presents  another  aspect ;  to  him  those  dwarfs 
are  the  representatives  of  what  might  be,  nay,  what  has  been 
in  a  kindlier  soil  and  a  more  genial  climate ;  he  fills  up  by 
his  conception  the  miserable  actuality  presented  by  these 
shrubs,  and  attributes  to  them — imputes,  that  is,  to  them 
— the  majesty  of  which  the  undeveloped  germ  exists  already. 

Now  the  difference  between  those  trees  seen  in  them- 
selves, and  seen  in  the  conception  of  their  nature's  perfect- 
ness  which  has  been  previously  realized,  is  the  difference 
between  man  seen  in  himself  and  seen  in  Christ.  We  are 
feeble,  dwarfish,  stunted  specimens  of  humanity.  Our  best 
resolves  are  but  withered  branches,  our  holiest  deeds  unripe 
and  blighted  fruit ;  but  to  the  Infinite  Eye,  who  sees  in  the 
perfect  One  the  type  and  assurance  of  that  which  shall  be, 
this  dwindled  humanity  of  ours  is  divine  and  glorious. 
Such  are  we  in  the  sight  of  God  the  Father  as  is  the  very 
Son  of  God  Himself.  This  is  what  theologians,  at  least  the 
wisest  of  them,  meant  by  "  imputed  righteousness."  I  do 
not  mean  that  all  who  have  written  or  spoken  on  the  subject 
had  this  conception  of  it,  but  I  believe  they  who  thought 
truly  meant  this ;  they  did  not  suppose  that  in  imputing 
righteousness  there  wTas  a  kind  of  figment,  a  self-deception 
in  the  mind  of  God  ;  they  did  not  mean  that  by  an  act  of 
will  He  chose  to  consider  that  every  act  which  Christ  did 
was  done  by  us ;  that  He  imputed  or  reckoned  to  us  the 
baptism  in  Jordan  and  the  victory  in  the  wilderness,  and 
.the  agony  in  the  garden,  or  that  He  believed,  or  acted  as  if 


The  Sacrifice  of  Christ.  501 

He  believed,  that  when  Christ  died,  each  one  of  us  died: 
but  He  saw  Humanity  submitted  to  the  law  of  self-sacrifice ; 
in  the  light"  of  that  idea  He  beholds  us  as  perfect,  and  is 
satisfied.  In  this  sense  the  apostle  speaks  of  those  that  are 
imperfect,  yet  "  by  one  offering  He  hath  perfected  forever 
them  that  are  sanctified."  It  is  true,  again,  that  He  died  for 
us,  in  that  we  present  His  sacrifice  as  ours.  The  value  of 
the  death  of  Christ  consisted  in  the  surrender  of  self-will 
In  the  fortieth  Psalm,  the  value  of  every  other  kind  of  sacri- 
fice being  first  denied,  the  words  follow,  "  Then  said  I,  Lo,  I 
come  to  do  thy  will,  O  God."  The  profound  idea  contained, 
therefore,  in  the  death  of  Christ  is  the  duty  of  self-surrender. 

But  in  us  that  surrender  scarcely  deserves  the  name ; 
even  to  use  the  word  self-sacrifice  covers  us  with  a  kind  of 
shame.  Then  it  is  that  there  is  an  almost  boundless  joy  in 
acquiescing  in  the  life  and  death  of  Christ,  recognizing  it  as 
ours,  and  representing  it  to  ourselves  and  God  as  what  we 
aim  at.  If  we  can  not  understand  how  in  this  sense  it  can 
be  a  sacrifice  for  us,  we  may  partly  realize  it  by  remembering 
the  joy  of  feeling  how  art  and  nature  realize  for  us  what  we 
can  "not  realize  for  ourselves.  It  is  recorded  of  one  of  the 
world's  gifted  painters  that  he  stood  before  the  masterpiece 
of  the  great  genius  of  his  age — one  which  he  could  never 
hope  to  equal,  nor  even  rival — and  yet  the  infinite  superi- 
ority, so  far  from  crushing  him,  only  elevated  his  feeling, 
for  he  saw  realized  those  conceptions  which  had  floated 
before  him,  dim  and  unsubstantial;  in  every  line  and  touch 
he  felt  a  spirit  immeasurably  superior  yet  kindred,  and  he  is 
reported  to  have  exclaimed,  with  dignified  humility,  "And  I 
too  am  a  painter  !" 

We  must  all  have  felt,  when  certain  effects  in  nature, 
combinations  of  form  and  color,  have  been  presented  to 
us,  our  own  idea  speaking  in  intelligible  and  yet  celestial 
language ;  when,  for  instance,  the  long  bars  of  purple,  "  edged 
with  intolerable  radiance,"  seemed  to  float  in  a  sea  of  pale 
pure  green,  when  the  whole  sky  seemed  to  reel  with  thunder, 
when  the  night-wind  moaned.  It  is  wonderful  how  the  most 
commonplace  men  and  women — beings  who,  as  you  would 
have  thought,  had  no  conception  that  rose  beyond  a  com- 
mercial speculation  or  a  fashionable  entertainment — are  ele- 
vated by  such  scenes ;  how  the  slumbering  grandeur  of 
their  nature  wakes  and  acknowledges  kindred  with  the  sky 
and  storm.  "  I  can  not  speak,"  they  would  say,  "  the  feelings 
which  are  in  me  ;  I  have  had  emotions,  aspirations,  thoughts ; 
I  can  not  put  them  into  words.  Look  there  !  listen  now  to 
the  storm  !  That  is  what  I  meant,  only  I  never  could  say 


502  The  Sacrifice  of  Christ. 

it  out  till  now."  Thus  do  art  and  nature  speak  for  us,  and 
thus  do  we  adopt  them  as  our  own.  This  is  the  way  in  which 
His  righteousuess  becomes  righteousness  for  us.  *  This  is  the 
way  in  which  the  heart  presents  to  God  the  sacrifice  of  Christ-, 
gazing  on  that  perfect  Life  we,  as  it  were,  say,  "  There,  that 
is  my  religion — that  is  my  righteousness — what  I  want  to  be, 
which  I  am  not — that  is  my  offering,*ny  life  as  I  would  wish 
to  give  it,  freely  and  not  checked,  entire  and  perfect."  So 
the  old  prophets,  their  hearts  big  with  unutterable  thoughts, 
searched  "  what  or  what  manner  of  time  the  spirit  of  Christ 
which  was  in  them  did  signify,  when  it  testified  beforehand 
of  the  sufferings  of  Christ,  and  of  the  glory  which  should 
follow ;"  and  so  with  us,  until  it  passes  into  prayer :  "  My 
Saviour,  fill  up  the  blurred  and  blotted  sketch  which  my 
clumsy  hand  has  drawn  of  a  divine  life,  with  the  fullness  of 
Thy  perfect  picture.  I  feel  the  beauty  which'  I  can  not 
realize  : — robe  me  in  Thine  unutterable  purity : — 


"  Rock  of  ages,  cleft  for  me, 
Let  me  hide  myself  in  Thee." 


II.  The  influence  of  that  sacrifice  on  man  is  the  introduc- 
tion of  the  principle  of  self-sacrifice  into  his  nature — "  then 
were  all  dead."  Observe,  again,  not  He  died  that  we  might 
not  die,  but  that  in  His  death  we  might  be  dead,  and  that 
in  His  sacrifice  we  might  become  each  a^  sacrifice  to  God. 
Moreover,  this  death  is  identical  with  life.  They  who  in  the 
first  sentence  are  called  dead,  are  in  the  second  Denominated 
"  they  who  live."  So  in  another  place,  "  I  am  crucified  with 
Christ,  nevertheless  I  live  ;"  death,  therefore,  that  is,  the  sac- 
rifice of  self,  is  equivalent  to  life.  Now  this  rests  upon  a 
profound  truth.  The  death  of  Christ  was  a  representation 
of  the  life  of  God.  To  me  this  is  the  profoundest  of  all  truths, 
that  the  whole  of  the  life  of  God  is  the  sacrifice  of  self.  God 
is  love ;  love  is  sacrifice — to  give  rather  than  to  receive — the 
blessedness  of  self-giving.  If  the  life  of  God  were  not  such,  it 
would  be  a  falsehood  to  say  that  God  is  love  ;  for  even  in  our 
human  nature,  that  which  seeks  to  enjoy  all  instead  of  giving 
nil  is  known  by  a  very  different  name  from  that  of  love. 
'All  the  life  of  God  is  a  flow  of  this  divine  self-giving  charity. 
Creation  itself  is  sacrifice — the  self-impartation  of  the  Divine 
Being.  Redemption,  too,  is  sacrifice,  else  it  could  not  be  love ; 
for  which  reason  we  will  not  surrender  one  iota  of  the  truth 
that  the  death  of  Christ  was  the  sacrifice  of  God — the  man- 
ifestation once  in  time  of  that  which  is  the  eternal  law  of  His 
life. 

If  man,  therefore,  is  to  rise  into  the  life  of  God,  he  must  be 


The  Sacrifice  of  Christ.  503 

absorbed  into  the  spirit  of  that  sacrifice — he  must  die  with 
Christ  if  he  would  enter  into  his  proper  life.  For  sin  is  the 
withdrawing  into  self  and  egotism,  out  of  the  vivifying  life 
of  God,  which  alone  is  our  true  life.  The  moment  the  man 
sins  he  dies.  Know  we  not  how  awfully  true  that  sentence  is, 
a  Sin  revived,  and  I  died  ?"  The  vivid'life  of  sin  is  the  death 
of  the  man.  Have  we  never  felt  that  our  true  existence  has 
absolutely  in  that  moment  disappeared,  and  that  we  are  not  ? 

I  say,  therefore,  that  real  human  life  is  a  perpetual  comple- 
tion and  repetition  of  the  sacrifice  of  Christ — "  all  are  dead;" 
the  explanation  of  which  follows, "  to  live  not  to  themselves, 
but  to  Him  who  died  for  them  and  rose  again."  This  is  the 
truth  which  lies  at  the  bottom  of  the  Romish  doctrine  of  the 
mass.  Rome  asserts  that  in  the  mass  a  true  and  proper  sac- 
rifice is  offered  up  for  the  sins  of  all — that  the  offering  of 
Christ  is  forever  repeated.  To  this  Protestantism  has  ob 
jected  vehemently,  that  there  is  but  one  offering  once  of 
fered — an  objection  in  itself  entirely  true ;  yet  the  Romist 
doctrine  contains  a  truth  which  it  is  of  importance  to  disen- 
gage from  the  gross  and  material  form  with  which  it  has  beer, 
overlaid.  Let  us  hear  St.  Paul :  "  I  fill  up  that  which  is  be- 
aindhand  of  the  sufferings  of  Christ,  in  my  flesh  for  his  body's 
sake,  which  is  the  Church."  Was  there  then  something  be- 
hindhand of  Christ's  sufferings  remaining  uncompleted,  of 
which  the  sufferings  of  Paul  could  be  in  any  sense  the  com- 
plement ?  He  says  there  was.  Could  the  sufferings  of  Paul 
for  the  Church  in  any  form  of  correct  expression  be  said  to 
eke  out  the  sufferings  that  were  complete  ?  In  one  sense  it 
is  true  to  say  that  there  is  one  offering  once  offered  for  all. 
But  it  is  equally  true  to  say  that  that  one  offering  is  value- 
less, except  so  far  as  it  is  completed  and  repeated  in  the  life 
and  self-offering  of  all.  This  is  the  Christian's  sacrifice.  Not 
mechanically  completed  in  the  miserable  materialism  of  the 
mass,  but  spiritually  in  the  life  of  all  in  whom  the  Crucified 
lives.  The  sacrifice  of  Christ  is  done  over  again  in  every  life 
which  is  lived,  not  to  self  but  to  God. 

Let"  one  concluding  observation  be  made — self-denial,  self- 
sacrifice,  self-surrender  !  Hard  doctrines,  and  impossible  ! 
Whereupon,  in  silent  hours,  we  skeptically  ask,  Is  this  possi- 
ble ?  is  it  natural  ?  Let  preacher  and  moralist  say  what  they 
will,  I  am  not  here  to  sacrifice  myself  for  others.  God  sent 
ne  here  for  happiness,  not  misery.  Now  introduce  one  sen- 
tence of  this  text  of  which  we  have  as  yet  said  nothing,  and 
the  dark  doctrine  becomes  illuminated — "  the  love  of  Christ 
constraineth  us."  Self-denial,  for  the  sake  of  self-denial,  does 
no  good ;  self-sacrifice  for  its  own  sake  is  no  religious  act  at 


504  The  Power  of  Sorrow. 

all.  If  you  give  up  a  meal  for  the  sake  of  showing  powei 
over  self,  or  lor  the  sake  of  self-discipline,  it  is  the  most  mis- 
erable of  all  delusions.  You  are  not  more  religious  in  doing 
this  than  before.  This  is  mere  self-culture,  and  self-culture 
being  occupied  forever  about  self,  leaves  you  only  in  that 
circle  of  self  from  which  religion  is  to  free  you  ;  but  to  give 
up  a  meal  that  one  you  love  may  have  it  is  properly  a  relig- 
ious act — no  hard  and  dismal  duty,  because  made  easy  by 
affection.  To  bear  pain  for  the  sake  of  bearing  it  has  in  it  no 
moral  quality  at  all,  but  to  bear  it  rather  than  surrender 
truth,  or  in  order  to  save  another,  is  positive  enjoyment  as 
well  as  ennobling  to  the  soul.  Did  you  ever  receive  even  a 
blow  meant  for  another,  in  order  to  shield  that  other?  Do 
you  not  know  that  there  was  actual  pleasure  in  the  keen  pain 
far  beyond  the  most  rapturous  thrill  of  nerve  which  could  be 
gained  from  pleasure  in  the  midst  of  painlessness  ?  Is  not  the 
mystic  yearning  of  love  expressed  in  words  most  purely  thus, 
Let  me  suffer  lor  him  ? 

This  element  of  love  is  that  which  makes  this  doctrine  an 
intelligible  and  blessed  truth.  So  sacrifice  alone,  bare  and 
unrelieved,  is  ghastly,  unnatural,  and  dead  ;  but  self-sacrifice, 
illuminated  by  love,  is  warmth  and  life ;  it  is  the  death  of 
Christ,  the  life  of  God,  the  blessedness  and  only  proper  life 
of  man. 


VIII. 
THE  POWER  OF  SORROW. 

"  Now  I  rejoice,  not  that  ye  were  made  sorry,  but  that  ye  sorrowed  to 
repentance:  for  ye  were  made  sorry  after  a  godly  manner,  that  ye  might 
receive  damage  by  us  in  nothing.  For  godly  sorrow  worketh  repentance  to 
salvation  not  to  be  repented  of:  but  the  sorrow  of  the  world  worketh  death." 
— 2  Cor.  vii.  9,  10. 

THAT  which  is  chiefly  insisted  on  in  this  verse  is  the  dis- 
tinction between  sorrow  and  repentance.  To  grieve  over  sin 
is  one  thing,  to  repent  of  it  is  another. 

The  apostle  rejoiced,  not  that  the  Corinthians  sorrowed, 
but  that  they  sorrowed  unto  repentance.  Sorrow  has  two 
results  ;  it  may  end  in  spiritual  life,  or  in  spiritual  death  ;  and 
in  themselves,  one  of  these  is  as  natural  as  the  other.  Sorrow 
may  produce  two  kinds  of  reformation — a  transient,  or  a  per- 
manent one — an  alteration  in  habits,  which,  originating  in  emo- 
tion, will  hist  so  long  as  that  emotion  continues,  and  then  after 
a  few  fruitless  efforts  be  given  up — a  repentance  which  will  be 


The  Power  of  Sorrow.  505 

repented  of;  or  again,  a  permanent  change,  which  will  be  re- 
versed by  no  afterthought — a  repentance  not  to  be  repented 
of.  Sorrow  is  in  itself,  therefore,  a  thing  neither  good  nor 
bad  :  its  value  depends  on  the  spirit  of  the  person  on  whom 
it  falls.  Fire  will  inflame  straw,  soften  iron,  or  harden  clay ; 
its  effects  are  determined  by  the  object  with  which  it  comes 
in  contact.  Warmth  develops  the  energies  of  life,  or  helps 
the  progress  of  decay.  It  is  a  great  power  in  the  hothouse, 
a  great  power  also  in  the  coffin :  it  expands  the  leaf,  matures 
the  fruit,  adds  precocious  vigor  to  vegetable  life :  and  warmth 
too  develops  with  tenfold  rapidity  the  weltering  process  of 
dissolution.  So  too  with  sorrow.  There  are  spirits  in  which 
it  develops  the  seminal  principle  of  life ;  there  are  others  in 
which  it  prematurely  hastens  the  consummation  of  irreparable 
iecay.  Our  subject  therefore  is  the  twofold  power  of  sorrow. 

I.  The  fatal  power  of  the  sorrow  of  the  world. 
IL  The  life-giving  power  of  the  sorrow  that  is  after  God. 

The  simplest/  way  in  wThich  the  sorrow  of  the  world  works 
death,  is  seen  in  the  effect  of  mere  regret  for  worldly  loss. 
There  .are  certain  advantages  with  which  we  come  into  the 
world.  Youth,  health,  friends,  and  sometimes  property.  So 
long  as  these  are  continued  we  are  happy ;  and  because  hap- 
py, fancy  ourselves  very  grateful  to  God.  We  bask  in  the 
sunshine  of  His  gifts,  and  this  pleasant  sensation  of  sunning 
ourselves  in  life  we  call  religion ;  that  state  in  which  we  all 
are  before  sorrow  comes,  to  test  the  temper  of  the  metal  of 
which  our  souls  are  made,  when  the  spirits  are  unbroken  and 
the  heart  buoyant,  when  a  fresh  morning  is  to  a  young  heart 
what  it  is  to  the  skylark.  The  exuberant  burst  of  joy  seems 
a  spontaneous  hymn  to  the  Father  of  all  blessing,  like  the 
matin  carol  of  the  bird  ;  but  this  is  not  religion  :  it  is  the  in- 
stinctive utterance  of  happy  feeling,  having  as  little  of  moral 
character  in  it,  in  the  happy  human  being*  as  in  the  happy 
bird. 

*N~ay  more :  the  religion  which  is  only  sunned  into  being 
by  happiness  is  a  suspicious  thing — having  been  warmed  by 
joy,  it  will  become  cold  when  joy  is  over;  and  then  when 
these  blessings  are  removed  we  count  ourselves  hardly  treat- 
ed, as  if  we  had  been  defrauded  of  a  right ;  rebellious  hard 
feelings  come ;  then  it  is  you  see  people  become  bitter,  spite 
ful,  discontented.  At  every  step  in  the  solemn  path  of  life 
something  must  be  mourned  which  will  come  back  no  more ; 
the  temper  that  was  so  smooth  becomes  rugged  and  uneven  ; 
the  benevolence  that  expanded  upon  all  narrows  into  an  ever- 
dwindling  selfishness — we  are  alone ;  and  then  that  death- 

22 


506  The  Power  of  Sorrow. 

like  loneliness  deepens  as  life  goes  on.  The  course  of  man  la 
downward,  and  he  moves  with  slow  and  ever  more  solitary 
steps,  down  to  the  dark  silence — the  silence  of  the  grave. 
This  is  the  death  of  heart;  the  sorrow  of  the  world  has 
worked  death. 

Again,  there  is  a  sorrow  of  the  world,  when  sin  is  grieved 
for  in  a  worldly  spirit.  There  are  two  views  of  sin  :  in  one 
it  is  looked  upon  as  wrong — in  the  other,  as  producing  loss — - 
loss,  for  example,  of  character.  In  such  cases,  if  character 
could  be  preserved  before  the  world  grief  would  not  come ; 
but  the  paroxysms  of  misery  fall  upon  our  proud  spirit  when 
our  guilt  is  made  public.  The  most  distinct  instance  we 
have  of  this  is  in  the  life  of  Saul.  In  the  midst  of  his  apparent 

frief,  the  thing  still  uppermost  was  that  he  had  forfeited  his 
ingly  character :  almost  the  only  longing  was,  that  Samuel 
should  honor  him  before  his  people.  And  hence  it  comes  to 
pass,  that  often  remorse  and  anguish  only  begin  with  expo- 
sure. Suicide  takes  place,  not  when  the  act  of  wrong  is  done 
but  when  the  guilt  is  known,  and  hence,  too,  many  a  one  be- 
comes hardened  who"  would  otherwise  have  remained  tolera- 
bly happy  ;  in  consequence  of  which  we  blame  the  exposure, 
not  the  guilt ;  we  say  if  it  had  been  hushed  up  all  would 
have  been  well;  that  the  servant  who  robbed  his  master  was 
ruined  by  taking  away  his  character;  and  that  if  the  sin  had 
been  passed  over  repentance  might  have  taken  place,  and  he 
might  have  remained  a  respectable  member  of  society.  Do 
not  think  so.  It  is  quite  true  that  remorse  was  produced  by 
exposure,  and  that  the  remorse  was  fatal ;  the  sorrow  which 
worked  death  arose  from  that  exposure,  and  so  far  exposure 
may  be  called  the  cause :  had  it  never  taken  place,  respecta- 
bility, and  comparative  peace,  might  have  continued ;  but 
outward  respectability  is  not  change  of  heart. 

It  is  well  known  that  the  corpse  has  been  preserved  for 
centuries  in  the  iceberg,  or  in  antiseptic  peat;  and  that 
when  atmospheric  air  was  introduced  to  the  exposed  surface 
it  crumbled  into  dust.  Exposure  worked  dissolution,  but  it 
only  manifested  the  death  which  was  already  there ;  so  with 
sorrow,  it  is  not  the  living  heart  which  drops  to  pieces  or 
crumbles  into  dust,  when  it  is  revealed.  Exposure  did  not 
work  death  in  the  Corinthian  sinner,  but  life. 

There  is  another  form  of  grief  for  sin,  which  the  apostle 
would  not  have  rejoiced  to  see ;  it  is  when  the  hot  tears 
come  from  pride.  No  two  tones  of  feeling,  apparently  simi- 
lar, are  more  unlike  than  that  in  which  Saul  exclaimed,  "  I 
have  played  the  fool  exceedingly,"  and  that  in  which  the 
publican  cried  out,  "  God  be  merciful  to  me  a  sinner."  The 


The  Power  of  Sorrow.  507 

charge  of  folly  brought  against  one's  self  only  proves  that  we 
feel  bitterly  for  having  lost  our  own  self-respect.  It  is  a  hu- 
miliation to  have  forfeited  the  idea  which  a  man  had  formed 
of  his  own  character — to  find  that  the  very  excellence  on 
which  he  prided  himself  is  the  one  in  which  he  has  failed. 
If  there  were  a  virtue  for  which  Saul  was  conspicuous  it  was 
generosity ;  yet  it  was  exactly  in  this  point  of  generosity  in 
which  he  discovered  himself  to  have  failed,  when  he  was 
overtaken  on  the  mountain,  and  his  life  spared  by  the  very 
man  whom  he  was  hunting  to  the  death  with  feelings  of  the 
meanest  jealousy.  Yet  there  was  no  real  repentance  there ; 
there  was  none  of  that  in  which  a  man  is  sick  of  state  and 
pomp.  Saul  could  still  rejoice  in  regal  splendor,  go  about 
complaining  of  himself  to  the  Ziphites,  as  if  he  was  the  most 
ill-treated  and  friendless  of  mankind;  he  was  still  jealous  of 
his  reputation,  and  anxious  to  be  well  thought  of.  Quite  dif- 
ferent is  the  tone  in  which  the  publican,  who  felt  himself  a  sin- 
ner, asked  for  mercy.  He  heard  the  contumelious  expression 
of  the  Pharisee,  "  this  publican."  With  no  resentment,  he 
meekly  bore  it  as  a  matter  naturally  to  be  taken  for  granted 
— "  he  did  not  so  much  as  lift  up  his  eyes  to  heaven ;"  he 
was  as  a  worm  which  turns  in  agony,  but  not  revenge,  upon 
the  foot  which  treads  it  into  the  dust. 

Now  this  sorrow  of  Saul's,  too,  works  death :  no  merit  can 
restore  self-respect ;  when  once  a  man  has  found  himself  out 
he  can  not  be  deceived  again.  The  heart  is  as  a  stone:  a 
speck  of  canker  corrodes  and  spreads  within.  What  on  this 
earth  remains,  but  endless  sorrow,  for  him  who  has  ceased 
to  respect  himself,  and  has  no  God  to  turn  to  ? 

n.  The  divine  power  of  sorrow. 

1.  It  works  repentance.  By  repentance  is  meant,  in  Scrip- 
ture, change  of  life,  alteration  of  habits,  renewal  of  heart. 
This  is  the  aim  and  meaning  of  all  sorrow.  The  conse- 
quences of  sin  are  meant  to  wean  from  sin.  The  penalty  an- 
nexed to  it  is  in  the  first  instance,  corrective,  not  penal.  Fire 
burns  the  child,  to  teach  it  one  of  the  truths  of  this  universe 
— the  property  of  fire  to  burn.  The  first  time  it  cuts  its 
hand  with  a  sharp  knife-  it  has  gained  a  lesson  which  it  nev- 
er will  forget.  Now,  in  the  case  of  pain  this  experience  is  sel- 
dom, if  ever,  in  vain.  There  is  little  chance  of  a  child  forget- 
ting that  fire  will  burn,  and  that  sharp  steel  will  cut;  but 
the  moral  lessons  contained  in  the  penalties  annexed  to 
wrong-doing  are  just  as  truly  intended,  though  they  are  by 
no  means  so  unerring  in  enforcing  their  application.  The 
fever  in  the  veins  and  the  headache  which  succeed  intoxica- 


508  The  Power  of  Sorrow. 

tion,  are  meant  to  warn  against  excess.  On  the  first  occasion 
they  are  simply  corrective ;  in  every  succeeding  one  they  as- 
sume more  and  more  a  penal  character  in  proportion  as  the 
conscience  carries  with  them  the  sense  of  ill  desert. 

Sorrow,  then,  has  done  its  work  when  it  deters  from  evil ; 
in  other  words,  when  it  works  repentance.  In  the  sorrow  of 
the  world,  the  obliquity  of  the  heart  towards  evil  is  not 
cured  ;  it  seems  as  if  nothing  cured  it :  heartache  and  trials 
come  in  vain ;  the  history  of  life  at  last  is  what  it  was  at 
first.  The  man  is  found  erring  where  he  erred  before.  The 
same  course,  begun  with  the  certainty  of  the  same  desperate 
end  which  has  taken  place  so  often  before. 

They  have  reaped  the  whirlwind,  but  they  will  again  sow 
the  wind.  Hence  I  believe  that  life-giving  sorrow  is  less 
remorse  for  that  which  is  irreparable,  than  anxiety  to  save 
that  which  remains.  The  sorrow  that  ends  in  death  hangs 
in  funeral  weeds  over  the  sepulchres  of  the  past.  Yet  the 
present  does  not  become  more  wise.  Not  one  resolution  is 
made  more  firm,  nor  one  habit  more  holy.  Grief  is  all. 
Whereas  sorrow  avails  only  when  the  past  is  converted  into 
experience,  and  from  failure  lessons  are  learned  which  never 
are  to  be  forgotten. 

2.  Permanence  of  alteration ;  for  after  all,  a  steady  refor- 
mation is  a  more  decisive  test  of  the  value  of  mourning  than 
depth  of  grief. 

The  susceptibility  of  emotion,  varies  with  individuals. 
Some  men  feel  intensely,  others  suffer  less  keenly ;  but  this 
is  constitutional,  belonging  to  nervous  temperament  rather 
than  to  moral  character.  This  is  the  characteristic  of  the 
divine  sorrow,  that  it  is  a  repentance  "not  repented  of;"  no 
transient,  short-lived  resolutions,  but  sustained  resolve. 

And  the  beautiful  law  is,  that  in  proportion  as  the  repent- 
ance increases  the  grief  diminishes.  "I  rejoice,"  says  Paul, 
that  "I  made  you  sorry,  though  it  were  but  for  a  time." 
Grief  for  a  time,  repentance  forever.  And  few  things  more 
signally  prove  the  wisdom  of  this  apostle  than  his  way  of 
dealing  with  this  grief  of  the  Corinthian.  He  tried  no  arti- 
ficial means  of  intensifying  it — did  not  urge  the  duty  of 
dwelling  upon  it,  magnifying  it,  nor  even  of  gauging  and 
examining  it.  So  soon  as  grief  had  done  its  work  the  apos- 
tle was  anxious  to  dry  useless  tears — he  even  feared  lest 
haply  such  an  one  should  be  swallowed  up  with  overmuch 
sorrow.  "A  true  penitent,"  says  Mr.  Newman,  "  never  for- 
gives himself."  Oh  false  estimate  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ  and 
of  the  heart  of  man  !  A  proud  remorse  does  not  forgive  it- 
self the  forfeiture  of  its  own  dignity ;  but  it  is  the  very  beauty 


The  Power  of  Sorrow.  509 

of  the  penitence  which  is  according  to  God,  that  at  last  the 
sinner,  realizing  God's  forgiveness,  does  learn  to  forgive  him- 
self. For  what  other  purpose  did  St.  Paul  command  the 
Church  of  Corinth  to  give  ecclesiastical  absolution,  but  in 
order  to  afford  a  symbol  and  assurance  of  the  Divine  par- 
don, in  which  the  guilty  man's  grief  should  not  be  over- 
whelming, but  that  he  should  become  reconciled  to  himself? 
What  is  meant  by  the  publican's  going  down  to  his  .house 
justified,  but  that  he  felt  at  peace  with  himself  and  God  ? 

3.  It  is  sorrow  with  God,  here  called  godly  sorrow  ;  in  the 
margin  sorrowing  according  to  God. 

God  sees  sin  not  in  its  consequences  but  in  itself;  a  thing 
infinitely  evil,  even  if  the  consequences  were  happiness  to 
the  guilty  instead  of  misery.  So  sorrow  according  to  God 
is  to  see  sin  as  God  sees  it.  The  grief  of  Peter  was  as  bit- 
ter as  that  of  Judas.  He  went  out  and  wept  bitterly  ;  how 
bitterly  none  can  tell  but  they  who  have  learned  to  look  on 
sin  as  God  does.  But  in  Peter's  grief  there  was  an  element 
of  hope  ;  and  that  sprung  precisely  from  this — that  he  saw 
God  in  it  all.  Despair  of  self  did  not  lead  to  despair  of 
God. 

This  is  the  great,  peculiar  feature  of  this  sorrow  :  God  is 
there,  accordingly  self  is  less  prominent.  It  is  not  a  micro- 
scopic self-examination,  nor  a  mourning  in  which  self  is  ever 
uppermost :  my  character  gone  ;  the  greatness  of  my  sin  ; 
the  forfeiture  of  my  salvation.  The  thought  of  God  absorbs 
all  that.  I  believe  the  feeling  of  true  penitence  would  ex- 
press itself  in  such  words  as^  these : — There  is  a  righteous- 
ness, though  I  have  not  attained  it.  There  is  a  purity,  and 
a  love,  and  a  beauty,  though  my  life  exhibits  little  of  it.  In 
that  I  can  rejoice.  Of  that  I  can  feel  the  surpassing  loveli- 
ness. My  doings  ?  They  are  worthless,  I  can  not  endure  to 
think  of  them.  I  am  not  thinking  of  them.  I  have  some- 
thing else  to  think  of.  There,  there ;  in  that  life  I  see  it. 
And  so  the  Christian — gazing  not  on  what  he  is,  but  on 
what  he  desires  to  be — dares  in  penitence  to  say,  That  right- 
eousness is  mine :  dares,  even  when  the  recollection  of  his 
sin  is  most  vivid  and  most  poignant,  to  say  with  Peter, 
thinking  less  of  himself  than  of  God,  and  sorrowing  as  it 
were  with  God  —  "Lord,  Thou  knowest  all  things,  Thcu 
knowest  that  I  love  Thee." 


5 1  o         Sensual  and  Spiritual  Excitement* 


IX. 
SENSUAL  AND  SPIRITUAL  EXCITEMENT. 

*'  Wherefore  be  ye  not  unwise,  but  understanding  what  the  will  of  the 
Xord  is.  And  be  not  drunk  with  wine,  wherein  is  excess  ;  but  be  filled  with 
the  Spirit."— Eph.  v.  17,  18. 

THERE  is  evidently  a  connection  between  the  different 
branches  of  this  sentence — for  ideas  can  not  be  properly 
contrasted  which  have  not  some  connection — but  what  that 
connection  is,  is  not  at  first  sight  clear.  It  almost  appears 
like  a  profane  and  irreverent  juxtaposition  to  contrast  full- 
ness of  the  Spirit  with  fullness  of  wine.  Moreover,  the 
structure  of  the  whole  context  is  antithetical.  Ideas  are  op- 
posed to  each  other  in  pairs  of  contraries;  for  instance, 
"fools"  is  the  exact  opposite  to  "wise;"  "unwise,"  as  op- 
posed to  "  understanding,"  its  proper  opposite. 

And  here  again,  there  must  be  the  same  true  antithesis 
between  drunkenness  and  spiritual  fullness.  The  propriety 
of  this  opposition  lies  in  the  intensity  of  feeling  produced  in 
both  cases.  There  is  one  intensity  of  feeling  produced  by 
stimulating  the  senses,  another  by  vivifying  the  spiritual  life 
within.  The  one  commences  with  impulses  from  without, 
the  other  is  guarded  by  forces  from  within.  Here  then  is 
the  similarity,  and  here  the  dissimilarity,  which  constitutes 
the  propriety  of  the  contrast.  One  is  ruin,  the  other  salva- 
tion. One  degrades,  the  other  exalts.  This  contrast  then  is 
our  subject  for  to-day. 

I.  The  effects  are  similar.  On  the  day  of  Pentecost,  when 
the  first  influences  of  the  Spirit  descended  on  the  early 
Church,  the  effects  resembled  intoxication.  They  were  full 
of  the  Spirit,  and  mocking  by-standers  said,  "  These  men  are 
full  of  new  wine ;"  for  they  found  themselves  elevated  into 
the  ecstasy  of  a  life  higher  than  their  own,  possessed  of 
powers  which  they  could  not  control ;  they  spoke  incohe- 
rently and  irregularly  ;  to  the  most  part  of  those  assembled, 
unintelligibly. 

Now  compare  with  this  the  impression  produced  upon  sav- 
age nations — suppose  those  early  ages  in  which  the  spectacle 
of  intoxication  was  presented  for  the  first  time.  They  saw 
a  man  under  the  influence  of  a  force  different  from  and  i» 


Sensual  and  Spiritual  Excitement,         511 

some  respects  inferior  to,  their  own.  To  them  the  bacchanal 
appeared  a  being  half  inspired ;  his  frenzy  seemed  a  thing  for 
reverence  and  awe,  rather  than  for  horror  and  disgust ;  the 
spirit  which  possessed  him  must  be,  they  thought,  divine ;  they 
deified  it,  worshipped  it  under  different  names  as  a  god ;  even 
to  a  clearer  insight  the  effects  are  wonderfully  similar.  It  is 
almost  proverbial  among  soldiers  that  the  daring  produced 
by  wine  is  easily  mistaken  for  the  self-devotion  of  a  brave 
heart. 

The  play  of  imagination  in  the  brain  of  the  opium-eater  is 
as  free  as  that  of  genius  itself,  and  the  creations  produced  in 
that  state  by  the  pen  or  pencil  are  as  wildly  beautiful  as 
those  owed  to  the  nobler  influences.  In  years  gone  by,  the 
oratory  of  the  statesman  in  the  senate  has  been  kindled  by 
semi-intoxication,  when  his  noble  utterances  were  set  down 
by  his  auditors  to  the  inspiration  of  patriotism. 

It  is  this  very  resemblance  which  deceives  the  drunkard: 
he  is  led  on  by  his  feelings  as  well  as  by  his  imagination.  It 
is  not  the  sensual  pleasure  of  the  glutton  that  fascinates 
him;  it  is  those  fine  thoughts  and  those  quickened  sensi- 
bilities which  were  excited  in  that  state,  which  he  is  power- 
less to  produce  out  of  his  own  being,  or  by  his  own  powers, 
and  which  he  expects  to  reproduce  by  the  same  means.  The 
experience  of  our  first  parent  is  repeated  in  him  :  at  the  very 
moment  when  he  expects  to  find  himself  as  the  gods,  know- 
ing good  and  evil,  he  discovers  that  he  is  unexpectedly  de 
graded,  his  health .  wrecked,  and  his  heart  demoralized. 
Hence  it  is  almost  as  often  the  finer  as  the  baser  spirits  of 
our  race  which  are  found  the  victims  of  such  indulgence. 
Many  will  remember,  while  I  speak,  the  names  of  the  gifted 
of  their  species,  the  degraded  men  of  genius  who  were  the 
victims  of  these  deceptive  influences  ;  the  half-  inspired 
painter,  poet,  musician,  who  began  by  soothing  opiates  to 
calm  the  over-excited  nerves  or  stimulate  the  exhausted 
brain,  who  mistook  the  sensation  for  somewhat  half  divine, 
and  became,  morally  and  physically,  wrecks  of  manhood,  de- 
graded even  in  their  mental  conceptions.  It  was  therefore 
DO  mere  play  of  words  which  induced  the  apostle  to  bring 
these  two  things  together.  That  which  might  else  seem  ir- 
reverent appears  to  have  been  a  deep  knowledge  of  human 
nature  ;  he  contrasts,  because  his  rule  was  to  distinguish  two 
things  which  are  easily  mistaken  for  each  other. 

The  second  point  of  resemblance  is  the  necessity  of  in- 
tense feeling.  We  have  fullness — fullness,  it  may  be,  pro- 
duced by  outward  stimulus,  or  else  by  an  inpouring  of  the 
Spirit.  What  we  want  is  life,  "  more  life,  and  fuller. "  To 


512     .     Sensual  and  Spiritual  Excitement. 

escape  from  monotony,  to  get  away  from  the  life  of  mere 
routine  and  habits,  to  feel  that  we  are  alive — with  more  of 
surprise  and  wakefulness  in  our  existence.  To  have  less  of 
the  gelid,  torpid,  tortoise-like  existence.  "  To  feel  the  years 
before  us."  To  be  consciously  existing. 

Now  this  desire  lies  at  the  bottom  of  many  forms  of  life 
which  are  apparently  as  diverse  as  possible.  It  constitutes 
the  fascination  of  the  gambler's  life:  money  is  not  what  he 
wants — were  he  possessed  of  thousands  to-day  he  would  risk 
them  all  to-morrow — but  it  is  that  being  perpetually  on  the 
brink  of  enormous  wealth  and  utter  ruin,  he  is  compelled  to 
realize  at  every  moment  the  possibility  of  the  extremes  of 
life.  Every  moment  is  one  of  feeling.  This  too,  constitutes 
the  charm  of  all  those  forms  of  life  in  which  the  gambling 
feeling  is  predominant — where  a  sense  of  skill  is  blended 
with  a  mixture  of  chance.  If  you  ask  the  statesman  why  it 
is,  that  possessed  as  he  is  of  wealth,  he  quits  his  princely 
home  for  the  dark  metropolis,  he  would  reply,  "  that  he 
loves  the  excitement  of  a  political  existence."  It  is  this,  too, 
which  gives  to  the  warrior's  and  the  traveller's  existence  such 
peculiar  reality ;  and  it  is  this  in  a  far  lower  form  which 
stimulates  the  pleasure  of  a  fashionable  life — which  sends 
the  votaries  of  the  world  in  a  constant  round  from  the  capi- 
tal to  the  watering-place,  and  from  the  watering-place  to  the 
capital ;  what  they  crave  for  is  the  power  of  feeling  intensely. 

Now  the  proper  and  natural  outlet  for  this  feeling  is  the 
life  of  the  Spirit.  What  is  religion  but  fuller  life  ?  To  live 
in  the  Spirit,  what  is  it  but  to  have  keener  feelings  and 
mightier  powers — to  rise  into  a  higher  consciousness  of  life  ? 
What  is  religion's  self  but  feeling?  The  highest  form  of  re- 
ligion is  charity.  Love  is  of  God,  and  he  that  loveth  is  born 
of  God,  and  knoweth  God.  This  is  an  intense  feeling,  too  in- 
tense to  be  excited,  profound  in  its  calmness,  yet  it  rises  at 
times  in  its  higher  flights  into  that  ecstatic  life  which  glances 
in  a  moment  intuitively  through  ages.  These  are  the  pente- 
costal  hours  of  our  existence,  when  the  Spirit  comes  as  « 
mighty  rushing  wind,  in  cloven  tongues  of  fire,  filling  the 
soul  with  God. 

n.  The  dissimilarity  or  contrast  in  St.  Paul's  idea.  The 
one  fullness  begins  from  without,  the  other  from  within. 
The  one  proceeds  from  the  flesh  and  then  influences  the  emo- 
tions. The  other  reverses  this  order.  Stimulants  like  wine 
inflame  the  senses,  and  through  them  set  the  imaginations 
and  feelings  on  fire ;  and  the  law  of  our  spiritual  being  is, 
that  that  which  begins  with  the  flesh  sensualizes  the  spirit — • 


Sensual  and  Spiritual  Excitement.         5 1 3 

whereas  that  which  commences  in  the  region  of  the  spirit 
spiritualizes  the  senses  in  which  it  subsequently  stirs  emo- 
tion.  But  the  misfortune  is  that  men  mistake  this  law  of 
their  emotions;  and  the  fatal  error  is,  when  having  found 
spiritual  feelings  existing  in  connection,  and  associated  with, 
fleshly  sensations,  men  expect  by  the  mere  irritation  of  the 
emotions  of  the  frame  to  reproduce  those  high  and  glorious 
feelings. 

You  might  conceive  the  recipients  of  the  Spirit  on  the 
day  of  Pentecost  acting  under  this  delusion ;  it  is  conceiv- 
able that  having  observed  certain  bodily  phenomena — for 
instance,  incoherent  utterances  and  thrilled  sensibilities  co- 
existing with  those  sublime  spiritualities — they  might  have 
endeavored,  by  a  repetition  of  those  incoherencies,  to  obtain 
a  fresh  descent  of  the  Spirit.  In  fact,  this  was  exactly  what 
was  tried  in  after  ages  of  the  Church.  In  those  events  of 
Church  history  which  are  denominated  revivals  in  the  camp 
of  the  Methodist  and  the  Ranter,  a  direct  attempt  was  made 
to  arouse  the  emotions  by  exciting  addresses  and  vehement 
language.  Convulsions,  shrieks,  and  violent  emotions  were 
produced,  and  the  unfortunate  victims  of  this  mistaken  at- 
tempt to  produce  the  cause  by  the  eifect,  fancied  themselves, 
and  were  pronounced  by  others,  converted.  Now  the  mis- 
fortune is,  that  this  delusion  is  the  more  easy  from  the  lact 
that  the  results  of  the  two  kinds  of  causes  resemble  each 
other.  You  may  galvanize  the  nerve  of  a  corpse  till  the  ac- 
tion of  a  limb  startles  the  spectator  with  the  appearance  of 
life.  It  is  not  life,  it  is  only  a  spasmodic  hideous  mimicry  of 
life.  Men  having  seen  that  the  spiritual  is  always  associated 
with  forms,  endeavor  by  reproducing  the  forms  to  recall 
spirituality ;  you  do  produce  thereby  a  something  that  looks 
like  spirituality,  but  it  is  a  resemblance  only.  The  worst  case 
of  all  occurs  in  the  department  of  the  affections.  That  which 
begins  in  the  heart  ennobles  the  whole  animal  being,  but 
that  which  begins  in  the  inferior  departments  of  our  being  ia 
the  most  entire  degradation  and  sensualizing  of  the  soul. 

Now  it  is  from  this  point  of  thought  that  we  learn  to  ex- 
tend the  apostle's  principle.  Wine  is  but  a  specimen  of  a 
class  of  stimulants.  All  that  begins  from  without  belongs  to 
the  same  class.  The  stimulus  may  be  afforded  by  almost  any 
enjoyment  of  the  senses.  Drunkenness  may  come  from  any 
thing  wherein  is  excess :  from  over-indulgence  in  society,  io 
pleasure,  in  music,  find  in  the  delight  of  listening  to  oratory, 
nay,  even  from  the  excitement  of  sermons  and  religious  meet- 
ings. The  prophet  tells  us  of  those  who  are  drunken,  an«i  pot 
with  wine. 

22* 


5 1 4         Sensual  and  Spiritual  Excitement. 

The  other  point  of  difference  is  one  of  effect.  Fullness  of 
the  Spirit  calms;  fullness  produced  by  excitement  satiatea 
and  exhausts.  They  who  know  the  world  of  fashion  tell  us 
that  the  tone  adopted  there  is,  either  to  be,  or  to  affect  to  be, 
sated  with  enjoyment,  to  be  proof  against  surprise,  to  have 
lost  all  keenness  of  enjoyment,  and  to  have  all  keenness  of 
wonder  gone.  That  which  ought  to  be  men's  shame  becomes 
their  boast — unsusceptibility  of  any  fresh  emotion. 

Whether  this  be  real  or  affected  matters  not ;  it  is,  in  truth, 
the  real  result  of  the  indulgence  of  the  senses.  The  law  is 
this ;  the  "  crime  of  sense  is  avenged  by  sense  which  wears 
with  time;"  for  it  has  been  well  remarked  that  the  terrific 
punishment  attached  to  the  habitual  indulgence  of  the  senses 
is,  that  the  incitements  to  enjoyment  increase  in  proportion 
as  the  power  of  enjoyment  fades. 

Experience  at  last  forbids  even  the  hope  of  enjoyment ;  the 
sin  of  the  intoxicated  soul  is  loathed,  detested,  abhorred  ;  yet 
it  is  done.  The  irritated  sense,  like  an  avenging  fury,  goads 
on  with  a  restlessness  of  craving,  and  compels  a  reiteration 
of  the  guilt  though  it. has  ceased  to  charm. 

To  this  danger  our  own  age  is  peculiarly  exposed.  In  the 
earlier  and  simpler  ages,  the  need  of  keen  feeling  finds  a  nat- 
ural and  safe  outlet  in  compulsory  exertions.  For  instance, 
in  the  excitement  of  real  warfare,  and  in  the  necessity  of  pro- 
viding the  sustenance  of  life,  warlike  habits  and  healthy  la- 
bor stimulate  without  exhausting  life.  But  in  proportion  as 
civilization  advances,  a  large  class  of  the  community  are  ex- 
empted from  the  necessity  of  these,  and  thrown  upon  a  life 
of  leisure.  Then  it  is  that  artificial  life  begins,  and  artificial 
expedients  become  necessary  to  sharpen  the  feelings  amongst 
the  monotony  of  existence ;  every  amusement  and  all  litera- 
ture become  more  pungent  in  their  character;  life  is  no  long- 
er a  thing  proceeding  from  powers  within,  but  sustained  by 
new  impulses  from  without. 

There  is  one  peculiar  form  of  this  danger  to  which  I  would 
specially  direct  your  attention.  There  is  one  nation  in  Eu- 
rope which,  more  than  any  other,  has  been  subjected  to  these 
influences.  In  ages  of  revolution,  nations  live  last ;  centuries 
of  life  are  passed  in  fifty  years  of  time.  In  such  a  state,  in- 
dividuals become  subjected  more  or  less  to  the  influences 
which  are  working  around  them.  Scarcely  an  enjoyment  or 
a  book  can  be  met  with  which  does  not  bear  the  impress  of 
this  intensity.  Now,  the  particular  danger  to  which  I  allude 
is  French  novels,  French  romances,  and  French  plays.  The 
overflowings  of  that  cup  of  excitement  have  reached  our 
shores.  I  do  not  say  that  these  works  contain  any  thing 


Sensual  and  Spiritual  Excitement.         515 

coarse  or  gross — better  if  it  were  so :  evil  which  comes  in  a 
form  of  grossness  is  not  nearly  so  dangerous  as  that  which 
comes  veiled  in  gracefulness  and  sentiment.  Subjects  which 
are  better  not  touched  upon  at  all  are  discussed,  examined, 
and  exhibited  in  all  the  most  seductive  forms  of  imagery. 
You  would  be  shocked  at  seeing  your  son  in  a  fit  of  intoxica* 
tion ;  yet,  I  say  it  solemnly,  better  that  your  son  should  reel 
through  the  streets  in  a  fit  of  drunkenness,  than  that  the  del- 
icacy of  your  daughter's  mind  should  be  injured,  and  her  im- 
agination inflamed  with  false  fire.  Twenty-four  hours  will 
terminate  the  evil  in  the  one  case.  Twenty-four  hours  will 
not  exhaust  the  effects  of  the  other ;  you  must  seek  the  con- 
sequences at  the  end  of  many,  many  years. 

I  speak  that  which  I  do  know ;  and  if  the  earnest  warning 
of  one  who  has  seen  the  dangers  of  which  he  speaks  realized, 
can  reach  the  heart  of  one  Christian  parent,  he  will  put  a  ban 
on  all  such  works,  and  not  suffer  his  children's  hearts  to  be 
excited  by  a  drunkenness  which  is  worse  than  that  of  wine. 
For  the  worst  of  it  is,  that  the  men  of  our  time  are  not  yet 
alive  to  this  growing  evil ;  they  are  elsewhere — in  their  stud- 
ies, counting-houses,  professions — not  knowing  the  food,  or 
rather  poison,  on  which  their  wives'  and  daughters'  intellect- 
ual life  is  sustained.  It  is  precisely  those  who  are  most  un- 
fitted to  sustain  the  danger,  whose  feelings  need  restraint  in- 
stead of  spur,  and  whose  imaginations  are  most  inflammable, 
that  are  specially  exposed  to  it. 

On  the  other  hand,  spiritual  life  calms  while  it  fills.  True 
it  is  that  there  are  pentecostal  moments  when  such  life  reach- 
es the  stage  of  ecstasy.  But  these  were  given  to  the  Church 
to  prepare  her  for  suffering,  to  give  her  martyrs  a  glimpse  of 
blessedness,  which  might  sustain  them  afterwards  in  the  ter- 
rible struggles  of  death.  True  it  is  that  there  are  pentecos- 
tal hours  when  the  soul  is  surrounded  by  a  kind  of  glory,  and 
we  are  tempted  to  make  tabernacles  upon  the  mount,  as  if 
life  were  meant  for  rest ;  but  out  of  that  very  cloud  there 
comes  a  voice  telling  of  the  cross,  and  bidding  us  descend 
into  the  common  world  again,  to  simple  duties  and  humble 
life.  T^his  very  principle  seems  to  be  contained  in  the  text 
The  apostle's  remedy  for  this  artificial  feeling  is — "  Speaking 
to  one  another  in  psalms  and  hymns,  and  spiritual  songs." 

Strange  remedy  !  Occupation  fit  for  children — too  simple 
far  for  men  :  as  astonishing  as  the  remedy  prescribed  by  the 
prophet  to  Naaman — to  wash  in  simple  water,  and  be  clean  ; 
yet  therein  lies  a  very  important  truth.  In  ancient  medical 
phraseology,  herbs  possessed  of  healing  natures  were  called 
simples ;  in  God's  laboratory,  all  things  that  heal  are  simple 


5 1 6  Purity. 

—all  natural  enjoyments,  all  the  deepest,  are  simple  too.  At 
night,  man  fills  his  banquet-hall  with  the  glare  of  splendor 
which  fevers  as  well  as  tires  the  heart ;  and  at  the  very  same 
hour,  as  if  they  intended  contrast,  the  quiet  stars  of  God  steal 
forth,  shedding,  together  with  the  deepest  feeling,  the  pro- 
foundest  sense  of  calm.  One  from  whose  knowledge  of  the 
sources  of  natural  feeling  there  lies  almost  no  appeal,  has  said 
that  to  him, 

"  The  meanest  flower  that  blows  can  give 
Thoughts  that  do  often  lie  too  deep  for  tears." 

This  is  exceedingly  remarkable  in  the  life  of  Christ.  No 
contrast  is  more  striking  than  that  presented  by  the  thought, 
that  that  deep  and  beautiful  life  was  spent  in  the  midst 
of  mad  Jerusalem.  Remember  the  Son  of  Man  standing 
quietly  in  the  porches  of  Bethesda,  when  the  streets  all 
around  were  filled  with  the  revelry  of  innumerable  multi- 
tudes, who  had  come  to  be  present  at  the  annual  feast. 
Remember  Him  pausing  to  weep  over  his  country's  doomed 
metropolis,  unexcited,  while  the  giddy  crowd  around  Him 
were  shouting  "  Hosannah  to  the  Son  of  David !"  Remem* 
ber  Him  in  Pilate's  judgment -hall,  meek,  self-possessed, 
standing  in  the  serenity  of  truth,  while  all  around  Him  was 
agitation — hesitation  in  the  breast  of  Pilate,  hatred  in  the 
bosom  of  the  Pharisees,  and  consternation  in  the  heart  of 
the  disciples. 

And  this,  in  truth,  is  what  we  want :  we  want  the  vision 
of  a  calmer  and  simpler  beauty,  to  tranquillize  us  in  the 
midst  of  artificial  tastes — we  want  the  draught  of  a  purer 
spring  to  cool  the  flame  of  our  excited  life ;  we  want,  in 
other  words,  the  Spirit  of  the  life  of  Christ,  simple,  natural, 
with  power  to  calm  and  soothe  the  feelings  which  it  rouses : 
the  fullness  of  the  Spirit  which  can  never  intoxicate  ! 


X. 
PURITY. 

*l  Unto  the  pure  all  things  are  pure :  but  unto  them  that  are  defiled  and 
unbelieving  is  nothing  pure  ;  but  even  their  mind  and  conscience  is  defiled.  * 
—Titus  i.  15. 

FOR  the  evils  of  this  world  there  are  two  classes  of  reme- 
dies—  one  is  the  world's,  the  other  is  God's.  The  world 
proposes  to  remedy  evft  by  adjusting  the  circumstances  of 


Purity.  517 

this  life  to  man's  desires.  The  world  says,  Give  us  a  perfect 
set  of  circumstances ,  and  then  we  shall  have  a  set  of  perfect 
men.  This  principle  lies  at  the  root  of  the  system  called 
Socialism.  Socialism  proceeds  on  the  principle  that  all 
moral  and  even  physical  evil  arises  from  unjust  laws.  If 
the  cause  be  remedied,  the  effect  will  be  good.  But  Chris- 
tianity throws  aside  all  that  as  merely  chimerical.  It  proves 
that  the  fault  is  not  in  outward  circumstances  but  in  our- 
selves. Like  the  wise  physician  who,  instead  of  busying 
himself  with  transcendental  theories  to  improve  the  climate 
and  the  outward  circumstances  of  man,  endeavors  to  relieve 
and  get  rid  of  the  tendencies  of  disease  which  are  from 
within,  Christianity,  leaving  all  outward  circumstances  to 
ameliorate  themselves,  fastens  its  attention  on  the  spirit 
which  has  to  deal  with  them.  Christ  has  declared  that  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  is  from  within.  He  said  to  the  Pharisee, 
"  Ye  make  clean  the  outside  of  the  cup  and  platter,  but 
within  ye  are  full  of  extortion  and  excess."  The  remedy  for 
all  this  is  a  large  and  liberal  charity,  so  overflowing  that 
"  unto  the  pure  all  things  are  pure."  To  internal  purity  all 
external  things  become  pure.  The  principle  that  St.  Paul  has 
here  laid  down  is,  that  each  man  is  the  creator  of  his  own 
world  ;  he  walks  in  a  universe  of  his  own  creation. 

As  the  free  air  is  to  one  out  of  health  the  cause  of  cold 
and  diseased  lungs,  so  to  the  healthy  man  it  is  a  source  of 
greater  vigor.  The  rotten  fruit  is  sweet  to  the  worm,  but 
nauseous  to  the  palate  of  man.  It  is  the  same  air  and  the 
vsame  fruit  acting  differently  upon  different  beings.  To 
different  men  a  different  world — to  one  all  pollution,  to 
another  all  purity.  To  the  noble  all  things  are  noble,  to  the 
mean  all  things  are  contemptible. 

The  subject  divides  itself  into  two  parts. 

I.  The  apostle's  principle. 
II.  The  application  of  the  principle. 

Here  we  have  the  same  principle  again  ;  each  man  creates 
his  o  wn  world.  Take  it  in  its  simplest  form.  The  eye  creates 
the  outward  world  it  sees.  We  see  not  things  as  they  are, 
but  as  God  has  made  the  eye  to  receive  them. 

In  its  strictest  sense,  the  creation  of  a  new  man  is  the 
creation  of  a  new  universe.  Conceive  an  eye  so  constructed 
as  that  the  planets  and  all  within  them  should  be  minutely 
seen,  and  all  that  is  near  should  be  dim  and  invisible  like 
things  seen  through  a  telescope,  or  as  we  see  through  a 
magnifyirig-glass  the  plumage  of  the  butterfly  and  the  bloom 
upon  the  peach ;  then  it  is  manifestly  clear  that  we  have 


5 1 8  Purity. 

called  into  existence  actually  a  new  creation,  and  not  new 
objects.  The  mind's  eye  creates  a  world  for  itself. 

Again,  the  visible  world  presents  a  different  aspect  to 
each  individual  man.  You  will  say  that  the  same  things  you 
see  are  seen  by  all — that  the  forest,  the  valley,  the  flood, 
and  the  sea,  are  the  same  to  all ;  and  yet  all  these  things  so 
seen,  to  different  minds  are  a  myriad  of  different  universes. 
One  man  sees  in  that  noble  river  an  emblem  of  eternity  ;  he 
sloses  his  lips  and  feels  that  God  is  there.  Another  sees 
nothing  in  it  but  a  very  convenient  road  for  transporting  his 
spices,  silks,  and  merchandise.  To  one  this  world  appears 
useful,  to  another  beautiful.  Whence  comes  the  difference? 
From  the  soul  within  us.  It  can  make  of  this  world  a  vast 
chaos — "  a  mighty  maze  without  a  plan  ;"  or  a  mere  ma- 
chine— a  collection  of  lifeless  forces ;  or  it  can  make  it  the 
living  vesture  of  God,  the  tissue  through  which  He  can 
become  visible  to  us.  In  the  spirit  in  which  we  look  on  it 
the  world  is  an  arena  for  mere  self  advancement,  or  a  place 
for  noble  deeds,  in  which  self  is  forgotten  and  God  is  all. 

Observe,  this  "effect  is  traceable  even  in  that  produced  by 
our  different  and  changeful  moods.  We  make  and  unmake 
a  world  more  than  once  in  the  space  of  a  single  day.  In 
trifling  moods  all  seems  trivial.  In  serious  moods  all  seems 
solemn.  Is  the  song  of  the  nightingale  merry  or  plaintive  ? 
Is  it  the  voice  of  joy  or  the  harbinger  of  gloom  ?  Sometimes 
one,  and  sometimes  the  other,  according  to  our  different 
moods.  We  hear  the  ocean  furious  or  exulting.  The 
thunder-claps  are  grand,  or  angry,  according  to  the  differ- 
ent states  of  our  mind.  Nay,  the  very  church-bells  chime 
sadly  or  merrily,  as  our  associations  determine.  They 
speak  the  language  of  our  passing  moods.  The  young  ad- 
venturer revolving  sanguine  plans  upon  the  milestones,  hears 
them  speak  to  him  as  God  did  to  Hagar  in  the  wilderness, 
bidding  him  back  to  perseverance  and  greatness.  The  soul 
spreads  its  own  hue  over  every  thing ;  the  shroud  or  wed- 
ding-garment of  nature  is  woven  in  the  loom  of  our  own  feel- 
ings. This  universe  is  the  express  image  and  direct  counter- 
part of  the  souls  that  dwell  in  it.  Be  noble-minded,  and  all 
nature  replies — I  am  divine,  the  child  of  God ;  be  thou,  too 
His  child,  and  noble.  Be  mean,  and  all  nature  dwindles  into 
a  contemptible  smallness. 

In  the  second  place,  there  are  two  ways  in  which  this 
principle  is  true.  To  the  pure,  all  things  and  all  persons  are 
pure,  because  their  purity  makes  all  seem  pure. 

There  are  some  who  go  through  life  complaining  of  this 
world ;  they  say  they  have  found  nothing  but  treachery  and 


Purity.  5 1 9 

deceit ;  the  poor  are  ungrateful,  and  the  rich  are  selfish.  Yet 
we  do  not  find  such  the  best  men.  Experience  tells  us  that 
each  man  most  keenly  and  unerringly  detects  in  others  the 
vice  with  which  he  is  most  familiar  himself.  * 

Persons  seem  to  each  man  what  he  is  himself.  One  who 
suspects  hypocrisy  in  the  world  is  rarely  transparent ;  the 
man  constantly  on  the  watch  for  cheating  is  generally  dis- 
honest ;  he  who  suspects  impurity  is  prurient.  This  is  the 
principle  to  which  Christ  alludes  when  he  says,  *'  Give  alms 
of  such  things  as  ye  have ;  and  behold  all  things  are  clean 
unto  you." 

Have  a  large  charity  !  Large  "  charity  hopeth  all  things." 
Look  at  that  sublime  apostle  who  saw  the  churches  of  Ephe- 
sus  and  Thessalonica  pure,  because  he  saw  them  in  his  own 
large  love,  and  painted  them,  not  as  they  were,  but  as  his 
heart  filled  up  the  picture ;  he  viewed  them  in  the  light  of 
his  own  nobleness,  as  representations  of  his  own  purity. 

Once  more :  to  the  pure  all  things  are  pure,  as  well  as  all 
persons.  That  which  is  natural  lies  not  in  things,  but  in  the 
minds  of  men.  There  is  a  difference  between  prudery  and 
modesty.  Prudery  detects  wrong  where  no  wrong  is ;  the 
wrong  lies  in  the  thoughts,  and  not  in  the  objects.  There 
is  something  of  over-sensitiveness  and  over-delicacy  which 
shows  not  innocence,  but  an  inflammable  imagination.  And 
men  of  the  world  can  not  understand  that  those  subjects  and 
thoughts  which  to  them  are  full  of  torture,  can  be  harmless, 
suggesting  nothing  evil  to  the  pure  in  heart. 

Here,  however,  beware  !  No  sentence  of  Scripture  is  more 
frequently  in  the  lips  of  persons  who  permit  themselves 
much  license,  than  the  text,  "  To  the  pure  all  things  are 
pure."  Yes,  all  things  natural,  but  not  artificial — scenes 
which  pamper  the  tastes,  which  excite  the  senses.  Inno- 
cence feels  healthily.  To  it  all  nature  is  pure.  But,  just  as 
the  dove  trembles  at  the  approach  of  the  hawk,  and  the 
young  calf  shudders  at  the  lion  never  seen  before,  so  inno- 
cence shrinks  instinctively  from  what  is  wrong  by  the  same 
divine  instinct.  If  that  which  is  wrong  seems  pure,  then  the 
heart  is  not  pure  but  vitiated.  To  the  right-minded  all  that 
"is  right  in  the  course  of  this  world  seems  pure.  Abraham, 
looking  forward  to  the  destruction  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah, 
entreated  that  it  might  be  averted,  and  afterwards  acqui- 
esced !  To  the  disordered  mind  "  all  things  are  out  of 
course."  This  is  the  spirit  which  pervades  the  whole  of  the 
Ecclesiastes.  There  were  two  things  which  were  perpetu- 
ally suggesting  themselves  to  the  mind  of  Solomon ;  the  in- 
tolerable sameness  of  this  world,  and  the  constant  desire  loi 


5  2O  Purity. 

change.  And  yet  that  same  world,  spread  before  the  serene 
eye  of  God,  was  pronounced  to  be  all  "  very  good." 

This  disordered  universe  is  the  picture  of  your  own  mind. 
We  make  a  wilderness  by  encouraging  artificial  wants,  by 
creating  sensitive  and  selfish  feelings ;  then  we  project  every 
thing  stamped  with  the  impress  of  our  own  feelings,  and  we 
gather  the  whole  of  creation  into  our  own  pained  being— 
"  the  whole  creation  groaneth  and  travaileth  in  pain  togeth- 
er until  now."  The  world  you  complain  of  as  impure  and 
wrong  is  not  God's  world,  but  your  world ;  the  blight,  the 
dullness,  the  blank,  are  all  your  own.  The  light  which  is  in 
you  has  become  darkness,  and  therefore  the  light  itself  is 
dark. 

Again,  to  the  pure  all  things  not  only  $eem  pure,  but  are 
really  so  because  they  are  made  such. 

First,  as  regards  persons.  It  is  a  marvellous  thing  to  see 
how  a  pure  and  innocent  heart  purifies  all  that  it  approach- 
es. The  most  ferocious  natures  are  soothed  and  tamed  by 
innocence.  And  so  with  human  beings,  there  is  a  delicacy 
so  pure  that  vicious  men  in  its  presence  become  almost 
pure  ;  all  of. purity  which  is  in  them  is  brought  out ;  like  at- 
taches itself  to  like.  The  pure  heart  becomes  a  centre  of  at- 
traction round  which  similar  atoms  gather,  and  from  which 
dissimilar  ones  are  repelled.  A  corrupt  heart  elicits  in  an 
hour  all  that  is  bad  in  us ;  a  spiritual  one  brings  out  and 
draws  to  itself  all  that  is  best  and  purest.  Such  was  Christ. 
He  stood  in  the  world  the  Light  of  the  world,  to  which  all 
sparks  of  light  gradually  gathered.  He  stood  in  the  pres- 
ence of  impurity,  and  men  became  pure.  Note  this  in  the 
history  of  Zaccheus.  In  answer  to  the  invitation  of  the  Son 
of  Man,  he  says,  "  Behold,  Lord,  the  half  of  my  goods  I  give 
to  the  poor,  and  if  I  have  done  wrong  to  any  man  I  restore 
him  fourfold."  So  also  the  Scribe,  "  Well,  Master,  thou  hast 
well  said,  there  is  one  God,  and  there  is  none  other  than 
He."  To  the  pure  Saviour  all  was  pure.  "  He  was  lifted 
up  on  high,  and  drew  all  men  unto  Him." 

Lastly,  all  situations  are  pure  to  the  pure.  According  to 
the  world,  some  professions  are  reckoned  honorable  and  some 
dishonorable.  Men  judge  according  to  a  standard  merely 
conventional,  and  not  by  that  of  moral  rectitude.  Yet  it 
was  in  truth  the  men  who  were  in  these  situations  which 
made  them  such.  In  the  days  of  the  Redeemer  the  publi- 
can's occupation  was  a  degraded  one,  merely  because  low 
base  men  filled  that  place.  But  since  He  was  born  into  the 
world  a  poor,  laboring  man,  poverty  is  noble  and  dignified, 
and  toil  is  honorable.  To  the  man  who  feels  that  "  the 


Purity.  521 

king's  daughter  is  all  glorious  within,"  no  outward  situation 
can  seem  inglorious  or  impure. 

There  are  three  words  which  express  almost  the  same 
thing,  but  whose  meaning  is  entirely  different.  These  are, 
the  gibbet,  the  scaffold,  and  the  cross.  So  far  as  we  know, 
none  die  on  the  gibbet  but  men  of  dishonorable  and  base 
life.  The  scaffold  suggests  to  our  minds  the  noble  deaths  of 
our  greatest  martyrs.  The  cross  was  once  a  gibbet,  but  it 
is  now  the  highest  name  we  have,  because  He  hung  on  it. 
Christ  has  purified  and  ennobled  the  cross.  This  principle 
runs  through  life.  It  is  not  the  situation  which  makes  the 
man,  but  the  man  who  makes  the  situation.  The  slave  may 
be  a  freeman.  The  monarch  may  be  a  slave.  Situations  are 
noble  or  ignoble,  as  we  make  them. 

From  all  this  subject  we  learn  to  understand  two  things. 
Hence  we  understand  the  Fall.  When  man  fell,  the  world 
fell  with  him.  All  creation  received  a  shock.  Thorns, 
briers,  and  thistles,  sprang  up.  They  were  there  before,  but 
to  the  now  restless  and  impatient  hands  of  men  they  became 
obstacles  and  weeds.  Death,  which  must  ever  have  existed 
as  a  form  of  dissolution,  a  passing  from  one  state  to  another, 
became  a  curse  ;  the  sting  of  death  was  sin — unchanged  in 
itself,  it  changed  in  man.  A  dark  heavy  cloud  rested  on  it — 
the  shadow  of  his  own  guilty  heart. 

Hence,  too,  we  understand  the  Millennium.  The  Bible 
says  that  these  things  are  not  to  be  forever.  There  are 
glorious  things  to  come.  Just  as  in  my  former  illustration, 
the  alteration  of  the  eye  called  new  worlds  into  being,  so 
now  nothing  more  is  needed  than  to  re-create  the  soul — the 
mirror  on  which  all  things  are  reflected.  Then  is  realized 
the  prophecy  of  Isaiah,  "  Behold,  I  create  all  things  new," 
"  new  heavens  and  a  new  earth." 

The  conclusion  of  this  verse  proves  to  us  why  all  these  new 
creations  were  called  into  being — "  wherein  dwelleth  right- 
eousness." To  be  righteous  makes  all  things  new.  We  do 
not  want  a  new  world,  we  want  new  hearts.  Let  the  Spirit 
of  God  purify  society,  and  to  the  pure  all  things  will  be 
pure.  The  earth  will  put  off  the  look  of  weariness  and 
gloom  which  it  has  worn  so  long,  and  then  the  glorious  lan- 
guage of  the  prophets  will  be  fulfilled — "TheVorests  will 
break  out  with  singing,  and  the  desert  will  blossom  as  the 


522  Unity  and  Peace. 


XI. 
UNITY  AND  PEACE. 

"  And  let  the  peace  of  God  rule  in  your  hearts,  to  the  which  also  ye  ar€ 
called  in  one  body ;  and  be  ye  thankful." — Col.  iii.  15. 

THERE  is  something  in  these  words  that  might  surprise 
ns.  It  might  surprise  us  to  find  that  peace  is  urged  on  us  as 
a  duty.  There  can  be  no  duty  except  where  there  is  a  mat- 
ter of  obedience ;  and  it  might  seem  to  us  that  peace  is  a 
something  over  which  we  have  no  power.  It  is  a  privilege 
to  have  peace,  but  it  would  appear  as  if  there  were  no  power 
of  control  within  the  mind  of  a  man  able  to  insure  that  peace 
for  itself.  "  Yet,"  says  the  apostle,  "  let  the  peace  of  God 
rule  in  your  hearts." 

It  would  seem  to  us  as  if  peace  were  as  far  beyond  our 
own  control  as  happiness.  Unquestionably,  we  are  not  mas- 
ters, on  our  own  responsibility,  of  our  own  happiness.  Hap 
piness  is  the  gratification  of  every  innocent  desire ;  but  it  is 
not  given  to  us  to  insure  the  gratification  of  every  desire ; 
therefore,  happiness  is  not  a  duty,  and  it  is  nowhere  written 
in  the  Scripture,  "  You  must  be  happy."  But  we  find  it 
written  by  the  Apostle  Paul,  "  Be  ye  thankful,"  implying, 
therefore,  that  peace  is  a  duty.  The  apostle  says,  "  Let  the 
peace  of  God  rule  in  your  hearts  ;"  from  which  we  infer  that 
peace  is  attainable,  and  within  the  reach  of  our  own  wills ; 
that  if  there  be  not  repose  there  is  blame ;  if  there  be  not 
peace  but  discord  in  the  heart,  there  is  something  wrong. 

This  is  the  more  surprising  when  we  remember  the  cir- 
cumstances under  which  these  words  were  written.  They 
were  written  from  Rome,  where  the  apostle  lay  in  prison, 
daily  and  hourly  expecting  a  violent  death.  They  were 
written  in  days  of  persecution,  when  false  doctrines  were 
rife,  and  religious  animosities  fierce ;  they  were  written  in 
an  epistle  abounding  with  the  most  earnest  and  eager  con- 
troversy, whereby  it  is  therefore  implied,  that  according  to 
the  conception  of  the  Apostle  Paul,  it  is  possible  for  a  Chris- 
tian to  live  at  the  very  point  of  death,  and  in  the  very  midst 
of  danger — that  it  is  possible  for  him  to  be  breathing  the  at- 
mosphere of  religious  controversy — it  is  possible  for  him  to 
be  surrounded  by  bitterness,  and  even  take  up  the  pen  of 
controversy  himself— and  yet  his  soul  shall  not  lose  its  own 


Unity  and  Peace*  523 

deep  peace,  nor  the  power  of  the  infinite  repose  and  rest  of 
God.  Joined  with  the  apostle's  command  to  be  at  peace, 
we  find  another  doctrine,  the  doctrine  of  the  unity  of  the 
Church  of  Christ.  "  To  the  which  ye  are  called  in  one 
body,"  in  order  that  ye  may  be  at  peace ;  in  other  words, 
the  unity  of  the  Church  of  Christ  is  the  basis  on  which,  and 
on  which  alone,  can  be  built  the  possibility  of  the  inward 
peace  of  individuals. 

And  thus,  my  Christian  brethren,  our  subject  divides  itself 
into  these  two  simple  branches  : 

I.  The  unity  of  the  Church  of  Christ. 
II.  The  inward  peace  of  the  members  of  that  Church. 

I.  The  first  subject,  then,  which  we  have  to  consider,  is 
the  unity  of  the  Church  of  Christ. 

And  the  first  thing  we  have  to  do  is  both  clearly  to  define 
and  understand  the  meaning  of  that  word  "  unity."  I  dis- 
tinguish the  unity  of  comprehensiveness  from  the  unity  of 
mere  singularity.  The  word  one,  as  oneness,  is  an  ambigu- 
ous word.  There  is  a  oneness  belonging  to  the  army  as  well 
as  to  every  soldier  in  the  army.  The  army  is  one,  and  that 
is  the  oneness  of  unity ;  the  soldier  is  one,  but  that  is  the 
oneness  of  the  unit.  There  is  a  difference  between  the  one- 
ness of  a  body  and  the  oneness  of  a  member  of  that  body. 
The  body  is  many,  and  a  unity  of  manifold  comprehensive- 
ness. An  arm  or  a  member  of  a  body  is  one,  but  that  is  the 
unity  of  singularity.  Without  unity,  my  Christian  brethren, 
peace  must  be  impossible.  There  can  be  no  peace  in  the  one 
single  soldier  of  an  army.  You  do  not  speak  of  the  harmony 
of  one  member  of  a  body.  There  is  peace  in  an  army,  or  in 
a  kingdom  joined  with  other  kingdoms  ;  there  is  harmony  in 
a  member  united  with  other  members.  There  is  no  peace  in 
a  unit,  there  is  no  possibility  of  the  harmony  of  that  which  is 
but  one  in  itself.  In  order  to  have  peace  you  must  have  a 
higher  unity,  and  therein  consists  the  unity  of  God's  own 
Being.  The  unity  of  God  is  the  basis  of  the  peace  of  God — 
meaning  by  the  unity  of  God  the  comprehensive  manifold- 
ness  of  God,  and  not  merely  the  singularity  in  the  number 
of  God's  Being.  When  the  Unitarian  speaks  of  God  as  om*, 
he  means  simply  singularity  of  number.  We  mean  that  He 
is  of  manifold  comprehensiveness — that  there  is  unity  be- 
tween His  various  powers.  Amongst  the  personalities  or 
powers  of  His  Being  there  is  no  discord,  but  perfect  harmo- 
ny, entire  union  ;  and  that,  brethren,  is  repose,  the  blessed- 
ness of  infinite  rest,  that  belongs  to  the  unity  of  God — "  I 
and  my  Father  are  one." 


524  Unity  and  Peace. 

The  second  thing  which  we  observe  respecting  this  unity 
is,  that  it  subsists  between  things  not  similar  or  alike,  but 
things  dissimilar  or  unlike.  There  is  no  unity  in  the  sepa- 
rate atoms  of  a  sand-pit ;  they  are  things  similar ;  there  is 
an  aggregate  or  collection  of  them.  Even  if  they  be  harden- 
ed in  a  mass  they  are  not  one,  they  do  not  form  a  unity : 
they  are  simply  a  mass.  There  is  no  unity  in  a  flock  of 
sheep :  it  is  simply  a  repetition  of  a  number  of  things  simi- 
lar to  each  other.  If  you  strike  off  from  a  thousand  five 
hundred,  or  if  you  strike  oif  nine  hundred,  there  is  nothing 
lost  of  unity,  because  there  never  was  unity.  A  flock  of  one 
thousand  or  a  flock  of  five  is  just  as  much  a  flock  as  any  oth- 
er number. 

On  the  other  hand,  let  us  turn  to  the  unity  of  peace  which 
the  apostle  speaks  of,  and  we  find  it  is  something  different ; 
it  is  made  up  of  dissimilar  members,  without  which  dissimi- 
larity there  could  be  no  unity.  Each  is  imperfect  in  itself, 
each  supplying  what  it  has  in  itself  to  the  deficiencies  and 
wants  of  the  other  members.  So,  if  you  strike  oif  from  this 
body  any  one  member,  if  you  cut  off  an  arm,  or  tear  out  an 
eye,  instantly  the  unity  is  destroyed  ;  you  have  no  longer  an 
entire  and  perfect  body,  there  is  nothing  but  a  remnant  of 
the  whole,  a  part,  a  portion ;  no  unity  whatever. 

This  will  help  us  to  understand  the  unity  of  the  Church 
of  Christ.  If  the  ages  and  the  centuries  of  the  Church  of 
Christ,  if  the  different  Churches  whereof  it  was  composed,  if 
the  different  members  of  each  Church,  were  similar — one  in 
this,  that  they  all  held  the  same  views,  all  spoke  the  same 
words,  all  viewed  truth  from  the  same  side,  they  would  have 
no  unity ;  but  would  simply  be  an  aggregate  of  atoms,  the 
sand-pit  over  again — units,  multiplied^  it  may  be  to  infinity, 
but  you  would  have  no  real  unity,  and  therefore  no  peace. 
No  unity — for  wherein  consists  the  unity  of  the  Church  of 
Christ?  The  unity  of  ages,  brethren,  consists  it  in  this — 
that  every  age  is  merely  the  repetition  of  another  age,  and 
that  which  is  held  in  one  is  held  in  another?  Precisely  in 
the  same  way,  that  is  not  the  unity  of  the  ages  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church. 

Every  century  and  every  age  has  held  a  different  truth, 
has  put  forth  different  fragments  of  the  truth.  In  early 
ages,  for  example,  by  martyrdom  was  proclaimed  the  eternal 
sanctity  of  truth,  rather  than  give  up  which  a  man  must 

lose  his  life In  our  own  age  it  is  quite  plain  those  are 

not  the  themes  which  engage  us,  or  the  truths  which  we  put 
in  force  now.  This  age,  by  its  revolutions,  its  socialisms, 
proclaims  another  truth — the  brotherhood  of  the  Church  of 


Unity  and  Peace.  525 

Christ ;  so  that  the  unity  of  ages  subsists  on  the  same  prin- 
ciple as  that  of  the  unity  of  the  human  body:  and  just  as 
every  separate  ray — the  violet,  the  blue,  and  the  orange — 
make  up  the  white  ray,  so  these  manifold  fragments  of  truth 
blended  together  make  up  the  one  entire  and  perfect  white 
ray  of  truth.  And  with  regard  to  individuals,  taking  the 
case  of  the  Reformation,  it  was  given  to  one  Church  to  pro- 
claim that  salvation  is  a  thing  received,  and  not  local ;  to 
another  to  proclaim  justification  by  faith ;  to  another  the 
sovereignty  of  God ;  to  another  the  supremacy  of  the  Scrip- 
tures ;  to  another  the  right  of  private  judgment,  the  duty  of 
the  individual,  conscience.  Unite  these  all,  and  then  you 
have  the  Reformation  one — one  in  spite  of  manifoldness ; 
those  very  varieties  by  which  they  have  approached  this 
proving  them  to  be  one.  Disjoint  them  and  then  you  have 
some  miserable  sect — Calvinism,  or  Unitarianism ;  the  unity 
has  dispersed.  And  so  again  with  the  unity  of  the  Churches. 
Whereby  would  we  produce  unity  ?  Would  we  force  on 
other  Churches  our  Anglicanism?  Would  we  have  our 
thirty-nine  articles,  our  creeds,  our  prayers,  our  rules  and 
regulations,  accepted  by  every  Church  throughout  the 
world  ?  If  that  were  unity,  then  in  consistency  you  are 
bound  to  demand  that  in  God's  world  there  shall  be  but  one 
color  instead  of  the  manifold  harmony  and  accordance  of 
which,  this  universe  is  full ;  that  there  should  be  but  one 
chanted  note — the  one  which  we  conceive  most  beautiful. 
This  is  not  the  unity  of  the  Church  of  God.  The  various 
Churches  advance  different  doctrines  and  truths.  The 
Church  of  Germany  something  different  from  those  of  the 
Church  of  England.  The  Church  of  Rome,  even  in  its  idol- 
atry, proclaims  truths  which  we  would  be  glad  to  seize.  By 
the  worship  of  the  Virgin,  the  purity  of  women ;  by  the  rig- 
or of  ecclesiastical  ordinances,  the  sanctity  and  permanence 
of  eternal  order ;  by  the  very  priesthood  itself,  the  necessity 
of  the  guidance  of  man  by  man.  Nay,  even  the  dissenting 
bodies  themselves — mere  atoms  of  aggregates  as  they  are- 
stand  forward  and  proclaim  at  least  this  truth,  the  separate- 
ness  of  the  individual  conscience,  the  right  of  independence. 
Peace  subsists  not  between  things  exactly  alike.  We  do 
not  speak  of  peace  in  a  single  country.  We  say  peace  sub- 
sists between  different-countries  where  war  might  be.  There 
can  be  no  peace  between  two  men  who  agree  in  every  thing  ; 
peace  subsists  between  those  who  differ.  There  is  no  peace 
between  Baptist  and  Baptist;  so  far  as  they  are  Baptists, 
there  is  perfect  accordance  and  agreement.  There  may  be 
peace  between  you  and  the  Romanist,  the  Jew,  or  the  Dis* 


526  Unity  and  Peace. 

senter,  because  Acre  are  angles  of  sharpness  which  might 
come  into  collision  if  they  were  not  subdued  and  softenedJby 
the  power  of  love.  It  was  given  to  the  Apostle  Paul  to  dis- 
cern that  this  was  the  ground  of  unity.  In  the  Church  of 
Christ  he  saw  men  with  different  views,  and  he  said,  So  far 
from  that  variety  destroying  unity,  it  was  the  only  ground 
of  unity.  There  are  many  doctrines,  all  of  them  different, 
but  let  those  varieties  be  blended  together — in  other  words, 
let  there  be  the  peace  of  love,  and  then  you  will  have  unity. 

Once  more:  this  unity,  whereof  the  apostle  speaks,  consists 
in  submission  to  one  single  influence  or  spirit.  Wherein 
consists  the  unity  of  the  body  ?  Consists  it  not  in  this — that 
there  is  one  life  uniting,  making  all  the  separate  members 
one  ?  Take  a  way  the  life,  and  the  members  fall  to  pieces : 
they  are  no  longer  one;  decomposition  begins,  and  every 
element  separates,  no  longer  having  any  principle  of  cohe- 
sion or  union  with  the  rest. 

There  is  not  one  of  us  who,  at  some  time  or  other,  has  not 
been  struck  with  the  power  there  is  in  a  single  living  influ- 
ence. Have  we  never,  for  instance,  felt  the  power  where- 
with the  orator  unites  and  holds  together  a  thousand  men  as 
if  they  were  but  one ;  with  flashing  eyes  and  throbbing 
hearts,  all  attentive  to  his  words,  and  by  the  difference  of 
their  attitudes,  by  the  variety  of  the  expressions  of  their 
countenances,  testifying  to  the  unity  of  that  single  living 
feeling  with  which  he  had  inspired  them?  Whether  it  be 
indignation,  whether  it  be  compassion,  or  whether  it  be  en- 
thusiasm,  that  one  living  influence  made  the  thousand,  for  the 
time,  one.  Have  we  not  heard  how,  even  in  this  century  io 
which  we  live,  the  various  and  conflicting  feelings  of  the 
people  of  this  country  were  concentrated  into  one,  when  the 
threat  of  foreign  invasion  had  fused  down  and  broken  the 
edges  of  conflict  and  variance,  and  from  shore  to  shore  was 
heard  one  cry  of  terrible  defiance,  and  the  different  classes 
and  orders  of  this  manifold  and  mighty  England  were  as 
one  ?  Have  we  not  heard  how  the  mighty  winds  hold  to- 
gether as  if  one,  the  various  atoms  of  the  desert,  so  that  they 
rush  like  a  living  thing  across  the  wilderness?  And  this, 
brethren,  is  the  unity  of  the  Church  of  Christ,  the  subjection 
to  the  one  uniting  Spirit  of  its  God. 

It  will  be  said,  in  reply  to  this,  "  Why,  this  is  mere  enthu- 
siasm. It  may  be  very  beautiful  in  theory,  but  it  is  impossi- 
ble in  practice.  It  is  mere  enthusiasm  to  believe,  that  while 
all  these  varieties  of  conflicting  opinion  remain,  we  can  have 
unity ;  it  is  mere  enthusiasm  to  think  that  so  long  as  men's 
minds  reckon  on  a  thing  like  unity,  there  can  be  a  thing  liks 


Unity  and  Peace.  527 

oneness."  And  our  reply  is,  Give  us  the  Spirit  of  God,  and 
we  shall  be  one.  You  can  not  produce  a  unity  by  all  the 
rigor  of  your  ecclesiastical  discipline.  You  can  not  produce 
a  unity  by  consenting  in  some  form  of  expression  such  as 
this,  "  Let  us  agree  to  differ."  You  can  not  produce  a  unity 
by  Parliamentary  regulations  or  enactments,  bidding  back 
the  waves  of  what  is  called  aggression.  Give  us  the  living 
Spirit  of  God,  and  we  shall  be  one. 

Once  on  this  earth  was  exhibited,  as  it  were,  a  specimen  of 
perfect  anticipation  of  such  a  unity,  when  the  "  rushing 
mighty  wind  "  of  Pentecost  came  down  in  the  tongues  of  fire 
and  sat  on  every  man ;  when  the  Parthians,  and  Medes,  and 
Elamites,  and  the  dwellers  in  Mesopotamia,  the  "  Cretes  and 
Arabians,"  the  Jew  and  the  Gentile,  each  speaking  one  lan- 
guage, yet  blended  and  fused  into  one  unity  by  enthusiastic 
love,  heard  one  another  speak,  as  it  were,  in  one  language, 
the  manifold  works  of  God ;  when  the  spirit  of  giving  was 
substituted  for  the  spirit  of  mere  rivalry  and  competition, 
and  no  man  said  the  things  he  had  were  his  own,  but  all 
shared  in  common.  Let  that  spirit  come  again,  as  come  it 
will,  and  come  it  must ;  and  then,  beneath  the  influences  of  a 
mightier  love,  we  shall  have  a  nobler  and  a  more  real  unity. 

We  pass  on  now,  in  the  second  place,  to  consider  the  indi- 
vidual peace  resulting  from  this  unity.  As  we  have  endeav- 
ored  to  explain  what  is  meant  by  unity,  so  now  let  us  en- 
deavor to  understand  what  is  meant  by  peace.  Peace,  then, 
is  the  opposite  of  passion,  and  of  labor,  toil,  and  effort. 
Peace  is  that  state  in  which  there  are  no  desires  madly  de- 
manding an  impossible  gratification;  that  state  in  which 
there  is  no  misery,  no  remorse,  no  sting.  And  there  are  but 
three  things  which  can  break  that  peace.  The  first  is  dis- 
cord between  the  mind  of  man  and  the  lot  which  he  is  called 
on  to  inherit ;  the  second  is  discord  between  the  affections 
and  powers  of  the  soul ;  and  the  third  is  doubt  of  the  recti- 
tude and  justice  and  love  wherewith  this  wrorld  is  ordered. 
But  where  these  things  exist  not,  where  a  man  is  contented 
with  his  lot,  where  the  flesh  is  subdued  to  the  spirit,  and 
where  he  believes  and  feels  with  all  his  heart  that  all  is  right, 
there  is  peace,  and  to  this,  says  the  apostle, "  ye  are  called" 
— the  grand,  peculiar  call  of  Christianity — the  call,  "  Come 
unto  Me,  all  ye  that  labor  and  are  heavy  laden,  and  I  will 
give  you  rest." 

This  was  the  dying  bequest  of  Christ :  "  Peace  I  leave  with 
you,  my  peace  I  give  unto  you  :  not  as  the  world  giveth  give 
I  unto  you :"  and  therein  lies  one  of  the  greatest  truths  of 
the  blessed  and  eternal  character  of  Christianity,  that  it  ap* 


528  Unity  and  Peace. 

plies  to,  and  satisfies  the  very  deepest  want  and  craving  of 
our  nature.  The  deepest  want  of  man  is  not  a  desire  foi 
happiness,  but  a  craving  for  peace ;  not  a  wish  foi  the  grati- 
fication of  every  desire,  but  a  craving  for  the  repose  of  ac- 
quiescence in  the  will  of  God  ;  and  it  is  this  which  Christiani- 
ty promises.  Christianity  does  not  promise  happiness,  but  it 
does  promise  peace.  "In  the  world  ye  shall  have  tribula- 
tion," saith  our  Master,  "  but  be  of  good  cheer ;  I  have  over- 
come the  world."  Now,  let  us  look  more  closely  into  this 
peace. 

The  first  thing  we  see  respecting  it  is,  that  it  is  called 
God's  peace.  God  is  rest :  the  infinite  nature  of  God  is  in- 
finite repose.  The  "I am"  of  God  is  contrasted  with  theT 
am  become  of  all  other  things.  Every  thing  else  is  in  a  state 
of  becoming,  God  is  in  a  state  of  being.  The  acorn  has  be- 
come the  plant,  and  the  plant  has  become  the  oak.  The 
child  has  become  the  man,  and  the  man  has  become  good,  or 
wise,  or  whatever  else  it  may  be.  God  ever  is  ;  and  I  pray 
you  once  more  to  observe,  that  this  peace  of  God,  this  eter- 
nal rest  in  the  Almighty  Being,  arises  out  of  His  unity.  Not 
because  He  is  a  unit,  but  because  He  is  a  unity.  There  is 
no  discord  between  the  powers  and  attributes  of  the  mind  of- 
God;  there  is  no  discord  between  His  justice  and  His  love; 
there  is  no  discord  demanding  some  miserable  expedient  to 
unite  them  together,  such  as  some  theologians  imagined  when 
they  described  the  sacrifice  and  atonement  of  our  Redeemer 
by  saying,  it  is  the  clever  expedient  whereby  God  reconciles 
His  justice  with  His  love.  God's  justice  and  love  are  one. 
Infinite  justice  must  be  infinite  love.  Justice  is  but  another 
sign  of  love.  The  infinite  rest  of  the  "7"  am  "  of  God  arises 
out  of  the  harmony  of  His  attributes. 

The  next  thing  we  observe  respecting  this  divine  peace 
which  has  come  down  to  man  on  earth  is,  that  it  is  a  living 
peace.  Brethren,  let  us  distinguish.  There  are  several  things 
called  peace  which  are  by  no  means  Divine  or  Godlike  peace. 
There  is  peace,  for  example,  in  the  man  who  lives  for  and  en- 
joys self,  with  no  nobler  aspiration  goading  him  on  to  make 
him  feel  the  rest  of  God ;  that  is  peace,  but  that  is  merely 
the  peace  of  toil.  There  is  rest  on  the  surface  of  the-  cav- 
erned  lake,  which  no  wind  can  stir ;  but  that  is  the  peace  of 
stagnation.  There  is  peace  amongst  the  stones  which  have 
fallen  and  rolled  down  the  mountain's  side,  and  lie  there 
quietly  at  rest ;  but  that  is  the  peace  of  inanity.  There  is 
peace  in  the  hearts  of  enemies  who  lie  together,  side  by  side, 
in  the  same  trench  of  the  battle-field,  the  animosities  of  their 
souls  silenced  at  length,  and  their  hands  no  longer  clenched 


Unity  and  Peace.  529 

In  deadly  enmity  against  each  other ;  but  that  is  the  peace 
of  death.  If  our  peace  be  but  the  peace  of  the  sensualist  sat- 
isfying pleasure,  if  it  be  but  the  peace  of  mental  torpor  and 
inaction,  the  peace  of  apathy,  or  the  peace  of  the  soul  dead 
in  trespasses  and  sins,  we  may  whisper  to  ourselves,  "  Peace, 
peace,"  but  there  will  be  no  peace ;  there  is  not  the  peace  of 
unity  nor  the  peace  of  God,  for  the  peace  of  God  is  the  living 
peace  of  love. 

The  next  thing  we  observe  respecting  this  peace  is,  that  it 
is  the  manifestation  of  power — it  is  the  peace  which  comes 
from  an  inward  power :  "  Let  the  peace  of  God,"  says  the 
apostle,  "  rule  within  your  hearts."  For  it  is  a  power,  the 
manifestation  of  strength.  There  is  no  peace  except  there  is 
the  possibility  of  the  opposite  of  peace,  although  now  restrain- 
ed and  controlled.  You  do  not  speak  of  the  peace  of  a  grain 
of  sand,  because  it  can  not  be  otherwise  than  merely  insignifi- 
cant, and  at  rest.  You  do  not  speak  of  the  peace  of  a  mere 
pond ;  you  speak  of  the  peace  of  the  sea,  because  there  is  the 
opposite  of  peace  implied,  there  is  power  and  strength. 
And  this,  brethren,  is  the  real  character  of  the  peace  in  the 
mind  and  soul  of  man.  Oh  !  we  make  a  great  mistake  when 
we  say  there  is  strength  in,  passion,  in  the  exhibition  of  emo- 
tion. Passion,  and  emotion,  and  all  those  outward  manifest- 
ations, prove,  not  strength,  but  weakness.  If  the  passions  of 
a  man  are  strong,  it  proves  the  man  himself  is  weak  if  he  can 
not  restrain  or  control  his  passions.  The  real  strength  and 
majesty  of  the  soul  of  man  is  calmness,  the  manifestation  of 
strength ;  "  the  peace  of  God  "  ruling ;  the  word  of  Christ 
saying  to  the  inward  storms,  "  Peace  !"  and  there  is  "  a  great 
calm." 

Lastly,  the  peace  of  which  the  apostle  speaks  is  tne  peace 
that  is  received — the  peace  of  reception.  You  will  observe, 
throughout  this  passage  the  apostle  speaks  of  a  something 
received,  and  not  done :  "  Let  the  peace  of  God  rule  in  your 
hearts."  It  is  throughout  receptive,  but  by  no  nieans  inact- 
ive. And  according  to  this,  there  are  two  kinds  of  peace ; 
the  peace  of  obedience — "  Let  the  peace  of  God  rule  "  you  ; 
and  there  is  the  peace  of  gratefulness — "Be  ye  thankful." 
V^ery  great,  brethren,  is  the  peace  of  obedience  :  when  a  man 
has  his  lot  fixed,  and  his  mind  made  up,  and  he  sees  his  des- 
tiny before  him,  and  quietly  acquiesces  in  it,  his  spirit  is  at 
rest.  Great  and  deep  is  the  peace  of  the  soldier  to  whom 
has  been  assigned  even  an  untenable  position,  with  the  com- 
mand, "  Keep  that,  even  if  you  die,"  and  he  obediently  re« 
mains  to  die. 

Great  was  the  peace  of  Elisha — very,  very  calm  are  those 

23 


530  The  Christian  Aim  and  Motive. 

words  by  which  he  expressed  his  acquiescence  in  the  Divino 
will.  "Knowest  thou,"  said  the  troubled,  excited,  and  rest- 
less men  around  him — "  Knowest  thou  that  the  Lord  will 
take  away  thy  master  from  thy  head  to-day  ?"  He  answered, 
"Yea,  I  know  it;  hold  ye  your  peace."  Then  there  is  the 
other  peace,  it  is  the  peace  of  gratefulness :  "  Be  ye  thank- 
ful." It  is  that  peace  which  tHe  Israelites  had  when  these 
words  were  spoken  to  them  on  the  shores  of  the  Red  Sea, 
while  the  bodies  of  their  enemies  floated  past  them,  de- 
stroyed, but  not  by  them  :  "  Stand  still  and  see  the  salvation 
of  the  Lord." 

And  here,  brethren,  is  another  mistake  of  ours :  we  look 
on  salvation  as  a  thing  to  be  done,  and  not  received.  In 
God's  salvation  we  can  do  but  little,  but  there  is  a  great 
deal  to  be  received.  We  are  here,  not  merely  to  act,  but  to 
be  acted  upon.  "  Let  the  peace  of  God  rule  in  your  hearts  ;" 
there  is  a  peace  that  will  enter  there,  if  you  do  not  thwart  it ; 
there  is  a  Spirit  that  will  take  possession  of  your  soul,  pro- 
vided that  you  do  not  quench  it.  In  this  world  we  are  re- 
cipients, not  creators.  In  obedience  and  in  gratefulness,  and 
the  infinite  peace  of  God  in  the  soul  of  man,  is  alone  to  be 
found  deep  calm  repose. 


XII. 

THE  CHRISTIAN  AIM  AND  MOTIVE. 

"Be  ye  therefore  perfect,  even  as  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven  is  per- 
fect."—Matt,  v.  48. 

THERE  are  two  erroneous  views  held  respecting  the  char- 
acter of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  The  first  may  be  called 
an  error  o'f  worldly-minded  men,  the  other  an  error  of  mis- 
taken religionists.  Worldly-minded  men — men,  that  is,  in 
whom  the  devotional  feeling  is  but  feeble — are  accustomed 
to  look  upon  morality  as  the  whole  of  religion ;  and  they 
suppose  that  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  was  designed  only  to 
explain  and  enforce  correct  principles  of  morality.  It  tells 
of  human  duties  and  human  proprieties,  and  an  attention  to 
these,  they  maintain,  is  the  only  religion  which  is  required 
by  it.  Strange,  my  Christian  brethren,  that  men  whose  lives 
are  least  remarkable  for  superhuman  excellence,  should  be 
the  very  men  to  refer  most  frequently  to  those  sublime  com* 
ments  on  Christian  principle,  and  should  so  confidently  cor* 


The  Christian  Aim  and  Motive.  531 

dude  from  thence,  that  themselves  are  right  and  all  others 
are  wrong.  Yet  so  it  is. 

The  other  is  an  error  of  mistaken  religionists.  They  some- 
times regard  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  as  if  it  were  a  col- 
lection of  moral  precepts,  and  consequently,  strictly  speaking, 
not  Christianity  'at  all.  To  them  it  seems  as  if  the  chief 
value,  the  chief  intention  of  the  discourse,  was  to  show  the 
breadth  and  spirituality  of  the  requirements  of  the  law  of 
Moses  ;  its  chief  religious  significance,  to  show  the  utter  im- 
possibility of  fulfilling  the  law,  and  thus  to  lead  to  the  nec- 
essary inference  that  justification  must  be  by  faith  alone. 
And  so  they  would  not  scruple  to  assert  that,  in  the  highest 
sense  of  that  term,  it  is  not  Christianity  at  all,  but  only 
preparatory  to  it — a  kind  of  spiritual  Judaism  ;  and  that  the 
higher  and  more  developed  principles  of  Christianity  are  to 
be  found  in  the  writings  of  the  apostles.  Before  we  proceed 
further,  we  would  remark  here  that  it  seems  extremely  start- 
ling to  say  that  He  who  came  to  this  world  expressly  to 
preach  the  Gospel,  should,  in  the  most  elaborate  of  all  His 
discourses,  omit  to  do  so :  it  is  indeed  something  more  than 
startling,  it  is  absolutely  revolting,  to  suppose  that  the  let- 
ters of  those  who  spoke  of  Christ,  should  contain  a  more  per- 
fectly-developed, a  freer  and  fuller  Christianity  than  is  to  be 
found  in  Christ's  own  words. 

Now  you  will  observe  that  these  two  parties,  so  opposed 
to  each  other  in  their  general  religious  views,  are  agreed  in 
this — that  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  is  nothing  but  morality. 
The  man  of  the  world  says — "  It  is  morality  only,  and  that 
is  the  whole  of  religion."  The  mistaken  religionist  says — 
"It  is  morality  only,  not  the  entire  essence  of  Christian- 
ity." In  opposition  to  both  these  views,  we  maintain  that 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  contains  the  sum  and  substance 
of  Christianity — the  very  chief  matter  of  the  Gospel  of  our 
Redeemer. 

It  is  not,  you  will  observe,  a  pure  and  spiritualized  Juda- 
ism ;  it  is  contrasted  with  Judaism  again  and  again  by  Him 
who  spoke  it.  Quoting  the  words  of  Moses,  He  affirmed,  "  So 
was  it  spoken  by  them  of  old  time,  but  I  say  unto  you — " 
For  example,  "  Thou  shalt  not  forswear  thyself,  but  shalt 
perform  unto  the  Lord  thine  oaths."  That  is  Judaism.  "  But 
I  say  unto  you,  Swear  not  at  all,  but  let  your  yea  be  yea, 
and  your  nay  nay."  That  is  Christianity.  And  that  which 
is  the  essential  peculiarity  of  this  Christianity  lies  in  these 
two  things.  First  of  all,  that  the  mgrality  which  it  teaches 
is  disinterested  goodness — goodness  not  for  the  sake  of  the 
blessing  that  follows  it,  but  for  its  own  sake,  and  because  h 


532  The  Christian  Aim  and  Motive. 

is  right.  "  Love  your  enemies,"  is  the  Gospel  precept.  Why  T 
— Because  if  you  love  them  you  shall  be  blessed  ;  and  if  you 
do  not,  cursed  ?  No ;  but  "  Love  your  enemies,  bless  them 
that  curse  you,  do  good  to  them  that  hate  you,  and  pray  for 
them  which  despitefully  use  you  and  persecute  you,  that  ye 
may  be  the  children  of" — that  is,  may  be  like — "  your  Fa- 
ther which  is  in  heaven."  The  second  essential  peculiarity 
of  Christianity — and  this,  too,  is  an  essential  peculiarity  of 
this  sermon,  is  that  it  teaches  and  enforces  the  law  of  self- 
sacrifice.  "  If  thy  right  eye  offend  thee,  pluck  it  out ;  if  thy 
right  hand  offend  thee,  cut  it  off."  This,  brethren,  is  the  law 
of  self-sacrifice — the  very  law  and  spirit  of  the  blessed  cross 
of  Christ, 

How  deeply  and  essentially  Christian,  then,  this  Sermon 
on  the  Mount  is,  we  shall  understand  if  we  are  enabled  in 
any  measure  to  reach  the  meaning  and  spirit  of  the  single 
passage  which  I  have  taken  as  my  text.  It  tells  two  things 
• — the  Christian  aim  and  the  Christian  motive. 

I.  The  Christian  aim — perfection. 

IL  The  Christian  motive — because  it  is  right  and  Godlike 
to  be  perfect. 

I.  The  Christian  aim.is  this — to  be  perfect.  "  Be  ye  there 
fore  perfect."  Now  distinguish  this,  I  pray  you,  from  mere 
worldly  morality.  It  is  not  conformity  to  a  creed  that  is 
here  required,  but  aspiration  after  a  state.  It  is  not  de- 
manded of  us  to  perform  a  number  of  duties,  but  to  yield 
obedience  to  a  certain  spiritual  law.  But  let  us  endeavor  to 
explain  this  more  fully.  What  is  the  meaning  of  this 
expression,  "  Be  ye  perfect  ?"  Why  is  it  that  hi"  this  dis- 
course, instead  of  being  commanded  to  perform  religious  du- 
ties, we  are  commanded  to  think  of  being  like  God  ?  Will 
not  that  inflame  our  pride,  and  increase  our  natural  vain- 
glory ?  Now  the  nature  and  possibility  of  human  perfection, 
what  it  is  and  how  it  is  possible,  are  both  contained  in  one 
single  expression  in  the  text,  "Even  as  your  Father  which  is 
in  heaven  is  perfect."  The  relationship  between  father  and 
son  implies  consanguinity,  likeness,  similarity  of  character 
and  nature.  God  made  the  insect,  the  stone,  the  lily,  but  God 
is  not  the  Father  of  the  caterpillar,  the  lily,  or  the  stone. 

When,  therefore,  God  is  said  to  be  our  Father,  something 
more  is  implied  in  this  than  that  God  created  man.  And  so 
when  the  Son  of  Man  came  proclaiming  the  fact  that  we  are 
the  children  of  God  it^was  in  the  truest  sense  a  revelation. 
He  told  us  that  the  nature  of  God  resembles  the  nature  of 
man,  that  love  in  God  is  not  a  mere  figure  of  speech,  but 


The  Christian  Aim  and  Motive.  533 

means  the  same  thing  as  love  in  us,  and  that  Divine  anger  is 
the  same  thing  as  human  anger  divested  of  its  emotions  and 
imperfections.  When  we  are  commanded  to  be  like  God,  it 
implies  that  God  has  that  nature  of  which  we  have  already 
the  germs.  And  this  has  been  taught  by  the  incarnation  of 
the  Redeemer.  Things  absolutely  dissimilar  in  their  nature 
can  not  mingle.  Water  can  not  coalesce  with  fire — water 
can  not  mix  with  oil.  If,  then,  humanity  and  divinity  were 
united  in  the  person  of  the  Redeemer,  it  follows  that  there 
must  be  something  kindred  between  the  two,  or  else  the 
incarnation  had  been  impossible.  So  that  the  incarnation  is 
the  realization  of  man's  perfection. 

But  let  us  examine  more  deeply  this  assertion,  that  our 
nature  is  kindred  with  that  of  God — for  if  man  has  not  a 
nature  kindred  to  God's,  then  a  demand  such  as  that,  "  Be 
ye  the  children  of" — that  is,  like — "  God,"  is  but  a  mockery 
of  man.  We  say,  then,  in  the  first  place,  that  in  the  truest 
sense  of  the  word  man  can  be  a  creator.  The  beaver  makes 
its  hole,  the  bee  makes  its  cell ;  man  alone  has  the  power  of 
creating.  The  mason  makes,  the  architect  creates.  In  the 
same  sense  that  we  say  God  created  the  universe,  we  say 
that  man  is  also  a  creator.  The  creation  of  the  universe  was 
the  Eternal  Thought  taking  reality.  And  thought  taking 
expression  is  also  a  creation.  Whenever,  therefore,  there  is 
a  living  thought  shaping  itself  in  word  or  in  stone,  there  is 
there  a  creation.  And  therefore  it  is  that  the  simplest  effort 
of  what  we  call  genius  is  prized  infinitely  more  than  the  most 
elaborate  performances  which  are  done  by  mere  workman^ 
ship,  and  for  this  reason :  that  the  one  is  produced  by  an 
effort  of  power  which  we  share  with  the  beaver  and  the  bee, 
that  of  making,  and  the  other  by  a  faculty  and  power  which 
man  alone  shares  with  God. 

Here,  however,  you  will  observe  another  difficulty.  It 
will  be  said  at  once,  There  is  something  in  this  comparison 
of  man  with  God  which  looks  like  blasphemy,  because  one 
is  finite  and  the  other  infinite — man  is  bounded,  God  bound- 
less ;  and  to  speak  of  resemblance  and  kindred  between 
these  two,  is  to  speak  of  resemblance  and  kindred  between 
two  natures  essentially  different.  But  this  is  precisely  the 
argument  which  is  brought  by  the  Socinians  against  the 
doctrine  of  the  incarnation  ;  and  we  are  bound  to  add  that 
the  Socinian  argument  is  right,  unless  there  be  the  similarity 
of  which  we  have  been  speaking.  Unless  there  be  something 
in  man's  nature  which  truly  and  properly  partakes  of  the 
Divine  nature,  there  could  be  no  incarnation,  and  the  demand 
for  perfection  would  be  a  mockery  and  an  impossibility. 


534  The  Christian  Aim  and  Motive. 

Let  us  then  endeavor  to  find  out  the  evidences  of  this  in- 
finitude in  the  nature  of  man.  First  of  all,  we  find  it  in  this 
—that  the  desires  of  man  are  for  something  boundless  and 
unattainable.  Thus  speaks  our  Lord — "What  shall  it  profit 
a  man  if  he  should  gain  the  whole  world  and  lose  his  own 
soul  ?"  Every  schoolboy  has  heard  the  story  of  the  youth- 
ful prince  who  enumerated  one  by  one  the  countries  he 
meant  to  conquer  year  after  year ;  and  when  the  enumera- 
tion was  completed,  was  asked  what  he  meant  to  do  when 
all  those  victories  were  achieved,  and  he  replied,  To  sit  down, 
to  be  happy,  to  take  his  rest.  But  then  came  the  ready  re- 
joinder, Why  not  do  so  now  ?  But  it  is  not  every  school- 
boy who  has  paused  to  consider  the  folly  of  the  question. 
He  who  asked  his  son  why  he  did  not  at  once  take  the  rest 
which  it  was  his  ultimate  purpose  to  enjoy,  knew  not  the  im- 
mensity and  nobility  of  the  human  soul.  He  could  not  then 
take  his  rest  and  be  happy.  As  long  as  one  realm  remained 
unconquered,  so  long  rest  was  impossible ;  he  would  weep 
for  fresh  worlds  to  conquer.  And  thus,  that  which  was 
spoken  by  our  Lord  of  one  earthly  gratification,  is  true  of 
all — "  Whosoever  drinketh  of  this  water  shall  thirst  again." 
The  boundless,  endless,  infinite  void  in  the  soul  of  man  can 
be  satisfied  with  nothing  but  God.  Satisfaction  lies  not  in 
having,  but  in  being.  There  is  no  satisfaction  even  in  doing. 
Man  can  not  be  satisfied  with  his  own  performances.  When 
the  righteous  young  ruler  came  to  Christ,  and  declared  that 
in  reference  to  the  life  gone  by  he  had  kept  all  the  com- 
mandments and  fulfilled  all  the  duties  required  by  the  law, 
still  came  the  question — "  What  lack  I  yet  ?" 

The  Scribes  and  Pharisees  were  the  strictest  observers  of 
the  ceremonies  of  the  Jewish  religion, "  touching  the  right- 
eousness which  is  by  the  law  "  they  were  blameless,  but  yet 
they  wanted  something  more  than  that,  and  they  were  found 
on  the  brink  of  Jordan  imploring  the  baptism  of  John,  seek, 
ing  after  a  new  and  higher  state  than  they  had  yet  attained 
to — a  significant  proof  that  man  can  not  be  satisfied  with  his 
own  works.  And  again,  there  is  not  one  of  us  who  has  ever 
been  satisfied  with  his  own  performances.  There  is  no  man 
whose  doings  are  worth  any  thing,  who  has  not  felt  that  he 
has  not  yet  done  that  which  he  feels  himself  able  to  do. 
While  he  was  doing  it,  he  was  kept  up  by  the  spirit  of  hope ; 
but  when  done  the  thing  seemed  to  him  worthless.  And 
therefore  it  is  that  the  author  can  not  read  his  own  book 
again,  nor  the  sculptor  look  with  pleasure  upon  his  finished 
work.  With  respect  to  one  of  the  greatest  of  all  modern 
sculptors,  we  are  told  that  he  longed  for  the  terminatioi?  of 


The  Christian  Aim  and  Motive.  535 

his  earthly  career,  for  this  reason — that  he  had  been  satisfied 
with  his  own  performance  :  satisfied  for  the  first  time  in  his 
life.  And  this  expression  of  his  satisfaction  was  but  equiva- 
lent to  saying  that  he  had  reached  the  goal  beyond  which 
there  could  be  no  progress.  This  impossibility  of  being  sat- 
isfied with  his  own  performances  is  one  of  the  strongest  proofs 
of  our  immortality — a  proof  of  that  perfection  towards  which 
we  shall  forever  tend,  but  which  we  can  never  attain. 

A  second  trace  of  this  infinitude  in  man's  nature  we  find 
in  the  infinite  capacities  of  the  soul.  This  is  true  intellectu- 
ally and  morally.  With  reference  to  our  intellectual  capa- 
cities, it  would  perhaps  be  more  strictly  correct  to  say  that 
they  are  indefinite,  rather  than  infinite  ;  that  is,  we  can  affix 
to  them  110  limit.  For  there  is  no  man,  however  low  his 
intellectual  powers  may  be,  who  has  not  at  one  time  or 
another  felt  a  rush  of  thought,  a  glow  of  inspiration,  which 
seemed  to  make  all  things  possible,  as  if  it  were  merely  the 
effect  of  some  imperfect  organization  which  stood  in  the  way 
of  his  doing  whatever  he  desired  to  do.  With  respect  to 
our  moral  and  spiritual  capacities,  we  remark  that  they  are 
not  only  indefinite,  but  absolutely  infinite.  Let  that  man 
answer  who  has  ever  truly  and  heartily  loved  another.  That 
man  knows  what  it  is  to  partake  of  the  infinitude  of  God. 
Literally,  in  the  emphatic  language  of  the  Apostle  John,  he 
has  felt  his  immortality — "  God  in  him,  and  he  in  God."  For 
that  moment,  infinitude  was  to  him  not  a  name,  but  a  reality. 
He  entered  into  the  infinite  of  time  and  space,  which  is  not 
measured  by  days,  or  months,  or  years,  but  is  alike  boundless 
and  eternal. 

Again  :  we  perceive  a  third  trace  of  this  infinitude  in  man, 
in  the  power  which  he  possesses  of  giving  up  self.  In  this, 
perhaps  more  than  in  any  thing  else,  man  may  claim  kindred 
with  God.  Nor  is  this  power  confined  to  the  best  of  man- 
kind, but  is  possessed,  to  some  extent  at  least,  by  all.  There 
is  no  man,  how  low  soever  he  may  be,  who  has  not  one  or 
two  causes  or  secrets,  which  no  earthly  consideration  would 
induce  him  to  betray.  There  is  no  man  who  does  not  feel 
towards  one  or  two  at  least,  in  this  world,  a  devotion  which 
all  the  bribes  of  the  universe  would  not  be  able  to  shake. 
We  have  heard  the  story  of  that  degraded  criminal  who, 
when  sentence  of  death  was  passed  upon  him,  turned  to  his 
accomplice  in  guilt,  in  whose  favor  a  verdict  of  acquittal  was 
brought  in,  and  in  glorious  self-forgetfulness  exclaimed — 
"Thank  God,  you  are  saved!"  The  savage  and  barbarous 
Indian,  whose  life  has  been  one  unbroken  series  of  cruelty 
and  crime,  will  submit  to  a  slow,  lingering,  torturing  death. 


536  The  Christian  Aim  and  Motive. 

rather  than  betray  his  country.  Now,  what  shall  we  say  to 
these  things?  Do  they  not  tell  of  an  indestructible  some- 
thing in  the  nature  of  man,  of  which  the  origin  is  Divine?— 
the  remains  of  a  majesty  which,  though  it  may  be  sullied, 
can  never  be  entirely  lost  ? 

Before  passing  on  let  us  observe,  that  were  it  not  for  this 
conviction  of  the  Divine  origin,  and  consequent  perfectibility 
of  our  nature,  the  very  thought  of  God  would  be  painful  to 
us.  God  is  so  great,  so  glorious,  that  the  mind  is  over- 
whelmed by,  and  shrinks  from,  the  contemplation  of  His  ex- 
cellence, unless  there  comes  the  tender,  ennobling  thought 
that  we  are  the  children  of  God,  who  are  to  become  like  our 
Father  in  heaven,  whose  blessed  career  it  is  to  go  on  in  an 
advance  of  love  and  duty  towards  Him,  until  we  love  Him 
as  we  are  loved,  and  know  Him  almost  as  we  are  known. 

II.  We  pass  on,  in  the  second  place,  to  consider  the  Chris- 
tian motive — "Even  as  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven  is 
perfect."  Brethren,  worldly  prudence,  miscalled  morality, 
says — "  Be  honest ;  you  will  find  your  gain  in  being  so.  Do 
right ;  you  will  be  the  better  for  it — even  in  this  world  you 
will  not  lose  by  it."  The  mistaken  religionist  only  magni- 
fies this  on  a  large  scale.  "  Your  duty,"  he  says,  "  is  to  save 
your  soul.  Give  up  this  world  to  have  the  next.  Lose  here^ 
that  you  may  gain  hereafter"  Now  this  is  but  prudence, 
after  all — it  is  but  magnified  selfishness,  carried  on  into  eter- 
nity— none  the  more  noble  for  being  eternal  selfishness.  In 
opposition  to  all  such  sentiments  as  these,  thus  speaks  the 
Gospel — "Be  ye  perfect."  Why?  "Because  your  Father 
which  is  in  heaven  is  perfect."  Do  right,  because  it  is  God- 
like and  right  so  to  do.  Here,  however,  let  us  be  understood. 
We  do  not  mean  to  say  that  the  Gospel  ignores  altogether 
the  personal  results  of  doing  right.  This  would  be  unnat- 
ural— because  God  has  linked  together  well-doing  and  bless- 
edness. But  we  do  say  that  this  blessedness  is  not  the  mo- 
tive which  the  Gospel  gives  us.  It  is  true  the  Gospel  says 
— "  Blessed  are  the  meek,  for  they  shall  inherit  the  earth  ; 
blessed  are  the  merciful,  for  they  shall  obtain  mercy ;  blessed 
are  they  which  do  hunger  and  thirst  after  righteousness,  for 
they  shall  be  filled."  But  when  these  are  made  our  motives — 
when  we  become  meek  in  order  that  we  may  inherit  here — 
then  the  promised  enjoyment  will  not  come.  If  we  a"re  mer- 
ciful merely  that  AVC  may  ourselves  obtain  mercy,  we  shall 
not  have  that  indwelling  love  of  God  which  is  the  result 
and  token  of  His  forgiveness.  Such  was  the  law  and  such 
the  example  of  our  Lord  and  Master. 


The  Christian  Aim  and  Motive.  .         537 

True  it  is  that  in  the  prosecution  of  the  great  work  of  re- 
demption He  had  "  respect  to  the  recompense  of  reward." 
True  it  is  He  was  conscious — how  could  He  but  be  conscious 
— that  when  His  work  was  completed  He  should  be  "  glori- 
fied with  that  glory  which  He  had  with  the  Father  before 
the  world  began ;"  but  we  deny  that  this  was  the  motive 
which  induced  Him  to  undertake  that  work ;  and  that  man 
has  a  very  mistaken  idea  of  the  character  of  the  Redeemer, 
and  understands  but  little  of  His  spirit,  who  has  so  mean  an 
opinion  of  Him  as  to  suppose  that  it  was  any  consideration 
of  personal  happiness  and  blessedness  which  led  the  Son  of 
God  to  die.  "  For  this  end  was  He  born,  and  for  this  end 
came  He  into  the  world  to  bear  witness  unto  the  truth,"  and 
"  to  finish  the  work  which  was  given  Him  to  do." 

If  we  were  asked,  Can  you  select  one  text  in  which  more 
than  in  any  other  this  unselfish,  disinterested  feature  comes 
forth,  it  should  be  this,  "  Love  ye  your  enemies,  do  good  and 
lend,  hoping  for  nothing  again."  This  is  the  true  spirit  of 
Christianity — doing  right  disinterestedly,  not  from  the  hope 
of  any  personal  advantage  or  reward,  either  temporal  or  spir- 
itual, but  entirely  forgetting  self, "  hoping  for  nothing  again." 
When  that  glorious  philanthropist,  whose  whole  life  had  been 
spent  in  procuring  the  abolition  of  the  slave-trade,  was  de- 
manded of,  by  some  systematic  theologian,  whether  in  his  ar- 
dor in  this  great  cause  he  had  not  been  neglecting  his  per- 
sonal prospects  and  endangering  his  own  soul,  this  was  his 
magnanimous  reply — one  of  those  which  show  the  light  of 
truth  breaking  through  like  an  inspiration :  he  said,  "  I  did 
not  think  about  my  own  soul,  I  had  no  time  to  think  about 
myself,  I  had  forgotten  all  about  my  soul."  The  Christian 
is  not  concerned  about  his  own  happiness ;  he  has  not  time 
to  consider  himself;  he  has  not  time  to  put  that  selfish  ques- 
tion which  the  disciples  put  to  their  Lord  when  they  were 
but  half  baptized  with  His  spirit,  "  Lo,  we  have  left  all  and 
followed  Thee,  what  shall  we  have  therefore  ?" 

In  conclusion  we  observe,  there  are  two  things  which  are 
to  be  learned  from  this  passage.  The  first  is  this,  that  hap- 
piness is  not  our  end  and  aim.  It  has  been  said,  and  has 
since  been  repeated  as  frequently  as  if  it  were  an  indisputa- 
ble axiom,  that  "happiness  is  our  being's  end  and  aim." 
Brethren,  happiness  is  not  our  being's  end  and  aim.  The 
Christian's  aim  is  perfection,  not  happiness,  and  every  one  of 
the  sons  of  God  must  have  something  of  that  spirit  which 
marked  their  Master  ;  that  holy  sadness,  that  peculiar  unrest, 
that  high  and  lofty  melancholy  which  belongs  to  a  spirit 
which  strives  after  heights  to  which  it  can  never  attain. 

23* 


538       .  .  The  Christian  Aim  and  Motive, 

The  second  thing  we  have  to  learn  is  this,  that  on  this 
earth  there  can  be  no  rest  for  man.  By  rest  we  mean  the  at- 
tainment of  a  state  beyond  which  there  can  be  no  change. 
Politically,  morally,  spiritually,  there  can  be  no  rest  for  man 
here.  In  one  country  alone  has  that  system  been  fully  car- 
ried out  which,  conservative  of  the  past,  excludes  all  desire 
of  progress  and  improvement  for  the  future  :  but  it  is  not  to 
China  that  we  should  look  for  the  perfection  of  human  socie- 
ty. There  is  one  ecclesiastical  system  which  carries  out  the 
same  spirit,  looking  rather  to  the  Church  of  the  past  than  to 
the  Church  of  the  future ;  but  it  is  not  in  the  Romish  that 
we  shall  find  the  model  of  a  Christian  Church.  In  Paradise 
it  may  have  been  right  to  be  at  rest,  to  desire  no  change ;  but 
ever  since  the  Fall,  every  system  that  tends  to  check  the  on- 
w"ard  progress  of  mankind  is  fatally,  radically,  curelessly 
wrong.  The  motto  on  every  Christian  banner  is  "  Forward.'* 
There  is  no  resting  in  the  present,  no  satisfaction  in  the  past. 

The  last  thing  we  learn  from  this  is  the  impossibility  of 
obtaining  that  of  which  some  men  speak — the  satisfaction  of 
a  good  conscience.  Some  men  write  and- speak  as  if  the  dif- 
ference between  the  Christian  and  the  worldly  man  was  this, 
that  in  the  one  conscience  is  a  self-reproaching  hell,  and  in 
the  other  a  self-congratulating  heaven.  Oh,  brethren,  is  this 
the  fact  ?  Think  you  that  the  Christian  goes  home  at  night 
counting  up  the  nobje  deeds  done  during  the  day,  saying  to 
himself,  "  Well  done,  good  and  faithful  servant  ?"  Brethren, 
that  habit  of  looking  forward  to  the  future  prevents  all  pride 
and  self-righteousness,  and  makes  our  best  and  only  rest  and 
satisfaction  to  consist  in  contemplating  the  future  which  is 
bringing  us  nearer  and  nearer  home.  Our  motto,  therefore, 
must  be  that  striking  one  of  the  Apostle  Paul,  "  Forgetting 
those  things  which  are  behind,  and  reaching  forth  to  those 
things  which  are  before,  I  press  towards  the  mark  for  th? 
prize,  of  the  high  calling  of  God  in  Christ  Jesua." 


Christian  Casuistry.  539 


XIII. 
CHRISTIAN  CASUISTRY. 

"Is  any  man  called  being  circumcised  ?  let  him  not  become  uncircumciaed, 
Is  any  called  in  uncircumcision  ?  let  him  not  be  circumcised.  Circumcision 
is  nothing,  and  uncircumcision  is  nothing,  but  the  keeping  of  the  command- 
ments of  God.  Let  every  man  abide  in  the  same  calling  wherein  he  was 
called.  Art  thou  called  being  a  servant  ?  care  not  for  it :  but  if  thou  mayest 
be  made  free,  use  it  rather.  For  he  that  is  called  in  the  Lord,  being  a  serv- 
ant, is  the  Lord's  freeman :  likewise  also  he  that  is  called,  being  free,  is 
Christ's  servant.  Ye  are  bought  with  a  price ;  be  not  ye  the  servants  of  men. 
Brethren,  let  every  man,  wherein  he  is  called,  therein  abide  with  God.'  — 
1  Cor.  vii.  18-24. 

THE  whole  of  these  seven  chapters  of  the  First  Epistle  of 
the  Apostle  Paul  to  the  Corinthians,  is  occupied  with  ques- 
tions of  Christian  casuistry.  In  the  application  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  Christianity  to  the  varying  circumstances  of  life  in- 
numerable difficulties  had  arisen,  and  the  Corinthians  upon 
these  difficulties  had  put  certain  questions  to  the  Apostle 
Paul.  This  seventh  chapter  contains  the  apostle's  answer  to 
many  of  these  questions.  There  are,  however,  two  great  di- 
visions into  which  these  answers  generally  fall.  St.  Paul 
makes  a  distinction  between  those  things  which  he  speaks 
by  commandment  and  those  which  he  speaks  only  by  per- 
mission ;  there  is  a  distinction  between  wha^  he  says  as  from 
the  Lord,  and  what  only  from  himself;  between  that  which 
he  speaks  to  them  as  being  taught  of  God,  and  that  which 
he  speaks  only  as  a  servant,  "  called  of  the  Lord  and  faith- 
ful." 

It  is  manifestly  plain  that  there  are  many  questions  in  which 
right  and  wrong  are  not  variable,  but  indissoluble  and  fixed ; 
while  there  are  questions,  on  the  other  hand,  where  these 
terms  are  not  fixed,  but  variable,  fluctuating,  altering,  de- 
pendent upon  circumstances.  As,  for  instance,  those  in  which 
the  apostle  teaches  in  the  present  chapter  the  several  duties 
and  advantages  of  marriage  and  celibacy.  There  may  be  cir- 
cumstances in  which  it  is  the  duty  of  a  Christian  man  to  be 
married,  there  are  others  in  which  it  may  be  his  duty  to  re- 
main unmarried.  For  instance,  in  the  case  of  a  missionary 
it  may  be  right  to  be  married  rather  than  unmarried ;  on  the 
other  hand,  in  the  case  of  a  pauper,  not  having  the  where- 
withal to  bring  up  and  maintain  a  family,  it  may  be  propet 


540  Christian  Casuistry. 

to  remain  unmarried.  You  will  observe,  however,  that  no 
fixed  law  can  be  laid  down  upon  this  subject.  We  can  not 
say  marriage  is  a  Christian  duty  ;  nor  celibacy  is  a  Christian 
duty  ;  nor  that  it  is  in  every  case  the  duty  of  a  missionary  to 
be  married,  or  of  a  pauper  to  be  unmarried.  All  these  things 
must  vary  according  to  circumstances,  and  the  duty  must  be 
stated  not  universally,  but  with  reference  to  those  circum- 
stances. 

These,  therefore,  are  questions  of  casuistry,  which  depend 
upon  the  particular  case :  from  which  word  the  term  "  casu- 
istry "  is  derived.  On  these  points  the  apostle  speaks  not 
by  commandment,  but  by  permission :  not  as  speaking  by 
God's  command,  but  as  having  the  Spirit  of  God.  A  dis- 
tinction has  sometimes  beer  drawn  with  reference  to  this 
chapter  between  that  whicn  tne  apostle  speaks  by  inspira- 
tion, and  what  he  speaks  as  a  man  uninspired.  The  distinc- 
tion, however,  is  an  altogether  false  one,  and  beside  the  ques- 
tion. For  the  real  distinction  is  not  between  the  inspired 
and  uninspired,  but  between  a  decision  in  matters  of  Chris- 
tian duty  and  advice  in  matters  of  Christian  prudence.  It  is 
abundantly  evident  that  God  can  not  give  advice ;  He  can 
only  issue  a  command.  God  can  not  say, "  It  is  better  to  do 
this  ;"  His  perfections  demand  something  absolute  :  "  Thou 
shalt  do  this ;  tliou  shall  not  do  this."  Whensoever,  there- 
fore, we  come  to  advice,  there  is  introduced  the  human  ele- 
ment rather  than  the  Divine.  In  all  such  cases,  therefore,  as 
are  dependent  upon  circumstances  the  apostle  speaks  not  as 
inspired,  but  as  uninspired ;  as  one  whose  judgment  we  have 
no  right  to  find"  fault  with  or  to  cavil  at,  who  lays  down 
what  is  a  matter  of  Christian  prudence,  and  not  a  bounden 
and  universal  duty.  The  matter  of  the  present  discourse 
will  take  in  various  verses  in  this  chapter — from  the  tenth 
to  the  twenty-fourth  verse — leaving  part  of  the  commence 
ment  and  the  conclusion  for  our  consideration,  if  God  permit, 
next  Sunday. 

There  are  three  main  questions  on  which  the  apostle  here 
gives  his  inspired  decision.  The  first  decision  is  concerning 
the  sanctity  of  the  marriage-bond  between  two  Christians. 
His  verdict  is  given  in  the  tenth  verse :  "  Unto  the  married 
I  command,  yet  not  I,  but  the  Lord,  Let  not  the  wife  depart 
from  her  husband."  He  lays  down  this  principle,  that  the 
union  is  an  indissoluble  one. 

Upon  such  a  subject,  Christian  brethren,  before  a  mixed 
congregation,  it  is  manifestly  evident  that  we  can  only  speak 
in  general  terms.  It  will  be  sufficient  to  say  that  marriage 
is  of  all  earthly  unions  almost  the  only  one  permitting  of  no 


Christian  Casuistry.  541 

change  but  that  of  death.  It  is  that  engagement  in  which 
man  exerts  his  most  awful  and  solemn  power — the  power  of 
responsibility  which  belongs  to  him  as  one  that  shall  give 
account — the  power  of  abnegating  the  right  to  change — the 
power  of  parting  with  his  freedom — the  power  of  doing  that 
which  in  this  world  can  never  be  reversed.  And  yet  it  is 
perhaps  that  relationship  which  is  spoken  of  most  frivolously, 
and  entered  into  most  carelessly  and  most  wrantonly.  It  is 
not  a  union  merely  between  two  creatures,  it  is  a  union 
between  two  spirits  ;  and  the  intention  of  that  bond  is  to 
perfect  the  nature  of  both,  by  supplementing  their  deficien- 
cies with  the  force  of  contrast,  giving  to  each  sex  those  ex- 
cellencies in  which  it  is  naturally  deficient ;  to  the  one 
strength  of  character  and  firmness  of  moral  will,  to  the  other 
sympathy,  meekness,  tenderness.  And  just  so  solemn,  and 
just  so  glorious  as  these  ends  are  for  which  the  union  was 
contemprated  and  intended,  just  so  terrible  are  the  conse- 
quences if  it  be  perverted  and  abused.  Eor  there  is  no 
earthly  relationship  wrhich  has  so  much  power  to  ennoble 
and  to  exalt.  Very  strong  language  does  the  apostle  use  in 
this  chapter  respecting  it:  "What  knowest  thou,  oh  wife, 
whether  thou  shalt  save  thy  husband  ?  or  how  knowest  thou, 
oh  man,  whether  thou  shalt  save  thy  wife?"  The  very  pow- 
er of  saving  belongs  to  this  relationship.  And  on  the  other 
hand,  there  is  no  earthly  relationship  which  has  so  much  power 
to  wreck  and  ruin  the  soul.  For  there  are  two  rocks  in  this 
world  of  ours  on  which  the  soul  must  either  anchor  or  be 
wrecked.  The  one  is  God  ;  the  other  is  the  sex  opposite 
to  itself.  The  one  is  the  "  Rock  of  Ages,"  on  which  if  the 
human  soul  anchors  it  lives  the  blessed  life  of  faith;  against 
which  if  the  soul  be  dashed  and  broken,  there  ensues  the 
wreck  of  Atheism — the  worst  ruin  of  the  soul.  The  other 
rock  is  of  another  character.  Blessed  is  the  man,  blessed  is 
the  woman,  whose  life-experience  has  taught  a  confiding  be- 
lief in  the  excellencies  of  the  sex  opposite  to  their  own — a 
blessedness  second  only  to  the  blessedness  of  salvation. 
And  the  ruin  in  the  other  case  is  second  only  to  the  ruin  of 
everlasting  perdition — the  same  wreck  and  ruin  of  the  soul. 

These,  then,  are  the  two  tremendous  alternatives :  on  the 
one  hand  the  possibility  of  securing,  in  all  sympathy  and 
tenderness,  the  laying  of  that  step  on  which  man  rises  to- 
wards his  perfection ;  on  the  other  hand  the  blight  of  all 
sympathy,  to  be  dragged  down  to  earth,  and  forced  to  be 
come  frivolous  and  commonplace ;  to  lose  all  zest  and  ear« 
nestness  in  life,  to  have  heart  and  life  degraded  by  mean  and 
perpetually-recurring  sources  of  disagreement ;  these  are  thu 


542  Christian  Casuistry. 

two  alternatives,  and  it  is  the  worst  of  these  alternatives 
which  the  young  risk  when  they  form  an  inconsiderate  union 
— excusably  indeed, because  through  inexperience;  and  it  is 
the  worst  of  these  alternatives  which  parents  risk — not  ex- 
cusably but  inexcusably — when  they  bring  up  their  children 
with  no  higher  view  of  what  that  tie  is,  than  the  merely  pru- 
dential one  of  a  rich  and  honorable  marriage. 

The  second  decision  which  the  apostle  makes  respecting 
another  of  the  questions  proposed  to  him  by  the  Corinthians 
is,  as  to  the  sanctity  of  the  marriage  bond  between  a  Chris- 
tian and  one  who  is  a  heathen.  When  Christianity  first 
entered  into  our  world,  and  was  little  understood,  it  seemed 
to  threaten  the  dislocation  and  alteration  of  all  existing  rela- 
tionships. Many  difficulties  arose ;  such,  for  instance,  as  the 
one  here  started.  When  of  two  heathen  parties  only  one 
was  converted  to  Christianity,  the  question  arose,  What  in 
this  case  is  the  duty  of  the  Christian  ?  Is  not  the  duty  sepa- 
ration ?  Is  not  the  marriage  in  itself  null  and  void  ?  as  if  it 
were  a  union  between  one  dead  and  one  living?  And  that 
perpetual  contact  with  a  heathen,  and  therefore  an  enemy  of 
God,  is  not  that,  in  a  relation  so  close  and  intimate,  perpetual 
defilement  ?  The  apostle  decides  this  with  his  usual  inspired 
wisdom.  He  decides  that  the  marriage  bond  is  sacred  still. 
Diversities  of  religious  opinion,  even  the  farthest  and  widest 
diversity,  can  not  sanction  separation.  And  so  he  decides  in 
the  13th  verse, "The  woman  which  hath' a  husband  that  be- 
lieveth  not,  if  he  be  pleased  to  dwell  with  her,  let  her  not 
leave  him."  And, "  If  any  brother  hath  a  wife  that  believeth 
not,  and  she  be  pleased  to  dwell  with  him,  let  him  not  put 
her  away"  (ver.  12). 

Now  for  us  in  the  present  day  the  decision  on  this  point 
is  not  of  so  much  importance  as  the  reason  which  is  adduced 
in  support  of  it.  The  proof  which  the  apostle  gives  of  the 
sanctity  of  the  marriage  is  exceedingly  remarkable.  Practi- 
cally it  amounts  to  this :  If  this  were  no  marriage,  but  an  un- 
hallowed alliance,  it  would  follow  as  a  necessary  consequence 
that  the  offspring  could  not  be  reckoned  in  any  sense  as  the 
children  of  God ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  the  instinctive, 
unwavering  conviction  of  every  Christian  parent,  united 
though  he  or  she  may  be  to  a  heathen,  "My  child  is  a  child 
of  God,"  or,  in  the  Jewish  form  of  expression,  "  My  child  is 
dean"  So  the  apostle  says,  "  The  unbelieving  husband  is 
sanctified  by  the  wife,  and  the  unbelieving  wife  is  sanctified 
by  the  husband  •  else  were  your  children  unclean ;  but  now 
they  are  holy,"  for  it  follows  if  the  children  are  holy  in  this 
sense  of  dedicated  to  God,  and  are  capable  of  Christian  rela 


Christian  Casuistry.  543 

tionship,  then  the  marriage  relation  was  not  unhallowed,  but 
sacred  an,d  indissoluble. 

The  value  of  this  argument  in  the  present  day  depends  on 
its  relation  to  baptism.  The  great  question  we  are  deciding 
in  the  present  day  may  be  reduced  to  a  very  few  words. 
This  question — the  baptismal  question — is  this : — whether  we 
are  baptized  because  we  are  the  children  of  God,  or,  whether 
we  are  the  children  of  God  because  we  are  baptized;  wheth- 
er, in  other  words,  when  the  Catechism  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land says  that  by  baptism  we  are  "  made  the  children  of 
God,"  we  are  to  understand  thereby  that  we  are  made  some- 
thing which  we  were  not  before — magically  and  mysterious- 
ly changed ;  or,  whether  we  are  to  understand  that  we  are 
made  the  children  of  God  by  baptism  in  the  same  sense  that 
a  sovereign  is  made  a  sovereign  by  coronation.  Here  the 
apostle's  "argument  is  full,  decisive,  and  unanswerable.  He 
does  not  say  that  these  children  were  Christian,  or  clean,  be- 
cause they  were  baptized,  but  they  were  the  children  of  God 
because  they  were  the  children  of  one  Christian  parent ;  nay, 
more  than  that,  such  children  could  scarcely  ever  have  been 
baptized,  because,  if  the  rite  met  with  opposition  from  one 
of  the  parents,  it  would  be  an  entire  and  perfect  veto  to  the 
possibility  of  baptism.  You  will  observe  that  the  very  fun- 
damental idea  out  of  which  infant-baptism  arises  is,  that  the 
impression  produced  upon  the  mind  and  character  of  the 
child  by  the  Christian  parent  makes  the  child  one  of  a  Chris- 
tian community ;  and  therefore,  as  Peter  argued  that  Cor- 
nelius had  received  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  so  was  to  be  bap- 
tized, just  in  the  same  way,  as  they  are  adopted  into  the 
Christian  family  and  receive  a  Christian  impression,  the  chil- 
dren of  Christian  parents  are  also  to  be  baptized. 

Observe,  also,  the  important  truth  which  comes  out  collater- 
ally from  this  argument — namely,  the  sacredness  of  the  im- 
pression which  arises  from  the  close  connection  between  pa- 
rent and  child.  Stronger  far  than  education — going  on  before 
education  can  commence,  possibly  from  the  very  first  mo- 
ments of  consciousness,  we  begin  to  impress  ourselves  on  our 
children.  Our  character,  voice,  features,  qualities — modifiod, 
no  doubt,  by  entering  into  a  new  human  being,  and  into  a 
different  organization — are  impressed  upon  our  children. 
Not  the  inculcation  of  opinions,  but  much  rather  the  forma- 
tion of  principles,  and  of  the  tone  of  character,  the  derivation 
of  qualities.  Physiologists  tell  us  of  the  derivation  of  the 
mental  qualities  from  the  father,  and  of  the  moral  from  the 
mother.  But  be  this  as  it  may,  there  is  scarcely  one  hero 
who  can  not  trace  back  his  present  religious  character  to 


544  Christian  Casuistry. 

some  impression,  in  early  life,  from  one  or  other  of  his  parents 
• — a  tone,  a  look,  a  word,  a  habit,  or  even,  it  may  be,  a  bit- 
ter, miserable  exclamation  of  remorse. 

The  third  decision  which  the  apostle  gives,  the  third  prin- 
ciple which  he  lays  down,  is  but  the  development  of  the  last. 
Christianity,  he  says,  does  not  interfere  with  existing  rela- 
tionships. First  he  lays  down  the  principle,  and  then  unfolds 
the  principle  in  two  ways,  ecclesiastically  and  civilly.  The 
principle  he  lays  down  in  almost  every  variety  of  form.  In 
the  1 7th  verse,  "  As  God  hath  distributed  to  every  man,  as 
the  Lord  hath  called  every  one,  so  let  him  walk."  In  the 
20th  verse,  "  Let  every  man  abide  in  the  same  calling  where- 
in he  was  called."  In  the  24th  verse,  "  Brethren,  let  every 
man  wherein  he  is  called  therein  abide  with  God."  This  is 
the  principle.  Christianity  was  not  to  interfere  with  exist- 
ing relationships ;  Christian  men  were  to  remain  in  those  re- 
lationships in  which  they  were,  and  in  them  to  develop  the 
inward  spirituality  of  the  Christian  life.  Then  he  applies 
this  principle  in  two  ways.  First  of  all,  ecclesiastically. 
With  respect  to  their  church,  or  ecclesiastical  affairs,  he  says 
— "  Is  any  man  called  being  circumcised  ?  Let  him  not  be- 
come uncircumcised.  Is  any  man  in  uncircumcision  ?  Let 
him  not  be  circumcised."  In  other  words,  the  Jews,  after 
their  conversion,  were  to  continue  Jews,  if  they  would. 
Christianity  required  no  change  in  these  outward  things,  for 
it  was  not  in  these  that  the  depth  and  reality  oi  the  kingdom 
of  Christ  consisted.  So  the  Apostle  Paul  took  Timothy  and 
circumcised  him ;  so  also  he  used  all  the  Jewish  customs 
with  which  he  was  familiar,  and  performed  a  vow,  as  related 
in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  '•  having  shorn  his  head  in  Cen- 
chrea ;  for  he  had  a  vow."  It  was  not  his  opinion  that  it 
was  the  duty  of  a  Christian  to  overthrow  the  Jewish  system. 
He  knew  that  the  Jewish  system  could  not  last,  but  what  he 
wanted  was  to  vitalize  the  system — to  throw  into  it  not  a 
Jewish,  but  a  Christian  feeling;  and  so  doing,  he  might  con- 
tinue in  it  so  long  as  it  would  hold  together.  And  so  it  was, 
no  doubt,  with  all  the  other  apostles.  We  have  no  evidence 
that  before  the  destruction  of  the  Jewish  polity  there  was 
any  attempt  made  by  them  to  overthrow  the  Jewish  external 
religion.  They  kept  the  Jewish  sabbath,  and  observed  the 
Jewish  ritual.  One  of  them,  James,  the  Christian  bishop  of 
Jerusalem,  though  a  Christian,  was  even  among  the  Jews  re- 
markable and  honorable  for  the  regularity  with  which  he  ob- 
served all  his  Jewish  duties.  Now  let  us  apply  this  to 
modern  duties.  The  great  desire  among  men  no'-v  appears  to 
be  to  alter  institutions,  to  have  perfect  institutions,  as  if  they 


Christian  Casuistry.  545 

would  make  perfect  men.  Mark  the  difference  between  this 
feeling  and  that  of  the  apostle,  "  Let  every  man  abide  in  the 
same  calling  wherein  he  was  called."  We  are  called  to  be 
members  of  the  Church  of  England — what  is  our  duty  now  ? 
What  would  Paul  have  done  ?  Is  this  our  duty — to  put  such 
questions  to  ourselves  as  these  :  "  Is  there  any  single,  par- 
ticular sentence  in  the  service  of  my  Church  with  which  I  do 
not  entirely  agree?  Is  there  any  single  ceremony  with 
which  my  whole  soul  does  not  go  along  ?  If  so,  then  is  it  my 
duty  to  leave  it  at  once?"  No,  my  brethren,  all  that  we 
have  to  do  is  to  say,  "All  our  existing  institutions  are  those 
under  which  God  has  placed  us,  under  which  we  are  to  mould 
our  lives  according  to  His  will."  It  is  our  duty  to  vitalize 
our  forms,  to  throw  into  them  a  holier,  deeper  meaning.  My 
Christian  brethren,  surely  no  man  will  get  true  rest,  true  re- 
pose for  his  soul,  in  these  days  of  controversy,  until  he  has 
learned  the  wise  significance  of  these  wise  words — "  Let  ev- 
ery man  abide  in  the  same  calling  wherein  he  was  called." 
He  will  but  gain  unrest,  he  will  but  disquiet  himself,  if  he 
says,  "  I  am  sinning  by  continuing  in  this  imperfect  system," 
if  he  considers  it  his  duty  to  change  his  calling  if  his  opinions 
do  not  agree  in  every  particular  and  special  point  with  the 
system  under  which  God  has  placed  him. 

Lastly,  the  apostle  applies  this  principle  civilly.  And  you 
will  observe  he  applies  it  to  that  civil  relationship  which  of 
all  others  was  the  most  difficult  to  harmonize  with  Chris- 
tianity— slavery.  "  Art  thou  called,"  he  says,  "  being  a 
servant  ?  Care  not  for  it."  Now,  in  considering  this  part 
of  the  subject  we  should  carry  along  with  us  these  two  rec- 
ollections. First,  we  should  recollect  that  Christianity  had 
made  much  way  among  this  particular  class,  the  class  of 
slaves.  No  wonder  that  men  cursed  with  slavery  embraced 
with  joy  a  religion  which  was  perpetually  teaching  the 
worth  and  dignity  of  the  human  soul,  and  declaring  that 
rich  and  poor,  peer  and  peasant,  master  and  slave,  were  equal 
in  the  sight  of  God.  And  yet,  great  as  this  growth  was,  It 
contained  within  it  elements  of  danger.  It  was  to  be  feared 
lest  men,  hearing  forever  of  brotherhood  and  Christian  equal- 
ity, should  be  tempted  and  excited  to  throw  off  the  yoke  by 
force,  and  compel  their  masters  and  oppressors  to  do  them 
right. 

The  other  fact  we  are  to  keep  in  remembrance  is  this— 
that  all  this  occurred  in  an  age  in  which  slavery  had  reach 
ed  its  worst  and  most  fearful  form,  an  age  in  which  the  em- 
perors were  accustomed,  not  unfrequently,  to  feed  their  fish 
with  living  slaves;  when  captives  were  led  to  fight  in  the 


546  Christian  Casuistry. 

amphuheatn  with  wild  leasts  or  with  each  other,  to 
the  Koman  appetite  lor  Mood  upon  a  Roman  holiday.  And 
yet.  fearful  as  it  was.  the  apostle  says,  "ran'  not"  tor  it.M 
And  tearful  as  war  was  in  those  da*ys,  \\hon  tho  soldiers 
came  to  John  to  bo  baptised,  ho  did  not  recommend  them  to 
join  some  "peace  association,"  to  use  the  inodorn  tonn  ;  he 
simply  exhorted  them  to  bo  oontont  \\  ith  thoir  \<  ..  ,  - 

And' hence  we  understand  the  way  in  v>hich  Christianity 
was  to  work.  It  interferes  indirootly  and  not  directly  with 
i  \.Ming  institutions.  No  doubt  it" will  at  length  abolish 
war  and  slavery,  but  there  is  not  one  case  \\  horo  wo  tind 
Christianity  interfering  with  institutions,  as  such.  K\  on 
when  Onesimus  ran  away  and  came  to  Paul,  the  apostlo  sont 
him  baok  to  his  master  Philemon,  not  dissolving  the  connee- 
tion  botwoon  them.  And  thon.  as  a  eonsolation  to  the  serv- 
ant^ he  told  him  of  a  higher  fooli.ig — a  feeling  that  would 
make  him  live,  with  the  ohain  and  shaoklo  upon  his  arm. 
And  so  it  was  possible  lor  the  Christian  thon.  as  it  is  now,  to 
bo  possessed  ot  the  highest  liberty  even  under  tyranny.  It 
many  times  ooonrrod  that  Christian  men  found 'themselves 
placed  under  an  unjust  and  tvrannioal  government,  and  eom- 
pelled  to  pay  unjust  taxes.  The  Son  of  Man  showed  his  free- 
dom not  by  "refusing,  but  by  paying  them.  His  glorious  lib- 
erty could  do  so  without  any  feeling  of  degradation  ;  obey- 
ing the  laws,  not  because  they  wore  right,  but  luvauso  insti- 
tut  ions  are  to  be  upheld  with  cordiality. 

One  thing  in  conclusion  we  have  to  observe.  It  is  possi 
ble  from  all  this  to  draw  a  most  inaccurate  conclusion. 
Some  men  have  spoken  of  Christianity  as  if  it  was  entirely 
indifferent  about  liberty  and  all  public  questions — as  if  with 
such  things  as  those  Christianity  did  not  concern  itself  at 
alL  This  indifference  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  Apostle 
Paul.  While  he  asserts  that  inward  liberty  is  the  only  true 
liberty,  he  still  goes  on  to  say,  "  If  thou  mayost  be  free,  use  it 
rather."  For  he  well  know  that  although  it  was  possible  for 
a  man  to  be  a  high  and  lofty  Christian  even  though  he  v\ 
a  slave,  yet  it  was  not  probable  that  he  would  be  so.  Ont- 
K*:u-d  institutions  are  necessary  partly  to  make  a  perfect 
Christian  character;  and  thus  Christianity  works  from  what 
is  internal  to  what  is  external.  It  gave  to  the  slave  the  feel- 
ing of  his  dignity  as  a  man,  at  the  same  time  it  gave  to  the 
Christian  master  a  new  view  of  his  relation  to  his  slave,  and 
taught  him  to  regard  him  "  not  now  as  a  servant,  but  above 
*  ^orvant,  a  brother  beloved."  And  so  by  degrees  slavery 
passed  into  freed  servitude,  and  freed  servitude,  under  God's 
blessing,  may  pass  into  something  else. 


Marriage  and  Celibacy.  547 

There  a*e  two  mistake*  which  are  often  made  upon  this 
•object :  one  is,  the  error  of  supposing  that  outward  institu- 
tion* are  unnecessary  for  the  formation  of  character,  and  the 
other,  that  of  supposing  that  they  are  off  that  is  required  to 
form  the  human  soul  If  we  understand  rightly  the  duty  of 
a  Christian  man,  it  is  this :  to  make  his  brethren  free  inward- 
ly and  outwardly ;  first  inwardly,  so  that  they  may  become 
masters  of  themselves,  rulers  of  their  passions,  Laving  the 
power  of  self-rule  and  self-control ;  and  then  outwardly,  so 
that  there  may  be  every  power  and  opportunity  of  develop- 
ing the  inward  life ;  in  the  language  of  the  prophet,  "  To 
break  the  rod  of  the  oppressor  and  let  the  oppressed  go 
free." 


XIV. 
MARRIAGE  AND  CELIBACY. 


Bnt  AM  I  «j,  brethren,  the  time  is  Aort:  fe  remained),  that  both  the? 
ha*ewm»Dea*tiioa**ffcerhad«<»e;  and  the?  that  weep,  as  thoagh 

^nm**&m***t* 


fast  bar,  as  though  ther  possessed  not;  and  they  that  Me  due  world,  as  not 
•basingit:  fr  die  iaslira  of  diu  world  passe*  away."—  I  Cor.  THL  29-3L 


THE  subject  of  our  exposition  last  Sunday  was  an  essen- 
tial portion  of  this  chapter.  It  is  our  duty  to  examine  now 
the  former  and  the  latter  portions  of  it.  These  portions  are 
occupied  entirely  with  the  inspired  apostolic  decision  upon 
this  one  question — the  comparative  advantages  and  merits 
of  celibacy  and  marriage.  - ,  One  preliminary  question,  how- 
ever, is  to  be  discussed.  How  came  it  that  such  a  question 
should  be  put  at  all  to  the  apostle  ? 

In  the  church  at  Corinth  there  were  two  different  sections 
of  society ;  first  there  were  those  who  had  been  introduced 
into  the  church  through  Judaism,  and  afterwards  those  who 
had  been  converted  from  different  forms  of  heathenism. 
Now  it  is  well  known,  that  it  was  the  tendency  of  Judaism 
highly  to  venerate  the  marriage  state,  and  just  in  the  same 
proportion  to  disparage  that  of  celibacy,  and  to  place  those 
who  led  a  single  life  under  a  stigma  and  disgrace.  Those 
converts,  therefore,  entered  into  the  Church  of  Christ  carry- 
ing with  them  their  old  Jewish  prejudices.  On  the  other 
hand,  many  who  had  entered  into  the  Christian  Church  had 
been  converted  to  Christianity  from  different  forms  of  hea- 
thenism. Among  these  prevailed  a  tendency  to  the  belief 
(which  originated  primarily  in  the  Oriental  schools  of  philo* 


548  Marriage  and  Celibacy. 

ophy)  that  the  highest  virtue  consisted  in  the  denial  of  all 
natural  inclinations,  and  the  suppression  of  all  natural  de- 
sires ;  and  looking  upon  marriage  on  one  side  only,  and  that 
the  lowest,  they  were  tempted  to  consider  it  as  low,  earthly, 
carnal,  and  sensual.  It  was  at  this  time  that  Christianity 
entered  into  the  world,  and  while  it  added  fresh  dignity  and 
significance  to  the  marriage  relationship,  it  at  the  same  time 
shed  a  splendor  and  a  glory  upon  the  other  state.  The  vir- 
ginity of  the  mother  of  Our  Lord — the  solitary  life  of  John 
the  Baptist — the  pure  and  solitary  youth  of  Christ  Himself 
— had  thrown  upon  celibacy  a  meaning  and  dignity  which  it 
did  not  possess  before.  No  marvel,  therefore,  that  to  men  so 
educated,  and  but  half  prepared  for  Christianity,  practices 
like  these  should  have  become  exaggerations ;  for  it  rarely 
happens  that  any  right  ideas  can  be  given  to  the  world 
without  suffering  exaggeration.  Human  nature  progresses, 
the  human  mind  goes  on ;  but  it  is  rarely  in  a  straight  line, 
almost  always  through  the  medium  of  reaction,  rebounding 
from  extremes  which  produce  contrary  extremes.  So  it  was 
in  the  Church  of  Corinth.  There  were  two  opposite  parties 
holding  views  diametrically  opposed  to  one  another — one 
honoring  the  married  and  depreciating  the  unmarried  life — 
the  other  attributing  peculiar  dignity  and  sanctity  to  celi- 
bacy, and  looking  down  with  contempt  upon  the  married 
Christian  state. 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  remind  ourselves  that  this  di- 
versity of  sentiment  has  existed  in  the  Church  of  Christ  in 
almost  all  ages.  For  example,  in  the  early  ages,  in  almost 
all  the  writings  of  the  Fathers  we  have  exaggerated  descrip- 
tions of  the  dignity  and  glory  of  the  state  of  celibacy.  They 
speak  as  if  the  marriage  state  was  low,  carnal,  and  worldly ; 
and  the  other  the  only  one  in  which  it  is  possible  to  attain 
to  the  higher  spiritual  life — the  one  the  natural  state,  fit  for 
man,  the  other  the  angelic,  fit  for  angels.  But  ordinarily 
among  men  in  general,  in  every  age,  the  state  of  single  life 
has  been  looked  down  upon  and  contemned.  And  then 
there  comes  to  the  parties  who  are  so  circumstanced  a  cer- 
tain sense  of  shame,  and  along  with  this  a  disposition  to- 
wards calumny  and  slander.  Let  us  endeavor  to  understand 
the  wise,  inspired  decision  which  the  Apostle  Paul  pro- 
nounced upon  this  subject.  He  does  not  decide,  as  we 
might  have  been  led  to  suppose  he  would,  from  his  own  pe- 
culiarity of  disposition,  upon  one  side  only ;  but  raises  into 
relief  the  advantages  and  excellencies  of  both.  He  says  that 
neither  state  has  in  itself  any  intrinsic  merit — neither  is  in 
itself  superior  to  the  other.  "I  suppose,  then,"  he  says, *•  that 


Marriage  and  Celibacy.  549 

this  is  good  for  the  present  distress.  Art  thou  bound  unto  a 
wife  ?  Seek  not  to  be  loosed.  Art  thou  loosed  from  a  wife  ? 
Seek  not  a  wife.  But  and  if  thou  many,  thou  hast  not  sin- 
ned :  and  if  a  virgin  marry,  she  hath  not  sinned.  Neverthe- 
less, such  shall  have  trouble  in  the  flesh :  but  I  spare  you." 
That  is,  I  will  spare  you  this  trouble,  in  recommending  a  sin- 
gle, solitary  life.  You  will  observe  that  in  these  words  he 
attributes  no  intrinsic  merit  or  dignity  to  either  celibacy  or 
marriage.  The  comparative  advantages  of  these  two  states 
he  decides  with  reference  to  two  considerations ;  first  of  all 
with  respect  to  their  comparative  power  in  raising  the  char- 
acter of  the  individual,  and  afterwards  with  reference  to  the 
opportunities  which  each  respectively  gives  for  the  service 
of  God. 

I.  With  respect  to  the  single  life,  he  tells  us  that  he  had 
his  own  proper  gift  from  God  ;  in  other  words,  he  was  one 
of  those  rare  characters  who  have  the  power  of  living  with- 
out personal  sympathy.  The  feelings  and  affections  of  the 
Apostle  Paul  were  of  a  strange  and  rare  character — tending 
to  expansiveness  rather  than  concentration.  Those  sympa- 
thies which  ordinary  men  expend  upon  a  few,  he  extended 
to  many.  The  members  of  the  churches  which  he  had  found- 
ed at  Corinth,  and  Ephesus,  and  Colosse,  and  Philippi,  were 
to  him  as  children  ;  and  he  threw  upon  them  all  that  sym- 
pathy and  affection  which  other  men  throw  upon  their  own 
domestic  circle.  To  a  man  so  trained  and  educated,  the  sin- 
gle life  gave  opportunities  of  serving  God  which  the  marriage 
state  could  not  give.  St.  Paul  had  risen  at  once  to  that  phi- 
lanthropy— that  expansive  benevolence,  which  most  other 
men  only  attain  by  slow  degrees,  and  this  was  made,  by 
God's  blessing,  a  means  of  serving  his  cause.  However  we 
may  sneer  at  the  monastic  system  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  it 
is  unquestionable  that  many  great  works  have  been  done  by 
the  monks  which  could  not  have  been  performed  by  men 
who  had  entered  into  the  marriage  relationship.  Such  ex- 
amples of  heroic  Christian  effort  as  are  seen  in  the  lives  of 
St.  Bernard,  of  Francis  Xavier,  and  many  others,  are  scarcely 
ever  to  be  found  except  in  the  single  state.  The  forlorn 
hope  in  battle,  as  well  as  in  the  cause  of  Christianity,  must 
consist  of  men  who  have  no  domestic  relationships  to  divide 
their  devotion,  who  will  leave  no  wife  nor  children  to  mourn 
over  their  loss. 

Let  this  great  truth  bring  its  improvement  to  those  who, 
either  of  their  own  choice  or  by  the  force  of  circumstances, 
are  destined  hereafter  to  live  a  single  life  on  earth ;  and,  in- 


550  Marriage  and  Celibacy. 

stead  of  yielding  to  that  feeling  so  common  among  mankind 
— the  feeling  of  envy  at  another's  happiness ;  instead  of  be- 
coming  gloomy,  and- bitter,  and  censorious,  let  them  remem- 
ber what  the  Bible  has  to  tell  of  the  deep  significance  of  the 
Virgin  Mary's  life — let  them  reflect  upon  the  snares  and  dif- 
ficulties from  which  they  are  saved — let  them  consider  how 
much  more  time  and  money  they  can  give  to  God — that  they 
are  called  to  the  great  work  of  serving  causes,  of  entering 
into  public  questions,  while  others  spend  their  time  and  tal- 
ents only  upon  themselves.  The  state  of  single  life,  however 
we  may  be  tempted  to  think  lightly  of  it,  is  a  state  that  has 
peculiar  opportunities  of  deep  blessedness. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Apostle  Paul  brings  forward,  into 
strong  relief,  the  blessedness  and  advantages  of  the  marriage 
state.  He  tells  us  that  it  is  a  type  of  the  union  between  the 
Redeemer  and  the  Church.  But  as  this  belongs  to  another 
part  of  the  subject,  we  shall  not  enter  into  it  now.  But  we 
observe,  that  men  in  general  must  have  their  sympathies 
drawn  out  step  by  step,  little  by  little.  We  do  not  rise  to 
philanthropy  all  at  once.  We  begin  with  personal,  domestic, 
particular  affections.  And  not  only  is  it  true  that  rarely  can 
any  man  have  the  whole  of  his  love  drawn  out  except  through 
this  domestic  state,  but,  also,  it  is  to  be  borne  in  mind  that 
those  who  have  entered  into  this  relationship  have  also  their 
own  peculiar  advantages.  It  is  true  that  in  the  marriage- 
life,  interrupted  as  it  is  by  daily  cares  and  small  trifles,  those 
works  of  Christian  usefulness  can  .not  be  so  continuously  car- 
ried on  as  in  the  other.  But  is  there  not  a  deep  meaning  to 
be  learned  from  the  old  expression — that  celibacy  is  an  an- 
gelic state  ?  that  it  is  preternatural,  and  not  natural  ?  that 
the  goodness  which  is  induced  by  it  is  not,  so  to  speak,  the, 
natural  goodness  of  humanity,  but  such  a  goodness  as  God 
scarcely  intended  ? 

Who  of  us  can  not  recollect  a  period  of  his  history  when 
all  his  time  was  devoted  to  the  cause  of  Christ ;  when  all 
his  money  was  given  to  the  service  of  God ;  and  \vhen  we 
were  tempted  to  look  down  upon  those  who  were  less  ardent 
than  ourselves,  as  if  they  were  not  Christians?  But  now  the 
difficulties  of  life  have  come  upon  us ;  we  have  become  in- 
volved in  the  trifles  and  the  smallness  of  social  domestic  ex- 
istence ;  and  these  have  made  us  less  devoted  perhaps,  less 
preternatural,  less  angelic — but  more  human,  better  fitted  to 
enter  into  the  daily  cares  and  small  difficulties  of  our  ordi- 
nary humanity.  And  this  has  been  represented  to  us  by  two 
freat  lives — one  human,  the  other  Divine — one,  the  life  of 
ohn  the  Baptist,  and  the  other,  of  Jesus  Christ.  In  both 


Marriage  and  Celibacy.  551 

these  cases  is  verified  the  saying,  that  "Wisdom  is  justified 
of  all  her  children."  Those  who  are  wisdom's  children — the 
truly  wise — will  recognize  an  even  wisdom  in  both  these 
lives ;  they  will  see  that  there-  are  cases  in  which  a  solitary 
life  is  to  be  chosen  for  the  sake  of  God;  while  there  are 
other  cases  in  which  a  social  life  becomes  our  bounden  dutjr. 
But  it  should  be  specially  observed  here  that  that  life 
which  has  been  given  to  us  as  a  specimen  of  life  for  all,  was 
a  social,  a  human  life.  Christ  did  not  refuse  to  mix  with  the 
common  joys  and  common  sorrows  of  humanity.  He  was 
present  at  the  marriage-feast,  and  by  the  bier  of  the  widow's 
son.  This,  of  the  two  lives,  was  the  one  which,  because  it  was 
the  most  human,  was  the  most  Divine ;  the  most  rare,  the 
most  difficult,  the  most  natural — therefore  the  most  Christ- 
like. 

II.  Let  us  notice,  in  the  second  place,  the  principle  upon 
which  the  apostle  founds  this  decision.  It  is  given  in  the 
text — "  This  I  say,  brethren,  the  time  is  short :  it  remaineth 
that  both  they  that  have  wives  be  as  though  they  had  none," 
"  for  the  fashion  of  this  world  passeth  away."  Now  observe 
here,  I  pray  you,  the  deep  wisdom  of  this  apostolic  decision. 
In  point  of  fact  it  comes  to  this :  Christianity  is  a  spirit, 
not  a  law ;  it  is  a  set  of  principles,  not  a  set  of  rules ;  it  is 
not  a  saying  to  us,  You  shall  do  this,  you  shall  not  do  that ; 
you  shall  use  this  particular  dress,  you  shall  not  use  that ; 
you  shall  lead,  you  shall  not  lead  a  married  life.  Christianity 
consists  of  principles,  but  the  application  of  those  principles 
is  left  to  every  man's  individual  conscience.  With  respect 
not  only  to  this  particular  case,  but  to  all  the  questions 
which  had  been  brought  before  him,  the  apostle  applies  the 
same  principle ;  the  cases  upon  which  he  decided  were  many 
and  various,  but  the  large,  broad  principle  of  his  decision  re- 
mains the  same  in  all.  You  may  marry,  and  you  have  not 
sinned ;  you  may  remain  unmarried,  and  you  do  not  sin ; 
if  you  are  invited  to  a  heathen  feast,  you  may  go,  or  you 
may  abstain  from  going ;  you  may  remain  a  slave,  or  you 
may  become  free ;  in  these  things  Christianity  does  not  con- 
sist. But  what  it  does  demand  is  this :  that  whether  mar- 
ried or  unmarried,  whether  a  slave  or  free,  in  sorrow  or  in 
joy,  you  are  to  live  in  a  spirit  higher  and  loftier  than  that 
of  the  world. 

The  apostle  gives  us  in  the  text  two  motives  for  this 
Christian  unworldliness.  The  first  motive  which  he  lays 
down  is  this — "The  time  is  short."  You  will  observe  how 
frequently,  in  the  course  of  his  remarks  upon  the  questions 


552  Marriage  and  Celibacy. 

proposed  to  him,  the  apostle  turns,  as  it  were,  entirely  away 
from  the  subject,  as  if  worn  out  and  wearied  by  the  com- 
paratively trivial  character  of  the  questions  —  as  if  this 
balancing  of  one  earthly  condition  or  advantage  with  an- 
other were  but  a  solemn  trifling  compared  with  eternal 
things.  And  so  here  he  seems  to  turn  away  from  the  ques- 
tion before  him,  and  speaks  of  the  shortness  of  time — "  The 
time  is  short !" 

Time  is  short  in  reference  to  two  things.  First,  it  is  short 
in  reference  to  the  person  who  regards  it.  That  mysterious 
thing  time,  is  a  matter  of  sensation,  and  not  a  reality  ;  a 
modification  merely  of  our  own  consciousness,  and  not  actual 
existence  ;  depending  upon  the  flight  of  ideas — long  to  one, 
short  to  another.  The  span  granted  to  the  butterfly,  the 
child  of  a  single  summer,  may  be  long ;  that  which  is  given 
to  the  cedar  of  Lebanon  may  be  short.  The  shortness  of 
time,  therefore,  is  entirely  relative — belonging  to  us  not  to 
God.  Time  is  short  in  reference  to  existence,  whether  you 
look  at  it  before  or  after.  Time  past  seems  nothing ;  time 
to  come  always  seems  long.  We  say  this  chiefly  for  the 
sake  of  the  young.  To  them  fifty  or  sixty  years  seems  a 
treasure  inexhaustible.  But,  my  young  brethren,  ask  the 
old  man,  trembling  on  the  verge  of  the  grave,  what  he 
thinks  of  time  and  life.  He  will  tell  you  that  the  three- 
score years  and  ten,  or  even  the  hundred  and  twenty  years 
of  Jacob,  are  but  "  few  and  evil."  And  therefore  if  you  are 
tempted  to  unbelief  in  respect  to  this  question,  we  appeal  to 
experience — experience  alone  can  judge  of  its  truth. 

Once  more :  time  is  short  with  reference  to  its  opportuni- 
ties. For  this  is  the  emphatic  meaning  in  the  original — 
literally,  "  The  opportunity  is  compressed,  or  shut  in." 
Brethren,  time  may  be  long,  and  yet  the  opportunity  may 
be  very  short.  The  sun  in  autumn  may  be  bright  and  clear, 
but  the  seed  which  has  not  been  sown  until  then  will  not 
vegetate.  A  man  may  have  vigor  and  energy  in  manhood 
and  maturity,  but  the  work  which  ought  to  have  been  done 
in  childhood  and  youth  can  not  be  done  in  old  age.  A  chance 
once  gone  in  this  world  can  never  be  recovered. 

Brother  men,  have  you  learned  the  meaning  of  yesterday? 
Do  you  rightly  estimate  the  importance  of  to-day  ?  That 
there  are  duties  to  be  done  to-day  which  can  not  be  done 
to-morrow?  This  it  is  that  throws  so  solemn  a  significance 
into  your  work.  The  time  for  working  is  short,  therefore 
begin  to-day ;  "  for  the  night  is  coming  when  no  man  can 
work."  Time  is  short  in  reference  to  eternity.  It  was  es- 
pecially with  this  reference  that  the  text  was  written.  ID 


Marriage  and  Celibacy.  553 

those  clays,  and  even  by  the  apostles  themselves,  the  day 
of  the  Lord's  appearance  and  second  advent  seemed  much 
nearer  than  it  was.  They  believed  that  it  would  occur 
during  their  own  lives.  And  with  this  belief  came  the 
feeling  which  comes  sometimes  to  all.  "  Oh,  in  comparison 
with  that  vast  hereafter,  this  little  life  shrivels  into  nothing ! 
What  is  to-day  worth,  or  its  duties  or  its  cares  ?"  All  deep 
minds  have  thought  that.  The  thought  of  Time  is  solemn 
and  awful  to  all  minds  in  proportion  to  their  depth — and 
in  proportion  as  the  mind  is  superficial,  the  thought  has 
appeared  little,  and  has  been  treated  with  levity.  Brethren, 
let  but  a  mart  possess  himself  of  that  thought — the  deep 
thought  of  the  brevity  of  time ;  this  thought — that  time  is 
short,  and  that  eternity  is  long — and  he  has  learned  the  first 
great  secret  of  unworldliness. 

The  second  motive  which  the  apostle  gives  us  is  the 
changing  character  of  the  external  world.  "  The  fashion  of 
this  world  passeth  away " — literally,  "  the  scenery  of  this 
world,"  a  dramatic  expression,  drawn  from  the  Grecian  stage. 
One  of  the  deepest  of  modern  thinkers  has  told  us  in  words 
often  quoted,  "All  the  world's  a  stage."  And  a  deeper 
thinker  than  he,  because  inspired,  had  said  long  before  in 
the  similar  words  of  the  text,  "  The  scenery  of  this  world 
passeth  away." 

There  are  two  ways  in  which  this  is  true.  First,  it  is  true 
with  respect  to  all  the  things  by  which  we  are  surrounded. 
It  is  only  in  poetry — the  poetry  of  the  Psalms  for  example 
• — that  the  hills  are  called  "  everlasting."  Go  to  the  side  of 
the  ocean  which  bounds  our  country,  and  watch  the  tide 
going  out,  bearing  with  it  the  sand  which  it  has  worn  from 
the  cliffs;  the  very  boundaries  of  our  lanci  are  changing; 
they  are  not  the  same  as  they  were  when  these  words  were 
written.  Every  day  new  relationships  are  forming  around 
us;  new  circumstances  are  calling  upon  us  to  act — to  act 
manfully,  firmly,  decisively,  and  up  to  the  occasion,  remem- 
bering that  an  opportunity  once  gone  is  gone  forever.  In- 
dulge not  in  vain  regrets  for  the  past,  in  vainer  resolves  for 
the^future — act,  act  in  the  present. 

Again,  this  is  true  with  respect  to  ourselves.  "  The 
fashion  of  this  world  passeth  away  "  in  us.  The  feelings  we 
have  now  are  not  those  which  we  had  in  childhood.  There 
has  passed  away  a  glory  from  the  earth — the  stars,  the  sun, 
the  moon,  the  green  fields  have  lost  their  beauty  and  signifi- 
cance— nothing  remains  as  it  was,  except  their  repeated 
impressions  on  the  mind,  the  impressions  of  time,  space, 
eternity,  color,  form  ;  these  can  not  alter,  but  all  besides  has 

24 


554  Marriage  and  Celibacy. 

changed.  Our  very  minds  alter.  There  is  no  bereavement 
so  painful,  no  shock  so  terrible,  but  time  will  remove  or 
alleviate.  The  keenest  feeling  in  this  world  time  wears  out 
at  last,  and  our  minds  become  like  old  monumental  tablets 
which  have  lost  the  inscription  once  graven  deeply  upon 
them. 

In  conclusion,  we  have  to  examine  the  nature  of  this 
Christian  unworldliness  which  is  taught  us  in  the  text.  The 
principle  of  unworldliness  is  stated  in  the  latter  portion  of 
the  text ;  in  the  former  part  the  apostle  makes  an  applica- 
tion of  the  principle  to  four  cases  of  life.  First,  to  cases  of 
domestic  relationship  —  "it  remaineth  that  they  that  have 
wives  be  as  though  they  had  none."  Secondly,  to  cases  of 
sorrow — "and  they  that  weep  as  though  they  wept  not." 
Thirdly,  to  cases  of  joy — "  and  they  that  rejoice  as  though 
they  rejoiced  not."  And,  finally,  to  cases  of  the  acquisition 
of  worldly  property — "  and  they  that  buy  as  though  they 
possessed  not."  Time  will  not  allow  us  to  go  into  these 
applications  ;  we  must  confine  ourselves  to  a  brief  considera- 
tion of  the  principle.  The  principle  of  Christian  unworldli- 
ness, then,  is  this,  to  "  use  this  world  as  not  abusing  it." 
Here  Christianity  takes  its  stand  in  opposition  to  two  con- 
trary principles.  The  spirit  of  the  world  says,  "  Time  is 
short,  therefore  use  it  while  you  have  it ;  take  your  fill  of 
pleasure  while  you  may."  A  narrow  religion  says,  "  Time  is 
short,  therefore  temporal  things  should  receive  no  attention  :- 
do  not  weep,  do  not  rejoice ;  it  is  beneath  a  Christian."  In 
opposition  to  the  narrow  spirit  of  religion,  Christianity  says, 
"  Use  this  world  ;" — in  opposition  to  the  spirit  of  the  world 
Christianity  says,  "Do  not  abuse  it."  A  distinct  duty  arises 
from  this  principle  to  use  the  world.  While  in  the  world 
we  are  citizens  of  the  world  :  it  is  our  duty  to  share  its  joys, 
to  take  our  part  in  its  sorrows,  not  to  shrink  from  its  diffi- 
culties, but  to  mix  ourselves  with  its  infinite  opportunities. 
So  that  if  time  be  short,  so  far  from  that  fact  lessening  their 
dignity  or  importance,  it  infinitely  increases  them ;  since 
upon  these  depend  the  destinies  of  our  eternal  being.  Un- 
worldliness is  this — to  hold  things  from  God  in  the  per- 
petual conviction  that  they  will  not  last ;  to  have  the  world, 
and  not  to  let  the  world  have  us ;  to  be  the  world's  masters* 
and  not  the  world's  slaves. 


The  Christian  Church  a  Family.  555 


xv. 
THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH  A  FAMILY. 

"Our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  of  whom  the  whole  family  in  heaven  and  earth  is 
named." — Eph.  iii.  14,  15. 

IN  the  verses  immediately  before  the  text  the  Apostle 
Paul  has  been  speaking  of  what  he  calls  a  mystery — that 
is,  a  revealed  secret.  And  the  secret  was  this,  that  the 
Gentiles  would  be  "  fellow-heirs  and  of  the  same  body,  and 
partakers  of  the  promise  in  Christ  by  the  Gospel."  It  had 
been  kept  secret  from  the  former  ages  and  generations  ;  it 
was  a  secret  which  the  Jew  had  not  suspected,  had  not  even 
dreamt  of.  It  appeared  to  him  to  be  his  duty  to  keep  as  far 
as  possible  from  the  Gentile.  Circumcision,  which  taught 
him  the  duty  of  separation  from  the  Gentile  spirit  and  Gentile 
practices,  seemed  to  him  to  teach  hatred  towards  Gentile 
persons,  until  at  length,  in  the  good  pleasure  and  providence 
of  God,  in  the  fullness  of  time,  through  the  instrumentality 
of  men  whose  hearts  rather  than  whose  intellects  were  in- 
spired by  God,  the  truth  came  out  distinct  and  clear,  that  God 
was  the  Father  of  the  Gentiles  as  well  as  of  the  Jews,  "  for 
the  same  Lord  over  all  is  rich  unto  all  that  call  upon  Him." 

In  the  progress  of  the  months,  my  Christian  brethren,  we 
have  arrived  again  at  that  period  of  the  year  in  which  our 
Church  calls  upon  us  to  commemorate  the  Epiphany,  or 
manifestation  of  Jesus  Christ  to  the  Gentiles,  and  we  know 
not  that  in  the  whole  range  of  Scripture  we  could  find  a 
passage  which  more  distinctly  and  definitely  than  this  brings 
before  us  the  spirit  in  which  it  is  incumbent  upon  us  to  enter 
upon  this  duty,  In  considering  this  passage  we  shall  divide 
it  into  these  two  branches : 

I.  The  definition  which  the  Apostle  Paul  here  gives  of 
the  Church  of  Christ ;  and, 

II.  The  name  by  which  this  Church  is  named. 

I.  In  the  first  place,  let  us  consider  the  definition  given  by 
the  Apostle  Paul  of  the  Christian  Church,  taken  in  its  en- 
tirety. It  is  this,  "  the  whole  family  in  heaven  and  earth." 
But  in  order  to  understand  this  fully,  it  will  be  necessary  for 
us  to  break  it  up  into  its  different  terms. 

1.  First  of  all,  it   is  taught  by  this  definition  that   the 


556  The  Christian  Church  a  Family. 

Church  of  Christ  is  a  society  founded  upon  natural  affinities 
• — a  "family."  A  family  is  built  on  affinities  which  are  nat- 
ural, not  artificial ;  it  is  not  a  combination,  but  a  society. 
In  ancient  times  an  association  of  interest  combined  men  in 
one  guild  or  corporation  for  protecting  the  common  persons  in 
that  corporation  from  oppression.  In  modern  times  identity 
of  political  creed  or  opinion  has  bound  men  together  in  one 
league,  in  order  to  establish  those  political  principles  which 
appeared  to  them  of  importance.  Similarity  of  taste  has 
united  men  together  in  what  is  called  an  association,  or  a 
society,  in  order  by  this  means  to  attain  more  completely 
the  ends  of  that  science  to  which  they  had  devoted  them- 
selves. But  as  these  have  been  raised  artificially,  so  their 
end  is,  inevitably,  dissolution.  Society  passes  on,  and  guilds 
and  corporations  die  ;  principles  are  established,  and  leagues 
become  dissolved  ;  tastes  change,  and  then  the  association  or 
society  breaks  up  and  comes  to  nothing. 

It  is  upon  another  principle  altogether  that  that  which  we 
call  a  family,  or  true  society,  is  formed.  It  is  not  built  upon 
similarity  of  taste,  ner  identity  of  opinion,  but  upon  affini- 
ties of  nature.  You  do  not  choose  who  shall  be  your  broth- 
er; you  can  not  exclude  your  mother  or  your  sister ;  it  does 
not  depend  upon  choice  or  arbitrary  opinion  at  all,  but  is 
founded  upon  the  eternal  nature  of  things.  And  precisely 
in  the  same  way  is  the  Christian  Church  formed — upon  nat- 
ural affinity,  and  not  upon  artificial  combination.  "  The 
family,  the  whole  family  m  heaven  and  earth  ;"  not  made  up 
of  those  who  call  'them selves  brethren,  but  of  those  who  are 
brethren ;  not  founded  merely  upon  the  principles  of  com- 
bination, but  upon  the  principles  of  affinity.  That  is  not  a 
church,  or  a  family,  or  a  society  which  is  made  up  by  men's 
choice,  as  when,  in  the  upper  classes  of  life,  men  of  fashion 
unite  together,  selecting  their  associates  from  their  own  class, 
and  form  what  is  technically  called  a  society ;  it  is  a  com- 
bination, if  you  will,  but  a  society  it  is  not — a  family  it  is 
not — a  Church  of  Christ  it  can  not  be. 

And,  again,  when  the  Baptists  or  the  Independents,  or  any 
other  sectarians,  unite  themselves  with  men  holding  the  same 
faith  aud  entertaining  the  same  opinions,  there  may  be  a  sect, 
a  combination,  a  persuasion,  but  a  Church  there  can  not  be. 
And  so,  again,  when  the  Jew  in  time  past  linked  himself  with 
the  Jew,  with  those  of  the  same  nation,  th^re  you  have  what 
in  ancient  times  was  called  Judaism,  and  in  modern  times 
is  called  Hebraicism — a  system,  a  combination,  but  not  a 
Church.  The  Church  rises  ever  out  of  the  family.  First  of 
all,  in  the  good  providence  of  God,  there  is  the  family,  then 


The  Christian  Church  a  Family.  557 

the  tribe, *then  the  nation ;  and  then  the  nation  merges  itself 
into  humanity.  And  the  nation  which  refuses  to  merge  its 
nationality  in  humanity,  to  lose  itself  in  the  general  interests 
of  mankind,  is  left  behind,  and  loses  almost  its  religious  na- 
tionality— like  the  Jewish  people. 

Such  is  the  first  principle.  A  man  is  born  of  the  same 
family,  and  is  not  made  such  by  an  appointment  or  by  arbi- 
trary choice. 

2.  Another  thing  which  is  taught  by  this  definition  is  this, 
that  the  Church  of  Christ  is  a  whole  made  up  of  manifold  di- 
versities. We  are  told  here  it  is  "  the  ichole  family,"  taking 
into  it  the  great  and  good  of  ages  past,  now  in  heaven  ;  and 
also  the  struggling,  the  humble,  and  the  weak  now  existing 
upon  earth.  Here,  again,  the  analogy  holds  good  between 
the  Church  and  the  family.  Never  more  than  in  the  family 
is  the  true  entirety  of  our  nature  seen.  Observe  how  all  the 
diversities  of  human  condition  and  character  manifest  them- 
selves in  the  family. 

First  of  all,  there  are  the  two  opposite  poles  of  masculine 
and  feminine,  which  contain  within  them  the  entire  of  our 
humanity — which  together,  not  separately,  make  up  the 
whole  of  man.  Then  there  are  the  diversities  in  the  degrees 
and  kinds  of  affection.  For  Avhen  we  speak  of  family  affec- 
tion we  must  remember  that  it  is  made  up  of  many  diversi- 
ties. There  is  nothing  more  different  than  the  love  which 
the  sister  bears  towards  the  brother,  compared  with  that 
which  the  brother  bears  towards  the  sister.  The  affection 
which  a  man  bears  towards  his  father  is  quite  distinct  from 
that  which  he  feels  towards  his  mother ;  it  is  something 
quite  different  towards  his  sister ;  totally  diverse  again,  to- 
wards his  brother. 

And  then  there  are  diversities  of  character.  First  the  ma- 
ture wisdom  and  stern  integrity  of  the  father ;  then  the  ex- 
uberant tenderness  of  the  mother.  And  then  one  is  brave 
and  enthusiastic,  another  thoughtful,  and  another  tender. 
One  is  remarkable  for  being  full  of  rich  humor,  another  is 
sad,  mournful,  even  melancholy.  Again,  besides  these,  there 
are  diversities  of  condition  in  life.  First,  there  is  the  heir, 
sustaining  the  nam'e  and  honor  of  the  family ;  then  perchance 
the  soldier,  in  whose  career  all  the  anxiety  and  solicitude  of 
the  family  is  centred  ;  then  the  man  of  business,  to  whom 
they  look  up,  trusting  his  advice,  expecting  his  counsel ; 
lastly,  perhaps,  there  is  the  invalid,  from  the  very  cradle 
trembling  between  life  and  death,  drawing  out  aH  the  sym- 
pathies and  anxieties  of  each  member  of  the  family,  and  so 
uniting  them  all  more  closely,  from  their  having  one*  common 


558  The  Christian  Church  a  Family. 

point  of  sympathy  and  solicitude.  Now,  you  will  observe 
that  these  are  not  accidental,  but  absolutely  essential  to  the 
idea  of  a  family  ;  for  so  far  as  any  one  of  them  is  lost,  so  far 
the  family  is  incomplete.  A  family  made  up  of  one  sex 
alone,  all  brothers  and  no  sisters ;  or  in  which  all  are  devo- 
ted to  one  pursuit ;  or  in  which  there  is  no  diversity  of  tem- 
per and  dispositions — the  same  monotonous  repeated  identity 
• — a  sameness  in  the  type  of  character — this  is  not  a  family, 
it  is  only  the  fragment  of  a  family. 

And  precisely  in  the  same  way  all  these  diversities  of 
character  and  condition  are  necessary  to  constitute  and  com- 
plete the  idea  of  a  Christian  Church.  For  as  in  ages  past  it 
was  the  delight  of  the  Church  to  canonize  one  particular 
class  of  virtues — as  for  instance,  purity  or  martyrdom — so 
now,  in  every  age,  and  in  every  individual  bosom,  there  is  a 
tendency  to  canonize,  or  honor,  or  reckon  as  Christian,  only 
one  or  two  classes  of  Christian  qualities.  For  example,  if 
you  were  to  ask  in  the  present  day  where  you  should  find  a 
type  of  the  Christian  character,  many  in  all  probability 
would  point  you  to  the  man  who  keeps  the  sabbath-day,  is 
regular  in  his  attendance  upon  the  services  of  the  Church, 
who  loves  to  hear  the  Christian  sermon.  This  is  a  phase  of 
Christian  character — that  which  is  essentially  and  peculiarly 
the  feminine  type  of  religion.  But  is  there  in  God's  Church 
to  be  found  no  place  for  that  type  which  is  rather  masculine 
than  feminine? — which  not  in  litanies  or  in  psalm-singing 
does  the  will  of  God,  but  by  struggling  for  principles,  and 
contending  for  the  truth — that  life  whose  prayer  is  action, 
whose  aspiration  is  continual  effort  ? 

Or  again,  in  every  age,  amongst  all  men,  in  the  history  of 
almost  every  individual,  at  one  time  or  another,  there  has 
been  a  tendency  towards  that  which  has  been  emphatically 
named  in  modern  times  hero-worship — leading  us  to  an  ad- 
miration of  the  more  singular,  powerful,  noble  qualities  of 
humanity.  And  wherever  this  tendency  to  hero-worship  ex- 
ists, there  will  be  found  side  by  side  with  it  a  tendency  to 
undervalue  and  depreciate  excellences  of  an  opposite  charac- 
ter— the  humble,  rneek,  retiring  qualities.  But  it  is  precisely 
for  these  that  the  Church  of  Christ  finds  place.  "  Blessed 
are  the  meek,  blessed  are  the  merciful,  blessed  are  they  that 
hunger  and  thirst  after  righteousness,  blessed  are  the  poor  in 
spirit."  In  God's  world  there  is  a  place  for  the  wren  and  the 
violet,  just  as  truly  as  there  is  for  the  eagle  and  the  rose. 
In  the  Church  of  God  there  is  a  place — and  that  the  noblest 
• — for  Dorcas  making  garments  for  the  poor,  and  for  Mary 
sitting  at  the  feet  of  Jesus,  just  as  truly  as  there  is  for  Elijah 


The  Christian  Church  a  Family.  559 

Confounding  a  false  religion  by  his  noble  opposition,  for 
John  the  Baptist  making  a  king  tremble  on  his  throne,  or 
for  the  Apostle  Paul  "  compassing  sea  ana  land "  by  his 
wisdom  and  his  heroic  deeds. 

Once  more,  there  are  ages  as  well  as  times  in  our  own  in- 
dividual experience,  when  we  set  up  charity  as  if  it  were  the 
one  only  Christian  character.  And  wherever  this  tendency 
is  found  there  will  be  found  at  the  same  time,  and  side  by 
side  with  it,  a  tendency  to  admire  the  spurious  form  of  char- 
ity, which  is  a  sentiment  and  not  a  virtue ;  which  can  sym- 
pathize with  crime,  but  not  with  law ;  which  can  be  tender 
to  savages,  but  has  no  respect,  no  care  for  national  honor. 
And  therefore  does  this  principle  of  the  Apostle  Paul  call 
upon  us  to  esteem  also  another  form  or  type  of  character,  and 
the  opposite  one ;  that  which  is  remarkable  for — in  which  pre- 
dominates— not  so  much  charity  as  justice  •  that  which  was 
«$een  in  the  warriors  and  prophets  of  old ;  who,  perchance, 
Aad  a  more  strong  recoil  from  vice  than  sympathy  with  vir- 
tue ;  whose  indignation  towards  that  which  is  wrong  and 
hypocritical  was  more  intense  than  their  love  for  that  which 
is  good :  the  material,  the  character,  out  of  which  the  re- 
former and  the  prophet,  those  who  are  called  to  do  great 
works  on  earth,  are  made. 

The  Church  of  Christ  takes  not  in  one  individual  form  of 
goodness  merely,  but  every  form  of  excellence  that  can 
adorn  humanity.  Nor  is  this  wonderful  when  we  remem- 
ber who  He  was  from  whom  this  Church  was  named.  It 
was  He  in  whom  centred  all  excellence — a  righteousness 
which  was  entire  and  perfect.  But  when  we  speak  of  the 
perfection  of  righteousness,  let  us  remember  that  it  is  made 
not  of  one  exaggerated  character,  but  of  a  true  harmony, 
a  due  proportion  of  all  virtues  united.  In  Him  were  found, 
therefore,  that  tenderness  towards  sinners  which  had  no 
sympathy  with  sin ;  that  humility  which  could  be  dignified, 
and  was  yet  united  with  self-respect ;  that  simplicity  which 
is  ever  to  be  met  with  side  by  side  with  true  majesty ;  that 
love  which  could  weep  over  Jerusalem  at  the  very  moment 
when  He  was  pronouncing  its  doom ;  that  truth  and  justice 
which  appeared  to  stand  as  a  protection  to  those  who  had 
been  oppressed,  at  the  same  time  that  He  scathed  with  in- 
dignant invective  the  Pharisees  of  the  then  existing  Jews. 

There  are  two,  only  two  perfect  humanities.  One  has  ex. 
isted  already  in  the  person  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the 
other  is  to  be  found  only  in  the  collective  Church.  Once, 
only  once,  has  God  given  a  perfect  representation  of  Himself, 
"  the  brightness  of  the  Father's  glory,  and  the  express  image 


560  The  Christian  Church  a  Family, 

of  His  person."  And  if  we  ask  again  for  a  perfect  human!;;/, 
the  answer  is,  it  is  not  in  this  Church  or  in  that  Church,  or 
in  this  man  or  in  that  man,  in  this  age  or  in  that  age,  but.  in 
the  collective  blended  graces,  and  beauties,  and  humanities, 
which  are  found  in  every  age,  in  all  churches,  but  not  in  every 
separate  man.  -  So,  at  least,  Paul  has  taught  us, "  Till  we  dtt 
come  " — collectively r,  not  separately — "  in  the  unity  of  the 
faith,  and  of  the  knowledge  of  the  Son  of  God,  unto  a  perfect 
man  " — in  other  words,  to  a  perfect  humanity — "  unto  the 
measure  of  the  stature  of  the  fullness  of  Christ." 

3.  The  last  thing  which  is  taught  us  by  this  definition  is, 
that  the  Church  of  Christ  is  a  society  which  is  forever  shifting 
its  locality  and  altering  its  forms.  It  is  the  whole  church, 
"  the  whole  family  in  heaven  and  earth."  So,  then,  those  who 
were  on  earth,  and  are  now  in  heaven,  are  yet  members  of 
the  same  family  still.  Those  who  had  their  home  here,  now 
have  it  there. 

Let  us  see  what  it  is  that  we  should  learn  from  this  doctrine. 
It  is  this,  that  the  dead  are  not  lost  to  us.  There  is  a  sense 
•in  which  the  departed  are  ours  more  than  they  were  before. 
There  is  a  sense  in  which  the  Apostles  Paul  or  John,  the  good 
and  great  of  ages  past,  belong  to  this  age  more  than  to  that  in 
which  they  lived,  but  in  which  they  were  not  understood  ;  in 
which  the  commonplace  and  every-day  part  of  their  lives  hin- 
dered the  brightness  and  glory  and  beauty  of  their  character 
from  shining  forth.  So  it  is  in  the  family.  It  is  possible  for 
men  to  live  in  the  same  house,  and  partake  of  the  same  meal 
from  day  to  day,  and  from  year  to  year,  and  yet  remain  stran- 
gers to  each  other,  mistaking  each  other's  feelings,  not  com- 
prehending each  other's  character;  and  it  is  only  when  the 
Atlantic  rolls  between,  and  half  a  hemisphere  is  interposed, 
that  we  learn  how  dear  they  are  to  us,  how  all  our  life  is 
bound  up  in  deep  anxiety  with  their  existence.  Therefore  it 
is  the  Christian  feels  that  the  family  is  not  broken.  Think 
you  that  family  can  break  or  end  ? — that  because  the  chair 
is  empty,  therefore  he,  your  child,  is  no  more  ?  It  may  be  so 
with  the  coarse,  the  selfish,  the  unbelieving,  the  superstitious ; 
but  the  eye  of  faith  sees  there  only  a  transformation.  He  is 
not  there,  he  is  risen.  You  see  the  place  where  he  was,  but 
he  has  passed  to  heaven.  ~So  at  least  the  parental  heart  of 
David  felt  of  old. "  by  faith  and  not  by  sight,"  >vhen  speak- 
ing of  his  infant  child.  "I  shall  go  to  him, but  he  shall  not 
return  to  me." 

Once  more,  the  Church  of  Christ  is  a  society  ever  altering 
and  changing  its  external  forms.  "  The  whole  family  " — the 
Church  of  the  patriarchs,  and  of  ages  before  them  ;  and  ve* 


The  Christian  Church  a  Family.  561 

the  fiame  family.  Remember,  I  pray  you,  the  diversities  of 
form  through  which,  in  so  many  ages  and  generations,  this 
Church  has  passed.  Consider  the  difference  there  was  be- 
tween the  patriarchal  Church  of  the  time  of  Abraham  and 
Isaac,  and  its  condition  under  David  ;  or  the  difference  be- 
tween the  Church  so  existing  and  its  state  in  the  days  of  the 
apostles ;  and  the  marvellous  difference  between  that  and  the 
same  Church  four  or  five  centuries  later  ;  or,  once  again,  the 
difference  between  that,  externally  one,  and  the  Church  as  it 
exists  in  the  present  day,  broken  into  so  many  fragments. 
Yet  diversified  as  these  states  may  bo,  they  are  not  more  so 
than  the  various  stages  of  a  family. 

There  is  a  time  when  the  children  are  all  'in  one  room, 
around  their  mother's  knee.  Then  comes  a  time,  still  farther 
on,  when  the  first  separation  takes  place,  and  some  are  leav- 
ing their  home  to  prepare  for  after-life.  Afterwards,  when 
all  in  their  different  professions,  trades  or  occupations,  are 
separate.  At  last  comes  the  time  when  some  are  gone.  And, 
perchance,  the  two  survivors  meet  at  last — an  old,  gray-hair- 
ed man,  and  a  weak,  worn-out  woman — to  mourn  over  the 
last  graves  of  a  household.  Christian  brethren,  which  of 
these  is  the  right  form — the  true,  external  pattern  of  a  fam- 
ily ?  Say  we  not  truly,  it  remains  the  same  under  all  out- 
ward mutations  ?  We  must  think  of  this,  or  else  we  may  lose 
heart  in  our  work.  Conceive,  for  instance,  the  feelings  of  a 
pious  Jew,  when  Christianity  entered  this  world  ;  when  all  his 
religious  system  was  broken  up — the  Temple-service  brought 
to  a  violent  end  ;  when  that  polity  which  he  thought  was  to 
redeem  and  ennoble  the  world  was  cast  aside  as  a  broken 
and  useless  thing.  Must  they  not  have  been  as  gloomy  and 
as  dreary  as  those  of  the  disciples,  when  He  was  dead  who 
they  "  trusted  should  have  redeemed  Israel  ?"  In  both  cases 
the  body  was  gone  or  was  altered — the  spirit  had  arisen. 

And  precisely  so  it  is  with  our  fears  and  unbelieving  ap- 
prehensions now.  Institutions  pass  —  churches  alter — old 
forms  change  —  and  high-minded  and  good  men  cling  to 
these  as  if  they  were  the  only  things  by  which  God  could 
regenerate  the  world.  Christianity  appears  to  some  men  to 
be  effete  and  worn  out.  Men  who  can  look  back  upon  the 
times  of  Venn,  and  Newton,  and  Scott — comparing  the  de- 
generacy of  their  descendants  with  the  men  of  those  days — 
lose  heart  as  if  "all  things  were  going  wrong.  "  Things  are 
not,"  they  say,  "  as  they  were  in  -our  younger  days."  No, 
rny  Christian  brethren,  things  are  not  as  they  then  were ; 
but  the  Christian  cause  lives  on — not  in  the  successors  of 
euch  men  as  those ;  the  outward  form  is  altered,  but  th« 

24* 


562  The  Christian  Church  a  Family. 

spirit  is  elsewhere,  is  risen — risen  just  as  truly  as  the  spirit 
of  the  highest  Judaism  rose  again  in  Christianity.  And  to 
mourn  over  old  superstitions  and  effete  creeds  is  just  as  un- 
wise as  is  the  grief  of  the  mother  mourning  over  the  form 
which  was  once  her  child.  She  can  not  separate  her  affec- 
tion from  that  form — those  hands,  those  limbs,  those  features 
— are  they  not  her  child  ?  The  true  answer  is,  her  child  is 
aot  there.  It  is  only  the  form  of  her  child.  And  it  is  as  un- 
wise to  mourn  over  the  decay  of  those  institutions  —  the 
change  of  human  forms — as  it  was  unwise  in  Jonah  to  mourn 
with  that  passionate  sorrow  over  the  decay  of  the  gourd 
which  had  sheltered  him  from  the  heat  of  the  noontide  sun. 
A  worm  had'  eaten  the  root  of  the  gourd,  and  it  was  gone. 
But  He  who  made  the  gourd  the  shelter  to  the  weary — the 
shadow  of  those  who  are  oppressed  by  the  noontide  heat  of 
life — lived  on :  Jonah's  God.  And  so,  brethren,  all  things 
change — all  things  outward  change  and  alter;  but  the  God 
of  the  Church  lives  on.  The  Church  of  God  remains  un- 
der fresh  forms — the  one,  holy,  entire  family  in  heaven  and 
earth. 

II.  Pass  we  on  now,  in  the  second  place,  to  consider  the 
name  by  which  this  Church  is  named.  "  Our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,"  the  Apostle  says,  "of  whom  the  whole  family  in 
heaven  and  earth  is  named." 

Now,  every  one  familiar  with  the  Jewish  modes  of  thought 
and  expression  will  allow  here  that  name  is  but  another 
word  to  express  being,  actuality,  and  existence.  So  when 
Jacob  desired  to  know  the  character  and  nature  of  Jehovah, 
he  said — "Tell  me  now,  I  beseech  thee,  thy  name"  When 
the  Apostle  here  says,  "  Our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  of  whom  the 
whole  family  in  heaven  and  earth  is  named"  itvis  but  anoth- 
er way  of  saying  that  it  is  He  on  whom  the  Church  depends 
— who  has  given  it  substantive  existence — without  whom  it 
could  not  be  at  all.  It  is  but  another  way  of  saying  what  he 
has  expressed  elsewhere — "  that  there  is  none  other  name 
under  heaven  given  among  men,  whereby  we  may  be  saved." 
Let  us  not  lose  ourselves  in  vague  generalities.  Separate 
from  Christ,  there  is  no  salvation  ;  there  can  be  no  Christian- 
ity. Let  us  understand  what  we  mean  by  this.  Let  us 
clearly  define  and  enter  into  the  meaning  of  the  words  we 
use.  When  we  say  that  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  is  He  "  ol 
whom  the  whole  family  in  heaven  and  earth  is  named,"  wre 
mean  that  the  very  being  of  the  Church  depends  on  Christ — 
that  it  could  not  be  without  Him.  Now,  the  Church  of 
Christ  depends  upon  these  three  things — first,  the  recognition 


The  Christian  Church  a  Family.  563 

of  a  common  Father;  secondly,  of  a  common  humanity;  and 
thirdly,  of  a  common  sacrifice. 

1.  First,  the  recognition  of  a  common  Father.     That  is  the 
sacred  truth  proclaimed  by  the  Epiphany.     God  revealed  in 
Christ — not   the  Father  of  the  Jew   only,  but  also   of  the 
Gentile.     The  Father  of  a  "  whole  family."     Not  the  partial 
Father  loving  one  alone — the   elder — but  the  younger  son 
besides :  the  outcast  prodigal  who  had  spent  his  living  with 
harlots  and  sinners,  but  the  child  still,  and  the  child  of  a 
Father's  love.     Our  Lord  taught  this  in   His   own   blessed 
prayer — "  Our   Father ;"    and  as    we   lose    the   meaning   of 
that  single  word  our,  as  we  say  my  Father — the  Father  of 
me  and  of  my  faction — of  me  and  my  fellow-believers — my 
Anglicanism  or  my  Judaism-  -be  it  what  it  may — instead  of 
our  Father — the  Father  of  the  outcasts,  the  profligate,  of  all 
who  choose  to  claim  a  Father's  love  ;  so  we  lose  the  meaning 
of  the  lesson  which  the  Epiphany  was  designed  to  teach,  and 
the  possibility  of  building  up  a  family  to  God. 

2.  The    recognition    of  a   common    humanity.     He    from 
whom  the  Church  is  named,  took  upon  Him  not  the  nature 
merely  of  the  noble,  of  kings,  or  of  the  intellectual  philoso- 
pher— but  of  the  beggar,  the  slave,  the  outcast,  the  infidel, 
the  sinner,  and  the  nature  of  every  one  struggling  in  various 
ways.     Let  us  learn  then,  brother  men,  that  we  shall  have  no 
family  in  God,  unless  we  learn  the  deep  truth  of  our  common 
humanity,  shared  in  by  the  servant  and  the  sinner,  as  well  as 
the  sovereign.     Without  this  we  shall  have  no  Church — no 
family  in  God. 

3.  Lastly,  the  Church  of  Christ  proceeds  oat  of,  and  rests 

upon,  the  belief  in  a  common  sacrifice. 

******** 

There  are  three  ways  in  which  the  human  race  hitherto 
has  endeavored  to  construct  itself  into  a  family  ;  first,  by 
the  sword  ;  secondly,  by  an  ecclesiastical  system  ;  and  third- 
ly, by  trade  or  commerce.  First,  by  the  sword.  The  Assyri- 
an, the  Persian,  the  Greek,  and  the  Roman,  have  done  their 
work — in  itself  a  most  valuable  and  important  one ;  but  so 
far  as  the  formation  of  mankind  into  a  family  was  the  object 
aimed  at,  the  work  of  the  sword  has  done  almost  nothing. 
Then  there  was  the  ecclesiastical-system — the  grand  attempt 
of  the  Church  of  Rome  to  organize  all  men  into  one  family, 
with  an  ecclesiastical,  visible,  earthly  head.  Being  Protest- 
ants, it  is  not  necessary  for  us  to  state  our  conviction  that 
this  attempt  has  been  a  signal  and  complete  failure.  We 
now  come  to  the  system  of  commerce  and  trade.  We  are 
told  that  that  which  chivalry  and  honor  could  not  do — which 


564  The  Christian  Church  a  Family, 

an  ecclesiastical  system  could  not  do — personal  interest  wifi 
do.  Trade  is  to  bind  men  together  into  one  family.  When 
they  feel  it  their  interest  to  be  one,  they  will  be  brothers. 
Brethren,  that  which  is  built  on  selfishness  can  not  stand. 
The  system  of  personal  interest  must  be  shivered  into  atoms. 
Therefore,  we,  who  have  observed  the  ways  of  God  in  the 
.past,  are  waiting  in  quiet  but  awful  expectation  until  He 
shall  confound  this  system  as  He  has  confounded  those  which 
have  gone  before.  And  it  may  be  effected  by  convulsions 
more  terrible  and  more  bloody  than  the  world  has  yet  seen. 
While  men  are  talking  of  peace,  and  of  the  great  progress  of 
civilization,  there  is  heard  in  the  distance  the  noise  of  armies 
gathering  rank  on  rank :  east  and  west,  north  and  south, 
are  rolling  towards  us  the  crushing  thunders  of  universal 
war. 

Therefore  there  is  but  one  other  system  to  be  tried,  and 
that  is  the  cross  of  Christ — a  system  that  is  not  to  be  built 
upon  selfishness,  nor  upon  blood,  nor  upon  personal  interest, 
but  upon  love.  Love,  not  self — the  cross  of  Christ,  and  not 
the  mere  working  out  of  the  ideas  of  individual  humanity. 

One  word  only,  in  conclusion.  Upon  this,  the  great  truth 
of  the  Epiphany,  the  apostle  founds  a  prayer.  He  prays, 
"  For  this  cause  I  bow  my  knees  unto  the  Father  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  of  whom  the  whole  family  in  heaven  and  earth 
is  named,  that  He  would  grant  you,  according  to  the  riches 
of  His  glory,  to  be  strengthened  with  might  by  His  Spirit 
in  the  inner  man,  that  Christ  may  dwell  in  your  hearts  by 
faith."  This  manifestation  of  joy  and  good  to  the  Gentiles 
was,  according  to  him,  the  great  mystery  of  love.  A  love, 
brighter,  deeper,  wider,  higher  than  the  largest  human  heart 
had  ever  yet  dreamed  of.  But  the  apostle  tells  us  it  is,  after 
all,  but  a  glimpse  of  the  love  of  God.  How  should  we  learn 
it  more  ?  How  should  we  comprehend  the  whole  meaning 
of  the  Epiphany  ?  By  sitting  down  to  read  works  of  theolo- 
gy ?  The  Apostle  Paul  tells  us — No.  You  must  love,  in 
order  to  understand  love.  "  That  ye,  being  rooted  and 
grounded  in  love,  may  be  able  to  comprehend  with  all  sainte 
what  is  the  breadth  and  length,  and  depth  and  height ;  and 
to  know  the  love  of  Christ  which  passeth  knowledge." 
Brother  men,  one  act  of  charity  will  teach  us  more  of  the 
love  of  God  than  a  thousand  sermons — one  act  of  unselfish- 
ness, of  real  self-denial,  the  putting  forth  of  one  loving  feeling 
to  the  outcast  and  "  those  who  are  out  of  the  way,"  will  tell 
us  more  of  the  meaning  of  the  Epiphany  than  whole  volumes 
of  the  wisest  writers  on  theology. 


The  Law  of  Christian  Conscience.         555 


XVI. 
THE  LAW  OF  CHRISTIAN  CONSCIENCE. 

"Howbeit  there  is  not  in  every  man  that  knowledge:  for  some  with  con- 
science of  the  idol  unto  this  hour  eat  it  as  a  thing  offered  unto  an  idol ;  and 
their  conscience  being  weak  is  defiled.  But  meat  commendeth  us  not  to 
God :  for  neither,  if  we  eat,  are  we  the  better ;  neither,  if  we  eat  not,  are  we 
the  worse.  But  take  heed  lest  by  any  means  this  liberty  of  yours  become  a 
stumblingblock  to  them  that  are  weak.  For  if  any  man  see  fhee  which  hast 
knowledge  sit  at  meat  in  the  idol's  temple,  shall  not  the  conscience  of  him 
which  is  weak  be  emboldened  to  eat  those  things  which  are  offered  to  idols ; 
and  through  thy  knowledge  shall  the  weak  brother  perish,  for  whom  Christ 
died  ?  But  when  ye  sin  so  against  the  brethren,  and  wound  their  weak 
conscience,  ye  sin  against  Christ.  Wherefore,  if  meat  make  my  brother  to 
offend,  I  will  eat  no  flesh  while  the  world  standeth,  lest  I  make  my  brother 
to  offend."— 1  Cor.  viii.  7-13. 

WE  have  already  divided  this  chapter  into  two  branches 
— the  former  portion  of  it  containing  the  difference  betweer 
Christian  knowledge  and  secular  knowledge,  and  the  second 
portion  containing  the  apostolic  exposition  of  the  law  of 
Christian  conscience.  The  first  of  these  we  endeavored  to 
expound  last  Sunday,  but  it  may  be  well  briefly  to  recapitu- 
late the  principles  of  that  discourse  in  a  somewhat  different 
form. 

Corinth,  as  we  all  know  and  remember,  was  a  city  built 
on  the  sea-coast,  having  a  large  and  free  communication  with 
all  foreign  nations;  and  there  was  also  within  it,  and  going 
on  amongst  its  inhabitants,  a  free  interchange  of  thought, 
and  a  vivid  power  of  communicating  the  philosophy  and 
truths  of  those  days  to  each  other.  Now  it  is  plain,  that  to 
a  society  in  such  a  state,  and  to  minds  so  educated,  the  Gos- 
pel of  Christ  must  have  presented  a  peculiar  attraction,  pre- 
senting itself  to  them,  as  it  did,  as  a  law  of  Christian  liberty. 
And  so  in  Corinth  the  Gospel  had  "free  course  and  was 
glorified,"  and  was  received  with  great  joy  by  almost  all 
men,  and  by  minds  of  all  classes  and  all  sects ;  and  a  large 
number  of  these  attached  themselves  to  the  teaching  of  the 
Apostle  Paul  as  the  most  accredited  expounder  of  Christiani- 
ty— the  "  royal  law  of  liberty."  But  it  seems,  from  what 
we  read  in  this  epistle,  that  a  large  number  of  these  men  re- 
ceived Christianity  as  a  thing  intellectual,  gind  that  alone — • 
and  not  as  a  thing  which  touched  the  conscience,  and  s waved 
and  purified  the  arfections.  Thus  this  liberty  became  to 


566          The  Law  of  Christian  Conscience. 

them  almost  all — they  ran  into  sin  or  went  to  extravagance 
— they  rejoiced  in  their  freedom  from  the  superstitions,  the 
ignorances,  and  the  scruples  which  bound  their  weaker 
brethren  ;  but  had  no  charity — none  of  that  intense  charity 
which  characterized  the  Apostle  Paul,  for  those  still  strug- 
gling in  the  delusions  and  darkness  from  which  they  them- 
selves were  free. 

More  than  that,  they  demanded  their  right,  their  Christian 
liberty,  of  expressing  their  opinions  in  the  church,  merely  for 
the  sake  of  exhibiting  the  Christian  graces  and  spiritual  gifts 
which  had  been  showered  upon  them  so  largely;  until  by 
degrees  those  very  assemblies  became  a  lamentable  exhibi- 
tion of  their  own  depravity,  and  led  to  numerous  irregulari- 
ties which  we  find  severely  rebuked  by  the  Apostle  Paul. 
Their  women,  rejoicing  in  the  emancipation  which  had  been 
given  to  the  Christian  community,  laid  aside  the  old  habits 
of  attire  Which  had  been  consecrated  so  long  by  Grecian  and 
Jewish  custom,  and  appeared  with  their  heads  uncovered  jn 
the  Christian  community.  Still  further  than  that,  the  Lord's 
Supper  exhibited  an  absence  of  all  solemnity,  and  seemed 
more  a  meeting  for  licentious  gratification,  where  "one  was 
hungry,  and  another  was  drunken" — a  place  in  which  earth- 
ly drunkenness,  the  mere  enjoyment  of  the  appetites,  had  tak- 
en the  place  of  Christian  charity  towards  each  other. 

And  the  same  feeling — this  love  of  mere  liberty — liberty 
in  itself — manifested  itself  in  many  other  directions.  Hold- 
ing by  this  freedom,  their  philosophy  taught  that  the  body, 
that  is,  the  flesh,  was  the  only  cause  of  sin  ;  that  the  soul  was 
holy  and  pure ;  and  that  therefore,  to  be  free  from  the  body 
would  be  entire,  perfect,  Christian  emancipation.  And  so 
came  in  that  strange,  wrong  doctrine,  exhibited  in  Corinth, 
where  immortality  was  taught  separate  from,  and  in  opposi- 
tion to,  the  doctrine  of  the  resurrection.  And  afterwards 
they  went  on  with  their  conclusions  about  liberty,  to  main- 
tain that  the  body,  justified  by  the  sacrifice  of  Christ,  was  no 
longer  capable  of  sin  ;  and  that  in  the  evil  which  was  done 
by  the  body  the  soul  had  taken  no  part.  And  therefore  sin 
was  to  them  but  as  a  name,  from  which  a  Christian  conscience 
was  to  be  freed  altogether.  So  that  when  one  of  their  num- 
ber had  fallen  into  grievous  sin,  and  had  committed  fornica- 
tion, "  such  as  was  not  so  much  as  named  among  the  Gen- 
tiles," so  far  from  being  humbled  by  it,  they  wrere  "  puffed 
up,"  as  if  they  were  exhibiting  to  the  world  an  enlightened, 
true,  perfect  Christianity — separate  from  all  prejudices.  . 

To  such  a  society  and  to  such  a  state  of  mind  the  Apostle 
Paul  preached,  in  all  its  length,  breadth,  and  fullness,  the 


The  Law  of  Christian  Conscience.         567 

humbling  doctrines  of  the  cross  of  Christ.  He  taught  that 
knowledge  was  one  thing — that  charity  was  another  thing; 
that  "  knowledge  puffeth  up,  but  charity  buildeth  up."  He 
reminded  them  that  love  was  the  perfection  of  knowledge. 
In  other  words,  his  teaching  came  to  this :  there  are  two 
kinds  of  knowledge;  the  one  the  knowledge  of  the  intellect, 
the  other  the  knowledge  of  the  heart.  Intellectually,  God 
never  can  be  known.  He  must  be  known  by  love — for,  "if 
any  man  love  God,  the  same  is  known  of  Him."  Here,  then, 
we  have  arrived  in  another  way  at  precisely  the  same  con- 
clusion at  which  we  arrived  last  Sunday.  Here  are  two 
kinds  of  knowledge,  secular  knowledge  and  Christian  knowl 
edge  ;  and  Christian  knowledge  is  this — to  know  by  love. 

Let  us  now  consider  the  remainder  of  the  chapter,  which 
treats  of  the  law  of  Christian  conscience.  You  will  observe 
that  it  divides  itself  into  two  branches — the  first  containing 
an  exposition  of  the  law  itself,  and  the  second  the  Christian 
applications  which  flow  out  of  this  exposition. 

I.  The  way  in  which  -the  apostle  expounds  the  law  of 
Christian  conscience  is  this: — Guilt  is  contracted  by  the 
soul,  in  so  far  as  it  sins  against  and  transgresses  the  law  of 
God  by  doing  that  which  it  believes  to  be  wrong:  not  so 
much  wh^t  is  wrong  as  what  appears  to  it  to  be  wrong. 
This  is  the  doctrine  distinctly  laid  down  in  the  seventh  and 
eighth  verses.  The  apostle  tells  the  Corinthians  —  these 
strong-minded  Corinthians — that  the  superstitions  of  their 
weaker  brethren  were  unquestionably  wrong.  "  Meat,"  he 
says,  "  commendeth  us  not  to  God  ;  for  neither  if  we  eat  are 
we  the  better,  neither  if  we  eat  not  are  we  the  worse."  He 
then  tells  them  further,  that  "  there  is  not  in  every  man  that 
knowledge;  for  some,  with  conscience  of  the  idol,  eat  it  as  a 
thing  offered  unto  an  idol."  Here,  then,  is  an  ignorant,  mis- 
taken, ill-formed  conscience ;  and  yet  he  goes  on  to  tell  them 
that  this  conscience,  so  ill-informed,  yet  binds  the  possessor 
of  it :  "  and  their  conscience  beinu:  weak,  is  defiled."  For  ex- 
ample— there  could  be  no  harm  in  eating  the  flesh  of  an  ani- 
mal that  had  been  offered  to  an  idol  or  false  god ;  for  a  false 
god  is  nothing,  and  it  is  impossible  for  it  to  have  contracted 
positive  defilement  by  being  offered  to  that  which  is  a  posi- 
tive and  absolute  negation.  And  yet  if  any  man  thought  it 
wrong  to  eat  such  flesh,  to  him  it  was  wrong;  for  in  that  act 
there  would  be  a  deliberate  act  of  transgression — a  delibe- 
rate preference  of  that  which  was  mere  enjoyment,  to  that 
which  was  apparently,  though  it  may  be  only  apparently, 
sanctioned  by  the  law  of  God.  And  so  it  wTould  carry  with 


568          77ie  Law  of  Christian  Conscience. 

it  all  the  disobedience,  all  the  guilt,  and  all  the  misery  whicli 
belongs  to  the  doing  of  an  act  altogether  wrong  ;  or  as  St. 
Paul  expresses  it,  the  conscience  would  become  defiled. 

Here,  then,  we  arrive  at  the  first  distinction — the  distinc- 
tion between  absolute  and  relative  right  and  wrong.  Abso- 
lute right  and  absolute  wrong,  like  absolute  truth,  can  each 
be  but  one  and  unalterable  in  the  sight  of  God.  The  one 
absolute  right — the  charity  of  God  and  the  sacrifice  of  Christ 
—this,  from  eternity  to  eternity  must  be  the  sole  measure  of 
eternal  right.  But  human  right  or  human  wrong — that  is, 
the  merit  or  demerit  of  any  action  done  by  any  particular 
man — must  be  measured,  not  by  that  absolute  standard,  but 
as  a  matter  relative  to  his  particular  circumstances,  the  state 
of  the  age  in  which  he  lives,  and  his  own  knowledge  of  right 
and  wrong.  For  we  come  into  this  world  with  a  moral 
sense ;  or  to  speak  more  Christianly,  with  a  conscience.  And 
yet  that  will  tell  us  but  very  little  distinctly.  It  tells  us 
broadly  that  which  is  right  and  that  which  is  wrong,  so  that 
every  child  can  understand  this.  That  charity  and  self- 
denial  are  right — this  we  see  recognized  in  almost  every  na- 
tion. But  the  boundaries  of  these  two — when  and  how  far 
self-denial  is  right — what  are  ,the  bounds  of  charity — this  it  ie 
for  different  circumstances  yet  to  bring  out  and  determine. 

And  so  it  will  be  found  that  there  is  a  different  standard 
among  different  nations  and  in  different  ages.  That,  for  ex- 
ample, which  was  the  standard  among  the  Israelites  in  the 
earlier  ages,  and  before  their  settlement  in  Canaan,  was  very 
different  from  the  higher  and  truer  standard  of  right  and 
wrong  recognized  by  the  later  prophets.  And  the  standard 
in  the  third  and  fourth  centuries  after  Christ,  was  truly  and 
unquestionably  an  entirely  different  one  from  that  recognized 
in  the  nineteenth  century  among  ourselves. 

Let  me  not  be  mistaken.  I  do  not  say  that  right  and 
wrong  are  merely  conventional,  or  merely  chronological  or 

feographical,  or  that  they  vary  with  latitude  and  longitude. 
do  not  say  that  there  ever  was  or  ever  can  be  a  nation  so 
utterly  blinded  and  perverted  in  its  moral  sense  as  to  ac- 
knowledge that  which  is  wrong — seen  and  known  to  be 
wrong — as  right ;  or  on  the  other  hand,  to  profess  that  which 
is  seen  and  understood  as  right,  to  be  wrong.  But  what  I 
do  say  is  this:  that  the  form  and  aspect  in  which  different 
deeds  appear,  so  vary,  that  there  will  be  forever  a  change 
and  alteration  in  men's  opinions,  and  that  which  is  really 
most  generous  may  seem  most  base,  and  that  which  is  really 
most  base  may  appear  most  generous.  So,  for  example,  as  1 
have  already  said,  there  are  two  things  universally  recog* 


The  Law  of  Christian  Conscience.         569 

nized — recognized  as  right  by  every  man  whose  conscience 
is  not  absolutely  perverted — charity  arid  self-denial.  The 
charity  of  God,  the  sacrifice  of  Christ — these  are  the  two 
grand,  leading  principles  of  the  Gospel;  and  in  some  form  or 
other  you  will  find  these  lying  at  the  roots  of  every  profes- 
sion and  state  of  feeling  in  almost  every  age.  But  the  form 
in  which  these  appear  will  vary  with  all  the  gradations  which 
are  to  be  found  between  the  lowest  savage  state  and  the 
highest  and  most  enlightened  Christianity. 

For  example,  in  ancient  Israel  the  law  of  love  was  ex- 
pounded thus  : — "  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor,  and  hate 
thine  enemy."  Among  the  American  Indians  and  at  the 
Cape,  the  only  homage,  perchance,  given  to  self-denial,  was 
the  strange  admiration  given  to  that  prisoner  of  war  who 
bore  with  unflinching  fortitude  the  torture  of  his  country's 
enemies.  In  ancient  India  the  same  principle  was  exhibited, 
but  in  a  more  strange  and  perverted  manner.  The  homage 
there  given  to  self-denial,  self-sacrifice,  was  this — ?hat  tht, 
highest  form  of  religion  was  considered  to  be  that  exhibited 
by  the 'devotee  who  sat  in  a  tree  until  the  birds  had  built 
their  nests  in  his  hair — until  his  nails,  like  those  of  the  King 
of  Babylon,  had  grown  like  birds*  talons — until  they  had 
grown  into  his  hands — and  he  became  absorbed  into  the  Di- 
vinity. 

We  will  take  another  instance,  and  one  better  known.  In 
ancient  Sparta  it  was  the  custom  to  teach  children  to  steal. 
And  here  there  would  seem  to  be  a  contradiction  to  our  prop- 
osition— here  it  would  seem  as  if  right  and  wrong  were  mat- 
ters merely  conventional ;  for  s-urely  stealing  can  nev«r  be 
any  thing  but  wrong.  But  if  we  look  deeper  we  shall  see 
that  there  is  no  contradiction  here.  It  was  not  stealing 
which  was  admired ;  the  child  was  punished  if  the  theft  was 
discovered  ;  but  it  was  the  dexterity  which"  was  admired, 
and  that  because  it  was  a  warlike  virtue,  necessary,  it  may  be, 
to  a  people  in  continual  rivalry  with  their  neighbors.  It  was 
not  that  honesty  was  despised  and  dishonesty  esteemed,  but 
that  honesty  and  dishonesty  were  made  subordinate  to  that 
which  appeared  to  them  of  higher  importance,  namely,  the 
duty  of  concealment.  And  so  we  come  back  to  the  principle 
which  we  laid  down  at  first.  In  every  age,  among  all  na- 
tions, the  same  broad  principle  remains,  but  the  application 
of  it  varies.  The  conscience  may  be  ill-informed,  and  in  this 
sense  only  are  right  and  wrong  conventional — varying  with 
latitude  and  longitude,  depending  upon  chronology  and  ge- 
ography. 

The  principle  laid  down  by  the  Apostle  Paul  is  this :— A 


5  70          The  Law  of  Christian  Conscience. 

man  will  be  judged,  not  by  the  abstract  law  of  God,  not  by 
the  rule  of  absolute  right,  but  much  rather  by  the  relative 
law  of  conscience.  This  he  states  most  distinctly— looking 
at  the  question  on  both  sides.  That  which  seems  to  a  man 
to  be  right  is,  in  a  certain  sense,  right  to  him ;  and  that 
which  seems  to  a  man  to  be  wrong,  in  a  certain  sense  is 
wrong  to  him.  For  example:  he  says  in  his  Epistle  to  the 
Romans  (ver.  14)  that,  "sin  is  not  imputed  when  there  is  no 
law,"  in  other  words,  if  a  man  does  not  really  know  a  thing 
to  be  wrong,  there  is  a  sense  in  which,  if  not  right  to  him,  it 
ceases  to  be  so  wrong  as  it  would  otherwise  be.  With  re- 
spect to  the  other  of  these  sides,  however,  the  case  is  still 
more  distinct  and  plain.  Here,  in  the  judgment  which  the 
apostle  delivers  in  the  parallel  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Romans  (the  xivth),  he  says,  "  I  know,  and  am  persuaded  of 
the  Lord  Jesus,  that  there  is  nothing  unclean  of  itself:  but 
to  him  that  esteemeth  any  thing  to  be  unclean,  to  him  it  is 
unclean:"  In  other  words,  whatever  may  be  the  abstract 
merits  of  the  question — however  in  God's  jurisprudence  any 
particular  act  may  stand — to  you,  thinking  it  to  be  wrong,  it 
manifestly  is  wrong,  and  your  conscience  will  gather  round 
it  a  stain  of  guilt  if  you  -do  it. 

In  order  to  understand  this  more  fully,  let  us  take  a  few 
instances.  There  is  a  difference  between  truth  and  veracity. 
Veracity — mere  veracity — is  a  small,  poor  thing.  Truth  is 
something  greater  and  higher.  Veracity  is  merely  the  cor- 
respondence between  some  particular  statement  and  facts — 
truth  is  the  correspondence  between  a  man's  whole  soul  and 
reality.  It  is  possible  for  a  man  to  say  that  which,  unknown 
to  him,  is  false  ;  and  yet  he  may  be  true :  because  if  deprived 
of  truth  he  is  deprived  of  it  unwillingly.  It  is  possible,  on 
the  other  hand,  for  a  man  to  utter  veracities,  and  yet  at  the 
very  time  that  he  is  uttering  those  veracities,  to  be  false  to 
himselfj  to  his  brother,  and  to  his  God.  One  of  the  most  sig- 
nal instances  of  this  is  to  be  seen  in  the  Book  of  Job.  Most 
of  what  Job's  friends  said  to  him  were  veracious  statements. 
Much  of  what  Job  said  for  himself  was  unveracious  and  mis- 
taken. And  yet  those  veracities  of  theirs  were  so  torn  from 
all  connection  with  fact  and  truth,  that  they  became  false- 
hoods ;  and  they  Avere,  as  has  been  said,  nothing  more  than 
"  orthodox  liars  "  in  the  sight  of  God.  On  the  other  hand, 
Job,  blundering  perpetually,  and  falling  into  false  doctrine, 
was  yet  a  true  man — searching  for  and  striving  after  the 
truth ;  and  if  deprived  of  it  for  a  time,  deprived  of  it  with  all 
his  heart  and  soul  unwillingly.  And  therefore  it  was  that  at 
tost  the  Lord  appeared  out  of  the  whirlwind  to  confound  the 


The  Law  of  Christian  Conscience.          571 

men  of  mere  veracity,  and  to  stand  by  and  support  the  honor 
of  the  heartily  true. 

Let  us  apply  the  principle  further.  It  is  a  matter  of  less 
importance  that  a  man  should  state  true  views,  than  that  he 
should  state  views  truly.  We  will  put  this  in  its  strongest 
form.  Unitarianism  is  false — Trinitarianism  is  true.  But 
yet  in  the  sight  of  God,  and  with  respect  to  a  man's  eternal 
destinies  hereafter,  it  would  surely  be  better  for  him  earnest- 
ly, honestly,  truly,  to  hold  the  doctrines  of  Unitarianism, 
than  in  a  cowardly  or  indifferent  spirit,  or  influenced  by  au- 
thority, or  from  considerations  of  interest,  or  for  the  sake  of 
lucre,  to  hold  the  doctrines  of  Trinitarianism. 

For  instance:  Not  many  years  ago  the  Church  of  Scot- 
land was  severed  into  two  great  divisions,  and  gave  to  this 
age  a  marvellous  proof  that  there  is  still  amongst  us  the 
power  of  living  faith — when  five  hundred  ministers  gave  up 
all  that  earth  holds  dear — position  in  the  Church  they  had 
loved  ;  friendships  and  affections  formed,  and  consecrated  by 
long  fellowship,  in  its  communion ;  and  almost  their  hopes 
of  gaining  a  livelihood — rather  than  assert  a  principle  which 
seemed  to  them  to  be  a  false  one.  Now,  my  brethren,  sure- 
ly the  question  in  such  a  case  for  us  to  consider  is  not  this, 
merely — whether  of  the  two  sections  held  the  abstract  right 
• — held  the  principle  in  its  integrity — but  surely  far  rather, 
this :  who  on  either  side  was  true  to  the  light  within,  true  to 
God,  true  to  the  truth  as  God  had  revealed  it  to  his  soul. 

Now  it  is  precisely  upon  this  principle  that  we  are  ena-^ 
bled  to  indulge  a  Christian  hope  that  many  of  those  who  in 
ancient  times  were  persecutors,  for  example,  may  yet  be 
justified  at  the  bar  of  Christ.  Nothing  can  make  persecu- 
tion right — it  is  wrong,  essentially,  eternally  wrong  in  the 
sight  of  God.  And  yet,  if  a  man  sincerely  and  assuredly 
thinks  that  Christ  has  laid  upon  him  a  command  to  perse- 
cute with  fire  and  sword,  it  is  surely  better  that  he  should, 
in  spite  of  all  feelings  of  tenderness  and  compassion,  cast 
aside  the  dearest  affections  at  the  command  of  his  Redeem- 
er, than  that  he  should,  in  mere  laxity  and  tenderness,  turn 
aside  from  what  seemed  to  him  to  be  his  duty.  At  least, 
this  appears  to  be  the  opinion  of  the  Apostle  Paul.  He  tells 
us  that  he  was  "  a  blasphemer  and  a  persecutor  and  injuri- 
ous," that  "  he  did  many  things  contrary  to  the  name  of  Je- 
sus of  Nazareth,"  that  "being  exceedingly  mad  against  the 
disciples,  he  persecuted  them  even  unto  strange  cities."  But 
he  tells  us  further,  that  "  for  this  cause  he  obtained  mercy, 
because  he  did  it  ignorantly  in  unbelief." 

Now  take  a  case  precisely  opposite :  In  ancient  times  the 


572          The  Law  of  Christian  Conscience. 

Jews  did  that  by  which  it  appeared  to  them  that  they  would 
contract  defilement  and  guilt — they  spared  the  lives  of  the 
enemies  which  they  had  taken  in  battle.  Brethren,  the  eter- 
nal law  is,  that  charity  is  right :  and  that  law  is  eternally 
right  which  says,  "  Thou  shalt  love  thine  enemy."  And  had 
the  Jews  acted  upon  this  principle  they  would  have  done 
well  to  spare  their  enemies :  but  they  did  it,  thinking  it  to 
be  wrong,  transgressing  that  law  which  commanded  them  to 
slay  their  idolatrous  enemies — not  from  generosity,  but  in 
cupidity — not  from  charity,  but  from  lax  zeal.  And  so  do- 
ing, the  act  was  altogether  wrong. 

II.  Such  is  the  apostle's  exposition  of  the  law  of  Christian 
conscience.  Let  us  now,  in  the  second  place,  consider  the 
applications,  both  of  a  personal  and  of  a  public  nature,  which 
arise  out  of  it. 

1.  The  first  application  is  a  personal  one.     It  is  this  : — Do 
seems  to  you  to  be  right :  it  is  only  so  that  you  will  at 

last  learn  by  the  grace  of  God  to  see  clearly  what  is  right. 
A  man  thinks  within  himself  that  it  is  God's  law  and  God's 
will  that  he  should  act  thus  and  thus.  There  is  nothing 
possible  for  us  to  say,  there  is  no  advice  for  us  to  give,  but 
this — "  You  must  so  act."  He  is  responsible  for  the  opinions 
he  holds,  and  still  more  for  the  way  in  which  he  arrived  at 
them — whether  in  a  slothful  and  selfish,  or  in  an  honest  and 
truth-seeking  manner ;  but  being  now  his  soul's  convictions, 
,you  can  give  no  other  law  than  this — "  You  must  obey  your 
conscience."  For  no  man's  conscience  gets  so  seared  by  do- 
ing what  is  wrong  unknowingly,  as  by  doing  that  which  ap- 
pears to  be  wrong  to  his  conscience.  The  Jews'  consciences 
did  not  get  seared  by  their  slaying  the  Canaanites,  but  they 
did  become  seared  by  their  failing  to  do  what  appeared  to 
them  to  be  right.  Therefore,  woe  to  you  if  you  do  what 
others  think  right,  instead  of  obeying  the  dictates  of  your 
own  conscience ;  wroe  to  you  if  you  allow  authority,  or  pre- 
scription, or  fashion,  or  influence,  or  any  other  human  thing, 
to  interfere  with  that  awful  and  sacred  thing — responsibili- 
ty. "  Every  man,"  said  the  apostle,  "  must  give  an  account 
of  himself  to  God." 

2.  The  second  application  of  this  principle  has  reference 
to  others.     No  doubt,  to  the  large,  free,  enlightened  mind  of 
the  Apostle  Paul  all  these  scruples  and  superstitions  must 
have  seemed  mean,  trivial,  and  small  indeed.     It  was  a  mat- 
ter to  him  of  far  less  importance  that  truth  should  be  estab- 
lished than  that  it  should  be  arrived  at  truly — a  matter  of 
far  less  importance,  even,  that  right   should  be  done,  than 


The  Law  of  Christian  Conscience.         573 

that  right  should  be  done  rightly.  Conscience  was  far  more 
sacred  to  him  than  even  liberty — it  was  to  him  a  prerogative 
far  more  precious  to  assert  the  rights  of  Christian  conscience, 
than  to  magnify  the  privileges  of  Christian  liberty.  The 
scruple  may  be  small  and  foolish,  but  it  may  be  impossible 
to  uproot  the  scruple  without  tearing  up  the  feeling  of  the 
sanctity  of  conscience,  and  of  reverence  to  the  law  of  God, 
associated  with  this  scruple.  And  therefore  the  Apostle 
Paul  counsels  these  men  to  abridge  their  Christian  liberty, 
and  not  to  eat  of  those  things  which  had  been  sacrificed  to 
idols,  but  to  have  compassion  upon  the  scruples  of  their 
weaker  brethren. 

And  this,  for  two  reasons.  The  first  of  these  is  a  mere  rea- 
son of  Christian  feeling.  It  might  cause  exquisite  pain  to 
sensitive  minds  to  see  those  things  which  appeared  to  them 
to  be  wrong,  done  by  Christian  brethren.  Now  you  may 
take  a  parallel  case.  It  may  be,  if  you  will,  mere  supersti- 
tion to  bow  at  the  name  of  Jesus.  It  may  be,  and  no  doubt 
is,  founded  upon  a  mistaken  interpretation  of  that  passage  in 
the  Epistle  to  the  Philippians  (ii.  10),  which  says  that  "  at 
the  name  of  Jesus  every  knee  shall  bow."  But  there  are 
many  congregations  in  which  this  has  been  the  long-estab- 
lished rule,  and  there  are  many  Christians  who  would  feel 
pained  to  see  such  a  practice  discontinued — as  if  it  implied  a 
declension  from  the  reverence  due  to  "  that  name  which  is 
above  every  name."  Now  what  in  this  case  is  the  Christian 
duty  ?  Is  it  this — to  stand  upon  our  Christian  liberty  ?  Or 
is  it  not  rather  this — to  comply  with  a  prejudice  which  is 
manifestly  a  harmless  one,  rather  than  give  pain  to  a  Chris- 
tian brother  ? 

Take  another  case.  It  may  be  a  mistaken  scruple ;  but 
there  is  no  doubt  that  it  causes  much  pain  to  many  Chris- 
tians to  see  a  carriage  used  on  the  Loud's  day.  But  you, 
with  higher  views  of  the  spirit  of  Christianity,  who  know 
that  "  the  sabbath  was  made  for  man,  and  not  man  for  the 
sabbath" — who  can  enter  more  deeply  into  the  truth  taught 
by  our  blessed  Lord,  that  every  day  is  ,to  be  dedicated  tc 
Him  and  consecrated  to  His  service — upon  the  high  princi- 
ple of  Christian  liberty  you  can  use  your  carriage — you  can 
exercise  your  liberty.  But  if  there  are  Christian  brethren 
do  whom  this  would  give  pain — then  I  humbly  ask  you,  but 
most  earnestly — What  is  the  duty  here  ?  Is  it  not  this — to 
abridge  your  Christian  liberty — and  to  go  through  rain,  and 
mud,  and  snow,  rather  than  give  pain  to  one  Christian  con- 
science ? 

To   give  one  more  instance.     The    words,  and  garb,  and 


574          The  Law  of  Christian  Conscience. 

customs  of  that  sect  of  Christians  called  Quakers  may  be 
formal  enough ;  founded,  no  doubt,  as  in  the'  former  case, 
upon  a  mistaken  interpretation  of  a  passage  in  the  Bible. 
But  they  are  at  least  harmless ;  and  have  long  been  asso- 
ciated with  the  simplicity,  and  benevolence,  and  Christian 
humbleness  of  this  body  of  Christians — the  followers  of  one 
who,  three  hundred  years  ago,  set  out  upon  the  glorious  en- 
terprise of  making  all  men  friends.  Now  would  it  be  Chris- 
tian, or  would  it  not  rather  be  something  more  than  unchris' 
tiau — would  it  not  be  gross  rudeness  and  coarse  unfeeling- 
ness  to  treat  such  words,  and  habits,  and  customs,  with  any 
thing  but  respect  and  reverence  ? 

Further :  the  apostle  enjoined  this  duty  upon  the  Corinth 
ian  converts,  of  abridging  their  Christian  liberty,  not  mere- 
ly because  it  might  give  pain  to  indulge  it,  but  also  because 
it  might  even  lead  their  brethren  into  sin.  For,  if  any  man 
should  eat  of  the  flesh  offered  to  an  idol,  feeling  himself 
justified  by  his  conscience,  it  were  well:  but  if  any  man, 
overborne  by  authority  or  interest,  were  to  do  this,  not  ac- 
cording to  conscience,  but  against  it,  there  would  be  a  dis- 
tinct and  direct  act  of  disobedience — a  conflict  between  his 
sense  of  right  and  the  gratification  of  his  appetites,  or  the 
power  of  influence  ;  and  then  his  compliance  would  as  much 
damage  his  conscience  and  moral  sense  as  if  the  act  had  been 
wrong  in  itself. 

In  the  personal  application  of  these  remarks,  there  are 
three  things  which  we  have  to  say.  The  first  is  this: — Dis- 
tinguish, I  pray  you,  between  this  tenderness  for  a  brother's 
conscience  and  mere  time-serving.  This  same  apostle  whom 
we  here  see  so  gracefully  giving  way  upon  the  ground  of 
expediency  when  Christian  principles  were  left  entire,  was 
the  same  who  stood  firm  and  strong  as  a  rock  when  any 
thing  was  demanded  which  trenched  upon  Christian  princi- 
ple. When  some  required,  as  a  matter  of  necessity  for  salva- 
tion, that  these  converts  should  be  circumcised,  the  apostle 
says — "To  whom  we  gave  place  by  subjection,  no,  not  for  an 
hour !"  It  was  not  indifference — it  was  not  cowardice — it 
was  not  the  mere  love  of  peace,  purchased  by  the  sacrifice  of 
principle,  that  prompted  this  counsel — but  it  was  Christian 
'love — that  delicate  and  Christian  love  which  dreads  to  tam- 
per with  the  sanctities  of  a  brother's  conscience. 

2.  The  second  thing  we  have  to  say  is  this — that  this 
abridgment  of  their  liberty  is  a  duty  more  especially  in- 
cumbent upon  all  who  are  possessed  of  influence.  There  are 
some  men,  happily  for  themselves  we  may  say,  who  are  so  in- 
significant that  they  can  take  their  course  quietly  in  the  val- 


The  Law  of  Christian  Conscience.          575 

leys  of  life,  and  who  can  exercise  the  fullest  Christian  liberty 
without  giving  pain  to  others.  But  it  is  the  price  which  all 
who  are  possessed  of  influence  must  pay — that  their  acts 
must  be  measured,  not  in  themselves,  but  according  to  their 
influence  on  others.  So,  my  Christian  brethren,  to  bring 
this  matter  home  to  every-day  experience  and  common  life, 
if  the  landlord  uses  his  authority  and  influence  to  induce  his 
tenant  to  vote  against  his  conscience,  it  may  be  he  has  se- 
cured one  voice  to  the  principle  which  is  right,  or  at  all 
events,  to  that  which  seemed  to  him  to  be  right :  but  he  has 
gained  that  single  voice  at  the  sacrifice  and  expense  of  a 
brother's  soul.  Or  again — if  for  the  sake  of  insuring  per- 
sonal politeness  and  attention,  the  rich  man  puts  a  gratuity 
into  the  hand  of  a  servant  of  some  company  which  has  for- 
bidden him  to  receive  it,  he  gains  the  attention,  he  insures 
the  politeness,  but  he  gains  it  at  the  sacrifice  and  expense  of 
a  man  and  a  Christian  brother. 

3.  The  last  remark  which  we  have  to  make  is  this  : — 
How  possible  it  is  to  mix  together  the  vigor  of  a  masculine 
and  manly  intellect  with  the  tenderness  and  charity  which  is 
taught  by  the  Gospel  of  Christ.  No  man  ever  breathed  so 
freely  when  on  earth  the  air  and  atmosphere  of  heaven  as  the 
Apostle  Paul — no  man  ever  soared  so  high  above  all  preju- 
dices, narrowness,  littlenesses,  scruples,  as  he  :  and  yet  no 
man  ever  bound  himself  as  Paul  bound  himself  to  the  igno- 
rance, the  scruples,  the  prejudices  of  his  brethren.  So  that 
what  in  other  cases  wTas  infirmity,  imbecility,  and  supersti- 
tion, gathered  round  it  in  his  case  the  pure  high  spirit  of 
Christian  charity  and  Christian  delicacy. 

And  now,  out  of  the  writings,  and  sayings,  and  deeds  of 
those  who  loudly  proclaim  "  the  rights  of  man  "  and  the 
"  rights  of  liberty,"  match  us,  if  you  can,  with  one  sentence 
so  sublime,  so  noble,  one  that  will  so  stand  at  the  bar  of 
God  hereafter,  as  this  single,  glorious  sentence  of  his,  in 
which  he  asserts  the  rights  of  Christian  conscience  above  the 
claims  of  Christian  liberty — "  Wherefore  if  meat  make  my 
brother  to  offend,  I  will  eat  no  flesh  while  the  world  stand* 
s^h,  lest  I  make  my  brother  to  offend." 


5/6  Victory  over  Death. 


XVII. 
VICTORY  OVER  DEATH. 

"  The  sting  of  death  is  sin ;  aiid  the  strength  of  sin  is  the  la\r.  Bui 
thanks  be  to  God,  which  giveth  us  the  victory  through  our  Lord  ,7eso5 
Christ."—!  Cor.  xv.  56,  57. 

ON  Sunday  last  I  endeavored  to  bring  before  you  the 
subject  of  that  which  Scripture  calls  the  glorious  liberty  of 
the  sons  of  God.  The  two  points  on  which  we  were  trying 
to  get  clear  notions  were  these  :  what  is  meant  by  being  unr 
der  the  law,  and  what  is  meant  by  being  free  from  the  law  ? 
When  the  Bible  says  that  a  man  led  by  the  Spirit  is  not  un- 
der the  law,  it  does  not  mean  that  he  is  free  because  he  may 
sin  without  being  punished  for  it,  but  it  means  that  he  is 
free  because,  being  taught  by  God's  Spirit  to  love  what  His 
law  commands,  he  is  no  longer  conscious  of  acting  from  re- 
straint. The  law  does  not  drive  him,  because  the  Spirit 
leads  him. 

There  is  a  state,  brethren,  when  we  recognize  God,  but  do 
not  love  God  in  Christ.  It  is  that  state  when  we  admire 
what  is  excellent,  but  are  not  able  to  perform  it.  It  is  a 
state  when  the  love  of  good  comes  to  nothing,  dying  away 
in  a  mere  desire.  That  is  the  state  of  nature,  when  we  are 
under  the  law,  and  not  converted  to  the  love  of  Christ. 
And  then  there  is  another  state,  when  God  writes  His  law 
upon  our  hearts  by  love  instead  of  fear.  The  one  state  is 
this,  "  I  can  riot  do  the  things  that  I  would  " — the  other 
state  is  this,  "  I  will  walk  at  liberty  ;  for  I  seek  Thy  com- 
mandments." 

Just  so  far,  therefore,  as  a  Christian  is  led  by  the  Spirit,  he 
is  a  conqueror.  A  Christian  in  full  possession  of  his  privileges 
is  a  man  whose  very  step  ought  to  have  in  it  all  the  elasticity 
of  triumph,  and  whose  very  look  ought  to  have  in  it  all  the 
brightness  of  victory.  And  just  so  far  as  a  Christian  suffers 
sin  to  struggle  in  him  and  overcome  his  resolutions,  just  sc 
far  he  is  under  the  law.  And  that  is  the  key  to  the  whole 
doctrine  of  the  New  Testament.  From  first  to  last  the 
great  truth  put  forward  is — The  law  can  neither  save  you 
nor  sanctify  you.  The  Gospel  can  do  both  ;  for  it  is  rightly 
and  emphatically  called  the  perfect  law  of  liberty. 

We  proceed  to-day  to  a  further  illustration  of  this  subject 


Victory  over  Death.  577 

— of  Christian  victory.  In  the  verses  which  I  have  read  out, 
the  apostle  has  evidently  tho  same  subject  in  his  mind: 
slavery  through  the  law  :  victory  through  the  Gospel. 
"  The  strength  of  sin,"  he  says,  "  is  the  law."  God  giveth 
us  the  victory  through  Christ.  And  when  we  are  familiar 
with  St.  Paul's  trains  of  thinking,  we  find  this  idea  coming  in 
perpetually.  It  runs  like  a  colored  thread  through  embroid- 
ery, appearing  on  the  upper  surface  every  now  and  then  in  a 
different  shape — a  leaf,  it  may  be,  or  a  flower ;  but  the  same 
thread  still,  if  you  only  trace  it  back  with  your  finger.  And 
this  was  the  golden  recurring  thread  in  the  mind  of  Paul. 
Restraint  and  law  can  not  check  sin ;  they  only  gall  it  and 
make  it  struggle  and  rebel.  The  love  of  God  in  Christ,  that, 
and  only  that,  can  give- man  the  victory. 

But  in  this  passage  the  idea  of  victory  is  brought  to  bear 
upon  the  most  terrible  of  all — a  Christian's  enemies.  It  is 
faith  here  conquering  in  death.  And  the  apostle  brings  to- 
gether all  the  believer's  antagonists— the  law's  power,  sin, 
and  death  the  chief  antagonist  of  all:  and  then,  as  it  were  on 
a  conqueror's  battle-field,  shouts  over  them  the  hymn  of  tri- 
umph— "  Thanks  be  to  God,  which  giveth  us  tfie  victory, 
through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ."  We  shall  take  up  these 
two  points  to  dwell  upon  : 

I.  The  awfulness  which  hangs  round  the  dying  hour. 
II.  Faith  conquering  in  death. 

That  which  makes  it  peculiarly  terrible  to  die  is  asserted 
In  this  passage  to  be  guilt.  We  lay  a  stress  upon  this  ex- 
pression— the  sting.  It  is  not  said  that  sin  is  the  only  bit- 
terness, but  it  is  the  sting  which  contains  in  it  the  venom  of 
a  most  exquisite  torture.  And  in  truth,  brethren,  it  is  no 
mark  of  courage  to  speak  lightly  of  human  dying.  We  may 
do  it  in  bravado,  or  in  wantonness ;  but  no  man  who  thinks 
can  call  it  a  trifling  thing  to  die.  True  though tfulness  must 
shrink  from  death  without  Christ.  There  is  a  world  of  un- 
told sensations  crowded  into  that  moment  when  a  man  puts 
his  hand  to  his  forehead  and  feels  the  damp  upon  it  which 
tells  him  his  hour  is  come.  He  has  been  waiting  for  death 
all  his  life,  and  now  it  is  come.  It  is  all  over — his  chance  is 
past,  and  his  eternity  is  settled.  None  of  us  know,  except 
by  guess,  what  that  sensation  is.  Myriads  of  human  beings 
have  felt  it  to  whom  life  was  dear ;  but  they  never  spoke  out 
their  feelings,  for  such  things  are  untold.  And  to  every  indi- 
vidual man  throughout  all  eternity  that  sensation  in  its  full- 
ness  can  come  but  once.  It. is  mockery,  brethren,  for  a  man 
to  speak  lightly  of  that  which  he  can  not  know  till  it  corner. 

25 


578  Victory  over  Death. 

Now  the  first  cause  which  makes  it  a  solemn  thing  to  die 
is  the  instinctive  cleaving  of  every  thing  that  lives  to  its  own 
existence.  That  unutterable  thing  which  we  call  our  being 
— the  idea  of  parting  with  it  is  agony.  It  is  the  first  and 
the  intensest  desire  of  living  things,  to  be.  Enjoyment, 
blessedness,  every  thing  we  long  for,  is  wrapped  up  in  being 
Darkness  and  all  that  the  spirit  recoils  from,  is  contained  in 
this  idea,  not  to  be.  It  is  in  virtue  of  this  unquenchable  im- 
pulse that  the  world,  in  spite  of  all  the  misery  that  is  in  it, 
continues  to  straggle  on.  What  are  war,  and  trade,  and  la- 
bor, and  professions  ?  Are  they  all  the  result  of  struggling 
to  be  great  ?  No,  my  brethren,  they  are  the  result  of  strug- 
gling to  be.  The  first  thing  that  men  and  nations  labor  for 
is  existence.  Reduce  the  nation  or  the  man  to  their  last  re- 
sources, and  only  see  what  marvellous  energy  of  contrivance 
the  love  of  being  arms  them  with.  Read  back  the  pauper's 
history  at  the  end  of  seventy  years — his  strange  sad  history, 
in  which  scarcely  a  single  day  could  insure  subsistence  for 
the  morrow — and  yet  learn  what  he  has  done  these  long 
years  in  the  stern  struggle  with  impossibility  to  hold  his  be- 
ing where  every  thing  is  against  him,  and  to  keep  an  ex- 
istence whose  only  conceivable  charm  is  this,  that  it  is  exist- 
ence. 

Now  it  is  with  this  intense  passion  for  being  that  the  idea 
of  death  clashes.  Let  us  search  why  it  is  we  'shrink  from 
death.  This  reason,  brethren,  we  shall  find,  that  it  presents 
to  us  the  idea  of  not  being.  Talk  as  we  will  of  immortality, 
there  is  an  obstinate  feeling  that  we  can  not  master,  that  we 
end  in  death ;  and  that  may  be  felt  together  with  the  firmest 
belief  of  a  resurrection.  Brethren,  our  faith  tells  us  one 
thing,  and  our  sensations  tell  us  another.  When  we  die,  we 
are  surrendering  in  truth  all  that  with  which  we  have  asso- 
ciated existence.  All  that  we  know  of  life  is  connected  with 
a  shape,  a  form,  a  body  of  materialism ;  and  now  that  that  is 
palpably  melting  away  into  nothingness,  the  boldest  heart 
may  be  excused  a  shudder,  when  there  is  forced  upon  it,  in 
spite  of  itself,  the  idea  of  ceasing  forever. 

The  second  reason  is  not  one  of  imagination  at  all,  but 
most  sober  reality.  It  is  a  solemn  thing  to  die,  because  it  is 
the  parting  with  all  round  which  the  heart's  best  affections 
have  twined  themselves.  There  are  some  men  who  have  not 
the  capacity  for  keen  enjoyment.  Their  affections  have  noth- 
ing in  them  of  intensity,  and  so  they  pass  through  life  withaut 
ever  so  uniting  themselves  with  what  they  meet,  that  there 
would  be  any  thing  of  pain  in  the  severance.  Of  course, 
with  them  the  bitterness  of  death  does  not  attach  so  much  to 


Victory  over  Death.  579 

the  idea  of  parting.  But,  my  brethren,  how  is  it  with  human 
nature  generally  ?  Our  feelings  do  not  weaken  as  we  go  on 
in  life  ;  emotions  are  less  shown,  and  we  get  a  command  over 
our  features  and  our  expressions ;  but  the  man's  feelings  are 
deeper  than  the  boy's.  It  is  length  of  time  that  makes  at- 
tachment. We 'become  wedded  to  the  sights  and  sounds  of 
this  lovely  world  more  closely  as  years  go  on. 

Young  men,  with  nothing  rooted  deep,  are  prodigal  of  life. 
It  is  an  adventure  to  them,  rather  than  a  misfortune,  to  leave 
their  country  forever.  With  the  old  man  it  is  like  tearing 
his  own  heart  from  him.  And  so  it  was  that  when  Lot  quit- 
ted Sodom  the  younger  members  of  his  family  went  on  gladly. 
It  is  a  touching  truth ;  it  was  the  aged  one  who  looked  be- 
hind to  the  home  which  had  so  many  recollections  connected 
with  it.  And  therefore  it  is,  that  when  men  approach  that 
period  of  existence  when  they  must  go,  there  is  an  instinctive 
lingering  over  things  whicji  they  shall  never  see  again.  Every 
time  the  sun  sets,  every  time  the  old  man  sees  his  children 
gathering  round  him,  there  is  a  filling  of  the  eye  with  an 
emotion  that  we  can  understand.  There  is  upon  his  soul  the 
thought  of  parting,  that  strange  wrench  from  all  we  love, 
which  makes  death  (say  what  moralists  will  of  it)  a  bitter 
thing. 

Another  pang  which  belongs  to  death  we  find  in  the  sen- 
sation of  loneliness  which  attaches  to  it.  Have  we  ever  seen 
a  ship  preparing  to  sail  with  its  load  of  pauper  emigrants  to 
a  distant  colony?  If  we  have  we  know  what  that  desolation 
is  which  comes  from  feeling  unfriended  on  a  new  and  untried 
excursion.  All  beyond  the  seas,  to  the  ignorant  poor  man, 
is  a  strange  land.  They  are  going-  away  from  the  helps  and 
the  friendships  and  the  companionships  of  life,  scarcely  know-' 
ing  what  is  before  them.  And  it  is  in  such  a  moment,  when 
a  man  stands  upon  a  deck  taking  his  last  look  of  his  father- 
land, that  there  comes  upon  him  a  sensation  new,  strange, 
and  inexpressibly  miserable — the  feeling  of  being  alone  in 
the  world. 

Brethren,  with  all  the  bitterness  of  such  a  moment,  it  is 
but  a  feeble  image  when  placed  by  the  side  of  the  loneliness 
of  death.  We  die  alone.  We  go  on  our  dark  mysterious 
journey  for  the  first  time  in  all  our  existence,  without  one  to 
accompany  us.  Friends  are  beside  our  bed,  they  must  stay 
behind.  Grant  that  a  Christian  has  something  like  familiar- 
ity with  the  Most  High,  that  breaks  this  solitary  feeling; 
but  what  is  it  with  the  mass  of  men  ?  It  is  a  question  full 
of  loneliness  to  them.  What  is  it  they  are  to  see  ?  What 
are  they  to  meet  ?  Is  it  not  true,  that,  to  tne  larger  numbei 


580  Victory  over  Death. 

of  this  congregation,  there  is  no  one  point  in  all  eternity  on 
which  the  eye  can  fix  distinctly  and  rest  gladly — nothing 
beyond  the  grave,  except  a  dark  space  into  which  they  must 
plunge  alone  ? 

And  yet,  my  brethren,  with  all  these  ideas  no  doubt  vivid- 
ly before  his  mind,  it  was  none  of  them  that'  the  apostle  se- 
lected as  the  crowning  bitterness  of  dying.  It  was  not  the 
thought  of  surrendering  existence.  It  was  not  the  parting 
from  all  bright  and  lovely  things.  It  was  not  the  shudder  of 
sinking  into  the  sepulchre  alone.  "  The  sting  of  death  is  sin." 

Now  there  are  two  ways  in  which  this  deep  truth  applies 
itself.  There  is  something  that  appals  in  death  when  there 
are  distinct  separate  acts  of  guilt  resting  on  the  memory ; 
and  there  is  something,  too,  in  the  possession  of  a  guilty 
heart  which  is  quite  another  thing  from  acts  of  sin,  that 
makes  it  an  awful  thing  to  die.  There  are  some  who  carry 
about  with  them  the  dreadful  secret  of  sin  that  has  been 
done ;  guilt  that  has  a  name.  A  man  has  injured  some  one ; 
he  has  made  money,  or  got  on  by  unfair  means  ;  he  has  been 
unchaste ;  he  has  done  some  of  those  thousand  things  of  life 
which  leave  upon  the  heart  the  dark  spot  that  will  not  come 
out.  All  these  are  sins  which  you  can  count  up  and  num- 
ber. And  the  recollection  of  things  like  these  is  that  agony 
which  we  call  remorse.  Many  of  us  have  remembrances  of 
this  kind  which  are  fatal  to  serenity.  .We  shut  them  out, 
but  it  will  not  do.  They  bide  their  time,  and  then  suddenly 
present  themselves,  together  with  the  thought  of  a  judg- 
ment-seat. When  a  guilty  man  begins  to  think  of  dying,  it 
is  like  a  vision  of  the  Son  of  Man  presenting  itself  and  call- 
ing out  the  voices  of  all  the  unclean  spirits  in  the  man — 
"  Art  thou  come  to  torment  us  before  the  time  ?" 

But,  my  brethren,  it  is  a  mistake  if  we  suppose  that  is  the 
common  way  in  which  sin  stings  at  the  thought  of  death. 
Men  who  have  lived  the  career  of  passionate  life  have  dis- 
tinct and  accumulated  acts  of  guilt  before  their  eyes.  But 
with  most  men  it  is  not  guilty  acts,  but  guiltiness  of  heart 
that  weighs  the  heaviest.  Only  take  yesterday  as  a  speci- 
men of  life.  What  was  it  with  most  of  us  ?  A  day  of  sin. 
Was  it  sin  palpable  and  dark,  such  as  we  shall  remember 
painfully  this  day  year  ?  Nay,  my  brethren,  unkindness, 
petulance,  wasted  time,  opportunities  lost,  frivolous  conversa- 
tion, that  was  our  chief  guilt.  And  yet  with  all  that,  trifling, 
as  it  may  be,  when  it  comes  to  be  the  history  of  life  does  it 
not  leave  behind  a  restless  undefinable  sense  of  fault,  a  vague 
idea  of  debt,  but  to  what  extent  we  know  not,  perhaps  the 
more  wretched  just  because  it  is  uncertain  ? 


Victory  over  Death.  581 

My  Christian  brethren,  this  is  the  sting  of  sinfulness,  the 
wretched  consciousness  of  an  unclean  heart.  It  is  just  this 
feeling,  "  God  is  not  my  friend  ;  I  am  going  on  to  the  grave, 
and  no  man  can  say  aught  against  me,  but  my  heart  is  not 
right ;  I  want  a  river  like  that  which  the  ancients  fabled — 
the  river  of  forgetfulness — that  I  might  go  down  into  it  and 
bathe,  and  come  up  a  new  man.  It  is  not  so  much  what  I 
have  done ;  it  is  what  I  am.  Who  shall  save  me  from  my- 
self?" Oh,  it  is  a  desolate  thing  to  think  of  the  coffin  when 
that  thought  is  in  all  its  misery  before  the  soul.  It  is  the 
sting  of  death. 

Arid  now  let  us  bear  one  thing  in  mind — the  sting  of  sin 
is  not  a  constant  pressure.  It  may  be  that  we  live  many 
years  in  the  world  before  a  death  in  our  own  family  forces 
the  thought  personally  home  :  many  years  before  all  those 
sensations  which  are  so  often  the  precursors  of  the  tomb — 
the  quick  short  cough,  lassitude,  emaciation,  pain — come  in 
startling  suddenness  upon  us  in  our  young  vigor,  and  make 
us  feel  what  it  is  to  be  here  with  death  inevitable  to  our- 
selves. And  when  those  things  become  habitual,  habit 
makes  delicacy  the  same  forgetful  thing  as  health,  so  that 
neither  in  sickness  nor  in  health  is  the  thought  of  death  a 
constant  pressure.  It  is  only  now  and  then  ;  but  so  often 
as  death  is  a  reality,  the  sting  of  death  is  sin. 

Once  more :  we  remark  that  all  this  power  of  sin  to  ago- 
nize  is  traced  by  the  apostle  to  the  law — "  the  strength  of 
sin  is  the  law;"  by  which  he  means  to  say  that  sin  would 
not  be  so  violent  if  it  were  not  for  the  attempt  of  God's  law 
to  restrain  it.  It  is  the  law  which  makes  sin  strong.  And 
he  does  not  mean  particularly  the  law  of  Moses.  He  means 
any  law,  and  all  law.  Law  is  what  forbids  and  threatens ; 
law  bears  gallingly  on  those  who  want  to  break  it.  And 
St.  Paul  declares  this,  that  no  law,  not  even  God's  law,  can 
make  men  righteous  in  heart,  unless  the  Spirit  has  taught 
men's  hearts  to  acquiesce  in  the  law.  It  can  only  force  out 
into  rebellion  the  sin  that  is  in  them. 

It  is  so,  brethren,  with  a  nation's  law.  The  voice  of  the 
nation  must  go  along  with  it.  It  must  be  the  expression  of 
their  own  feeling,  and  then  they  will  have  it  obeyed.  But 
if  it  is  only  the  law  of  a  government,  a  law  which  is  against 
the  whole  spirit  of  the  people,  there  is  first  the  murmur  of  a 
nation's  disapprobation,  and  then  there  is  transgression,  and 
then,  if  the  law  be  vindicated  with  a  high  hand,  the  next 
step  is  the  bursting  that  law  asunder  in  national  revolution. 
And  so  it  is  with  God's  law.  It  will  never  control  a  man 
long  who  does  not  from  his  heart  love  it.  First  comes  a 


582  Victory  over  Death. 

sensation  of  restraint,  and  then  comes  a  murmuring  of  tho 
heart ;  and  last,  there  comes  the  rising  of  passion  in  its  giant 
might,  made  desperate  by  restraint.  That  is  the  law  giving 
strength  to  sin. 

And  therefore,  brethren,  if  all  we  know  of  God  be  this, 
that  He  has  made  laws,  and  that  it  is  terrible  to  break  them ; 
if  all  our  idea  of  religion  be  this,  that  it  is  a  thing  of  com- 
mands and  hindrances — thou  shalt,  and  thou  shalt  not ;  we 
are  under  the  law,  and  there  is  no  help  for  it.  We  must 
shrink  from  the  encounter  with  death. 

We  pass  to  our  second  subject  —  Faith  conquering  in 
death. 

And,  before  we  enter  upon  this  topic,  there  are  two  gen- 
eral remarks  that  we  hav.e  to  make.  The  first  is,  The  ele- 
vating power  of  faith.  There  is  nothing  in  all  this  world 
that  ever  led  man  on  to  real  victory  but  faith.  Faith  is  that 
looking  forward  to  a  future  with  something  like  certainty, 
that  raises  man  above  the  narrow  feelings  of  the  present. 
Even  in  this  life  he  is  a  greater  man,  a  man  of  more  elevated 
character,  who  is  steadily  pursuing  a  plan  that  requires  some 
years  to  accomplish,  than  he  who  is  living  by  the  day.  Look 
forward  but  ten  years,  and  plan  for  it,  live  for  it ;  there  is 
something  of  manhood,  something  of  courage  required  to 
conquer  the  thousand  things  that  stand  in  your  way.  And 
therefore  it  is,  that  faith,  and  nothing  but  faith,  gives  victory 
in  death.  It  is  that  elevation  of  character  which  we  get 
from  looking  steadily  and  forever  forward  till  eternity  be- 
comes a  real  home  to  us,  that  enables  us  to  look  down  upon 
the  last  struggle,  and  the  funeral,  and  the  grave,  not  as  the 
great  end  of  all,  but  only  as  something  that  stands  between 
us  and  the  end.  We  are  conquerors  of  death  when  we  are 
able  to  look  beyond  it. 

Our  second  remark  is  for  the  purpose  of  fixing  special  at- 
tention upon  this,  that  ours  is  not  merely  to  be  victory,  it  is 
to  be  victory  through  Christ.  "  Thanks  be  to  God  which 
giveth  us  the  victory  through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ." 
Victory,  brethren,  mere  victory  over  death,  is  no  unearthly 
thing.  You  may  get  it  by  infidelity.  Only  let  a  man  sin 
long  enough,  and  desperately  enough,  to  shut  judgment  al- 
together out  of  his  creed,  and  then  you  have  a  man  who  can 
bid  defiance  to  the  grave.  It  was  so  that  our  country's 
greatest  infidel  historian  met  death.  He  quitted  the  world 
without  parade  and  without  display.  If  we  want  a  speci- 
men of  victory  apart  from  Christ,  we  have  it  on  his  death- 
bed. He  left  all  this  strange  world  of  restlessness  calmly, 


Victory  over  Death.  583 

like  an  unreal  show  that  must  go  to  pieces,  and  he  himself 
an  unreality  departing  from  it.  A  skeptic  can  be  a  conquer* 
or  in  death. 

Or  again,  mere  manhood  may  give  us  a  victory.  He  who 
has  only  learned  not  to  be  afraid  to  die,  has  not  learned 
much.  We  have  steel  and  nerve  enough  in  our  hearts  to 
dare  any  thing.  And,  after  all,  it  is  a  triumph  so  common  as 
scarcely  to  deserve  the  name.  Felons  die  on  the  scaffold  like 
men  ;  soldiers  can  be  hired  by  tens  of  thousands,  for  a  few 
pence  a  day,  to  front  death  in  its  worst  form.  Every  minute 
that  we  live  sixty  of  the  human  race  are  passing  away,  and 
the  greater  part  with  courage — the  weak  and  the  timid  as 
well  as  the  resolute.  Courage  is  a  very  different  thing  from 
the  Christian's  victory. 

Once  more,  brethren,  necessity  can  make  man  conqueror 
over  death.  We  can  make  up  our  minds  to  any  thing  when 
it  once  becomes  inevitable.  It  is  the  agony  of  suspense  that 
makes  danger  dreadful.  History  can  tell  us  that  men  can 
look  with  desperate  calmness  upon  hell  itself  when  once  it 
has  become  a  certainty.  And  it  is  this,  after  all,  that  com- 
monly makes  the  dying  hour  so  quiet  a  thing.  It  is  more 
dreadful  in  the  distance  than  in  the  reality.  When  a  man 
feels  that  there  is  no  help,  and  he  must  go,  he  lays  him  down 
to  die  quietly  as  a  tired  traveller  wraps  himself  in  his  cloak 
to  sleep.  It  is  quite  another  thing  from  all  this  that  Paul 
meant  by  victory. 

In  the  "first  place,  it  is  the  prerogative  of  a  Christian  to  be 
conqueror  over  doubt.  Brethren,  do  we  all  know  what 
doubt  means  ?  Perchance  not.  There  are  some  men  who 
have  never  believed  enough  to  doubt.  There  are  some  who 
have  never  thrown  their  hopes  with  such  earnestness  on  the 
world  to  come,  as  to  feel  anxiety  for  fear  it  Should  not  all  be 
true.  But  every  one  who  knows  what  faith  is,  knows  too 
what  is  the  desolation  of  doubt.  We  pray  till  we  begin  to 
ask,  Is  there  one  who  hears,  or  am  I  whispering  to  myself? 
We  hear  the  consolation  administered  to  the  bereaved,  and 
we  see  the  coffin  lowered  into  the  grave,  and  the  thought 
comes,  What  if  all  this  doctrine  of  a  life  to  come  be  but  the 
dream  of  man's  imaginative  mind,  carried  on  from  age  to  age, 
and  so  believed,  because  it  is  a  venerable  superstition  ?  Now 
Christ  gives  us  victory  over  that  terrible  suspicion  in  two 
ways — first,  He  does  it  by  His  own  resurrection.  We  have 
got  a  fact  there  that  all  the  metaphysics  about  impossibility 
can  not  rob  us  of.  In  moments  of  perplexity  we  look  bacK 
to  this.  The  grave  has  once,  and  more  than  once,  at  the 
Redeemer's  bidding,  given  up  its  dead.  It  is  a  world-fact 


584  Victory  over  Death. 

It  tells  us  what  the  Bible  means  by  our  resurrection — not  a 
spiritual  rising  into  new  holiness  merely  —  that,  but  also 
something  more.  It  means  that  in  our  own  proper  identity 
we  shall  live  again.  Make  that  thought  real,  and  God  has 
given  you,  so  far,  victory  over  the  grave  through  Christ. 

There  is  another  way  in  which  we  get  the  victory  over 
doubt,  and  that  is  by  living  in  Christ.  All  doubt  comes 
from  living  out  of  habits  of  affectionate  obedience  to  God. 
By  idleness,  by  neglected  prayer,  we  lose  our  power  of  real- 
izing things  not  seen.  Let  a  man  be  religious  and  irreligious 
at  intervals — irregular,  inconsistent,  without  some  distinct 
thing  to  live  for — it  is  a  matter  of  impossibility  that  he  can 
be  free  from  doubts.  He  must  make  up  his  mind  for  a  dark 
life.  Doubts  can  only  be  dispelled  by  that  kind  of  active  life 
that  realizes  Christ.  And  there  is  no  faith  that  gives  a  vic- 
tory so  steadily  triumphant  as  that.  When  such  a  man 
comes  near  the  opening  of  the  vault,  it  is  no  world  of  sor- 
rows he  is  entering  upon.  He  is  only  going  to  see  things 
that  he  has  felt,  for  he  has  been  living  in  heaven.  He  has 
his  grasp  on  things  that  other  men  are  only  groping  after 
and  touching  now  and  then.  Live  above  this  world,  breth- 
ren, and  then  the  powers  of  the  world  to  come  are  so  upon 
you  that  there  is  no  room  for  doubt. 

Besides  all  this,  it  is  a  Christian's  privilege  to  have  victory 
over  the  fear  of  death.  And  here  it  is  exceedingly  easy  to 
paint  what,  after  all,  is  only  the  image-picture  of  a  dying 
hour.  It  is  the  easiest  thing  to  represent  the  dying  Chris- 
tian as  a  man  who  always  sinks  into  the  grave  full  of  hope, 
full  of  triumph,  in  the  certain  hope  of  a  blessed  resurrection. 
Brethren,  we  must  paint  things  in  the  sober  colors  of  truth ; 
not  as  they  might  be  supposed  to  be,  but  as  they  are.  Often 
that  is  only  a  picture.  Either  very  few  death-beds  are  Chris- 
tian ones,  or  else  triumph  is  a  very  different  thing  from  what 
the  word  generally  implies.  Solemn,  subdued,  full  of  awe 
and  full  of  solemnity,  is  the  dying  hour  generally  of  the  holi- 
est men :  sometimes  almost  darkness.  Rapture  is  a  rare 
thing,  except  in  books  and  scenes. 

Let  us  understand  what  really  is  the  victory  over  fear 
It  may  be  rapture  or  it  may  not.  All  that  depends  very 
much  on  temperament ;  and  after  all,  the  broken  words  of 
a  dying  man  are  a  very  poor  index  of  his  real  state  before 
God.  Rapturous  hope  has  been  granted  to  martyrs  in  pe- 
culiar moments.  It  is  on  record  of  a  minister  of  our  own 
Church,  that  his  expectation  of  seeing  God  in  Christ  becarna 
30  intense  as  his  last  hour  drew  near,  that  his  physician  waa 
Compelled  to  bid  him  calm  his  transports,  because  ii>  so  ex- 


Victory  over  Death. 

cited  a  state  he  could  not  die.  A  strange  unnatural  energy 
was  imparted  to  his  muscular  frame  by  his  nerves  over- 
strung with  triumph.  But,  brethren,  it  fosters  a  dangerous 
feeling  to  take  cases  like  those  as  precedents.  It  leads  to 
that  most  terrible  of  all  unrealities — the  acting  of  a  death- 
bed scene.  A  Christian  conqueror  dies  calmly.  Brave  men 
in  battle  do  not  boast  that  they  are  not  afraid.  Courage  is 
so  natural  to  them  that  they  are  not  conscious  they  are  do- 
ing any  thing  out  of  the  common  way — Christian  bravery  is 
a  deep,  calm  thing,  unconscious  of  itself.  There  are  more 
triumphant  death-beds  than  we  count,  if  we  only  remember 
this — true  fearlessness  makes  no  parade. 

Oh,  it  is  not  only  in  those  passionate  effusions  in  which  the 
ancient  martyrs  spoke  sometimes  of  panting  for  the  crushing 
of  their  limbs  by  the  lions  in  the  amphitheatre,  or  of  holding 
out  their  arms  to  embrace  the  flames  that  were  to  curl  round 
them — it  is  not  then  only  that  Christ  has  stood  by  His  serv- 
ants, an4  made  them  more  than  conquerors :  there  may  be 
something  of  earthly  excitement  in  all  that.  Every  day  His 
servants  are  dying  modestly  and  peacefully — not  a  word  of 
victory  on  their  lips ;  but  Christ's  deep  triumph  in  their 
hearts — watching  the  slow  progress  of  their  own  decay,  and 
yet  so  far  emancipated  from  personal  anxiety  that  they  are 
still  able  to  think  and  to  plan  for  others,  not  knowing  that 
they  are  doing  any  great  thing.  They  die,  and  the  world 
hears  nothing  of  them ;  and  yet  theirs  was  the  completest 
victory.  They  came  to  the  battle-field,  the  field  to  which 
they  had  been  looking  forward  all  their  lives,  and  the  enemy 
was  not  to  be  found.  There  was  no  foe  to  fight  with. 

The  last  form  in  which  a  Christian  gets  the  victory  over 
death  is  by  means  of  his  resurrection.  It  seems  to  have  been 
this  which  was  chiefly  alluded  to  by  the  apostle  here;  for  he 
says,  "  When  this  corruptible  shall  have  put  on  incorruption 
....  then  shall  come  to  pass  the  saying  wThich  is  written, 
Death  is  swallowed  up  in  victory."  And  to  say  the  truth, 
brethren,  it  is  a  rhetorical  expression  rather  than  a  sober 
truth  when  we  call  any  thing,  except  the  resurrection,  victory 
over  death.  We  may  conquer  doubt  and  fear  when  we  are 
dying,  but  that  is  not  conquering  death.  It  is  like  a  warrior 
crushed  to  death  by  a  superior  antagonist  refusing  to  yield  a 
groan,  and  bearing  the  glance  of  defiance  to  the  last.  You 
feel  that  he  is  an  unconquerable  spirit,  but  he  is  not  the  con- 
queror. And  when  you  see  flesh  melting  away,  and  mental 
power  becoming  infantine  in  its  feebleness,  and  lips  scarcely 
able  to  articulate,  is  there  left  one  moment  a  doubt  upon  the 
mind  as  to  who  is  the  conqueror,  in  spite  of  all  the  unshaken 

25* 


586  Victory  over  Death. 

fortitude  there  may  be  ?  The  victory  is  on  the  side  of  death, 
not  on  the  side  of  the  dying. 

And,  my  brethren,  if  we  would  enter  into  the  full  feeling  of 
triumph  contained  in  this  verse,  we  must  just  try  to  bear  in 
mind  what  this  world  would  be  without  the  thought  of  a 
resurrection.  If  we  could  conceive  an  unselfish  man  looking 
upon  this  world  of  desolation  with  that  infinite  compassion 
which  all  the  brave  and  good  feel,  what  conception  could  he 
have  but  that  of  defeat,  and  failure,  and  sadness — the  sons 
of  man  mounting  into  a  bright  existence,  and  one  after  an- 
other falling  back  into  darkness  and  nothingness,  like  soldiers 
trying  to  mount  an  impracticable  breach,  and  falling  back 
crushed  and  mangled  into  the  ditch  before  the  bayonets  and 
the  rattling  fire  of  their  conquerors.  Misery  and  guilt,  look 
which  way  you  will,  till  the  heart  gets  sick  with  looking  at  it. 

Brethren,  until  a  man  looks  on  evil  till  it  seems  to  bim  al- 
most like  a  real  personal  enemy  rejoicing  over  the  destruc- 
tion that  it  has  made,  he  can  scarcely  conceive  the  deep  rap- 
ture which  rushed  into  the  mind  of  the  Apostle  Paul  when 
he  remembered  that  a  day  was  coming  when  all  this  was  to 
be  reversed.  A  day  was  coming,  and  it  was  the  day  of  re- 
ality for  which  he  lived,  ever  present  and  ever  certain,  when 
this  sad  world  wras  to  put  off  forever  its  changefulness  and 
its  misery,  and  the  grave  was  to  be  robbed  of  its  victory, 
and  the  bodies  were  to  come  forth  purified  by  their  long 
sleep.  He  called  all  this  a  victory,  because  he  felt  that  it 
was  a  real  battle  that  has  to  be  fought  and  won  before  that 
can  be  secured.  One  battle  has  been  fought  by  Christ,  and 
another  battle,  most  real  and  difficult,  but  yet  a  conquering 
one,  is  to  be  fought  by  us.  He  hath  imparted  to  us  the  vir- 
tue of  His  wrestlings,  and  the  strength  of  His  victory.  So 
that,  when  the  body  shall  rise  again,  the  power  of  the  law  to 
condemn  is  gone,  because  we  have  learned  to  love  the  law. 

And  now,  to  conclude  all  this,  there  are  but  two  things 
which  remain  to  say.  In  the  first  place,  brethren,  if  we  would 
be  conquerors  we  must  realize  God's  love  in  Christ.  Take 
care  not  to  be  under  the  law.  Constraint  never  yet  made  a 
conqueror :  the  utmost  it  can  do  is  to  make  either  a  rebel  or 
a  slave.  Believe  that  God  loves  you.  He  gave  a  triumphant 
demonstration  of  it  in  the  cross.  Never  shall  we  conquer 
self  till  we  have  learned  to  love.  My  Christian  brethren,  let 
us  remember  our  high  privilege.  Christian  life,  so  far  as  it 
deserves  the  name,  is  victory.  We  are  not  going  forth  to 
mere  battle — we  are  going  forth  to  conquer.  To  gain  mas- 
tery over  self, and  sin,  and  doubt,  and  fear:  till  the  last  cold- 
ness, coming  across  the  brow,  tells  us  that  all  is  over  and 


Victory  over  Death.  587 

our  warfare  accomplished — that  we  are  safe,  the  everlasting 
arms  beneath  us — that  is  our  calling.  Brethren  beloved,  do 
not  be  content  with  a  slothful,  dreamy,  uncertain  struggle. 
You  are  to  conquer,  and  the  banner  under  which  we  are  to 
win  is  not  fear,  but  love.  "  The  strength  of  sin  is  the  law ;" 
the  victory  is  by  keeping  before  us  God  in  Christ. 

Lastly,  there  is  need  of  encouragement  for  those  of  U8 
whose  faith  is  not  of  the  conquering,  but  the  timid  kind. 
There  are  some  whose  hearts  will  reply  to  all  this,  Surely 
victory  is  not  always  a  Christian's  portion.  Is  there  no  cold 
dark  watching  in  Christian  life — no  struggle  when  victory 
seems  a  mockery  to  speak  of — no  times  when  light  and  life 
seem  feeble,  and  Christ  is  to  us  but  a  name,  and  death  a  real- 
ity ?  "  Perfect  love  casteth  out  fear,"  but  who  has  it  ?  Vic- 
tory is  by  faith,  but,  O  God>  who  will  tell  us  what  this  faith 
is  that  men  speak  of  as  a  thing  so  easy  ;  and  how  we  are  to 
get  it !  You  tell  us  to  pray  for  faith,  but  how  shall  we 
pray  in  earnest  unless  we  first  have  the  very  faith  we  pray 
for? 

My  Christian  brethren,  it  is  just  to  this  deepest  cry  of  the 
human  heart  that  it  is  impossible  to  return  a  full  answer. 
All  that-is  true.  To  feel  faith  is  the  grand  difficulty  of  life. 
Faith  is  a  deep  impression  of  God  and  God's  love,  and  per- 
sonal trust  in  it.  It  is  easy  to  say,  "  Believe,  and  thou  shalt 
be  saved,"  but  well  we  know  it  is  easier  said  than  done.  We 
can  not  say  how  men  are  to  yet  faith.  It  is  God's  gift,  al- 
most in  the  same  way  that  genius  is.  You  can  not  work /of 
faith;  you  must  have  it  first,  and  then  work/rom  it. 

But,  brethren  beloved,  we  can  say,  Look  up,  though'  we 
know  not  how  the  mechanism  of  the  will  which  directs  the 
eye  is  to  be  put  in  motion ;  we  can  say,  Look  to  God  in 
Christ,  though  we  know  not  how  men  are  to  obtain  faith  to 
do-  it.  Let  us  be  in  earnest.  Our  polar  star  is  the  love  of 
the  cross.  Take  the  eye  off  that,  and  you  are  in  darkness 
and  bewilderment  at  once.  Let  us  not  mind  what  is  past. 
Perhaps  it  is  all  failure,  and  useless  struggle,  and  broken  re- 
solves. What  then  ?  Settle  this  first,  brethren,  Are  you  in 
earnest  ?  If  so,  though  your  faith  be  weak  and  your  strug- 
gles unsatisfactory,  you  may  begin  the  hymn  of  triumph  now^ 
for  victory  is  pledged.  "Thanks  be  to  God,  which" — not 
shall  give,  but — "  giveth  us  the  victory  through  our  Lord  Je- 
sus Christ." 


588     Man  s  Greatness  and  God's  Greatness. 


XVIII. 
MAN'S  GREATNESS  AND  GOD'S  GREATNESS. 

"For  thus  saith  the  high  and  lofty  One  that  inhabiteth  eternity,  whose 
name  is  Holy ;  I  dwell  in  the  high  and  holy  place,  with  him  also  that  is  of  a 
contrite  and  humble  spirit." — Isa.  Ivii.  15. 

THE  origin  of  this  announcement  seems  to  have  been  the 
state  of  contempt  in  which  religion  found  itself  in  the  days 
of  Isaiah.  One  of  the  most  profligate  monarchs  that  ever  dis- 
graced the  page  of  sacred  history  sat  upon  the  throne  of  Ju- 
dah.  His  court  was  filled  with  men  who  recommended  them- 
selves chiefly  by  their  licentiousness.  The  altar  was  for- 
saken. Sacrilegious  hands  had  placed  the  abominations  of 
heathenism  in  the  Holy  Place ;  and  piety,  banished  from  the 
State,  the  Church,  and  the  royal  Court,  was  once  more  as  she 
had  been  before,  and  will  be  again,  a  wanderer  on  the  face  of 
the  earth. 

Now,  however  easy  it  may  be  to  contemplate  such  a  state 
of  things  at  a  distance,  it  never  takes  place  in  a  man's  own 
day  and  time,  without  suggesting  painful  perplexities  of  a 
•twofold  nature.  In  the  first  place,  suspicions  respecting 
God's  character ;  and,  in  the  second  place,  misgivings  as  to 
his  own  duty.  For  a  faithless  heart  whispers,  Is  it  worth 
while  to  suffer  for  a  sinking  cause?  Honor,  preferment, 
grandeur,  follow  in  the  train  of  unscrupulous  conduct.  To 
be  strict  in  goodness  is  to  be  pointed  at  and  shunned.  To 
be  no  better  than  one's  neighbors  is  the  only  way  of  being 
at  peace.  It  seems  to  have  been  to  such  a  state  as  this  that 
Isaiah  was  commissioned  to  bring  light.  He  vindicated 
God's  character  by  saying  that  He  is  "  the  high  and  lofty 
One  that  inhabiteth  eternity."  He  encouraged  those  who 
were  trodden  down  to  perseverance,  by  reminding  them  that 
real  dignity  is  something  very  different  from  present  success. 
God  dwells  with  him  "  that  is  of  a  contrite  and  humble  spir- 
it." We  consider — 

I.  That  in  which  the  greatness  of  God  consists. 
II.  That  in  which  man's  greatness  consists. 

I.  The  first  measurement,  so  to  speak,  which  is  given  us  of 
God's  greatness,  is  in  respect  of  Time.  He  inhabiteth  eter- 
nity. There  are  some  subjects  on  which  it  would  be  good 


Mans  Greatness  and  God's  Greatness.     589 

to  dwell,  if  it  were  only  for  the  sake  of  that  enlargement  of 
mind  which  is  produced  by  their  contemplation.  And  eter- 
nity is  one  of  these,  so  that  you  can  not  steadily  fix  the 
tho'ughts  upon  it  without  being  sensible  of  a  peculiar  kind 
of  elevation,  at  the  same  time  that  you  are  humbled  by  a 
personal  feeling  of  utter  insignificance.  You  have  come  in 
contact  with  something  so  immeasurable — beyond  the  nar- 
row range  of  our  common  speculations — that  you  are  exalted 
by  the  very  conception  of  it.  Now  the  only  way  we  have 
of  forming  any  idea  of  eternity  is  by  going,  step  by  step,  up 
to  the  largest  measures  of  time  we  know  of,  and  so  as- 
cending, on  and  on,  till  we  are  lost  in  wonder.  We  can  not 
grasp  eternity,  but  we  can  learn  something  of  it  by  perceiv- 
ing that,  rise  to  what  portion  of  time  we  will,  eternity  is 
vaster  than  the  vastest. 

We  take  up,  for  instance,  the  history  of  our  own  country, 
and  then,  when  we  have  spent  months  in  mastering  the  mere 
outline  of  those  great  events  which,  in  the  slow  course  of  re- 
volving centuries,  have  made  England  what  she  is,  her  earlier 
ages  seem  so  far  removed  from  our  own  times  that  they  ap- 
pear to  belong  to  a  hoary  and  most  remote  antiquity.  But 
then,  when  you  compare  those  times  with  even  the  existing 
works  of  man,  and  when  you  remember  that,  when  England 
was  yet  young  in  civilization,  the  pyramids  of  Egypt  were 
already  gray  with  1500  years,  you  have  got  another  step 
which  impresses  you  with  a  doubled  amount  of  vastness. 
Double  that  period,  and  you  come  to  the  far  distant  moment 
when  the  present  aspect  of  this  world  was  called,  by  crea- 
tion, out  of  the  formless  void  in  which  it  was  before. 

Modern  science  has  raised  us  to  a  pinnacle  of  thought  be- 
yond even  this.  It  has  commanded  us  to  think  of  countless 
ages  in  which  that  formless  void  existed  before  it  put  on  the 
aspect  of  its  present  creation.  Millions  of  years  before  God 
called  the  light  day,  and  the  darkness  night,  there  was,  if 
science  speaks  true,  creation  after  creation  called  into  exist- 
ence, and  buried  in  its  own  ruins  upon  the  surface  of  this 
earth.  And  then,  there  was  a  time  beyond  even  this — there 
was  a  moment  when  this  earth  itself,  with  all  its  countless 
creations  and  innumerable  ages,  did  not  exist.  And  again, 
in  that  far  back  distance  it  is  more  than  conceivable,  it  seems 
by  the  analogy  of  God's  dealings  next  to  certain,  that  ten 
thousand  worlds  may  have  been  called  into  existence,  and 
lasted  their  unnumbered  ages,  and  then  perished  in  succes- 
sion. Compared  with  these  stupendous  figures,  6000  years 
of  our  planet  sink  into  nothingness.  The  mind  is  lost  in 
dwelling  on  such  thoughts  as  these.  When  you  have  pene 


5QO     Mans  Greatness  and  God's  Greatness, 

trated  far,  far  back,  by  successive  approximations,  and  still 
see  the  illimitable  distance  receding  before  you  as  distant 
as  before,  imagination  absolutely  gives  way,  and  you  feel 
dizzy  and  bewildered  with  new  strange  thoughts,  that  have 
not  a  name. 

But  this  is  only  one  aspect  of  the  case.  It  looks  only  to 
time  past.  The  same  overpowering  calculations  wait  us 
when  we  bend  our  eyes  on  that  which  is  to  come.  Time 
stretches  back  immeasurably,  but  it  also  stretches  on  and  on 
forever.  Now  it  is  by  such  a  conception  as  this  that  the  in- 
spired prophet  attempts  to  measure  the  immeasurable  of  God. 
All  that  eternity,  magnificent  as  it  is,  never  was  without  an 
inhabitant.  Eternity  means  nothing  by  itself.  It  merely 
expresses  the  existence  of  the  high  and  lofty  One  that  inhab- 
itdth  it.  We  make  a  fanciful  distinction  between  eternity 
and  time — there  is  no  real  distinction.  We  are  in  eternity 
at  this  moment.  That  has  begun  to  be  with  us  which  never 
began  with  God.  Our  only  measure  of  time  is  by  the  suc- 
cession of  ideas.  If  ideas  flow  fast,  and  many  sights  and 
many  thoughts  pass  by  us,  time  seems  lengthened.  If  we 
have  the  simple  routine  of  a  few  engagements,  the  same  ev- 
ery day,  with  little  variety,  the  years  roll  by  us  so  fast  that 
we  can  not  mark  them.  It  is  not  so  with  God.  There 
is  no  succession  of  ideas  with  Him.  Every  possible  idea  is 
present  with  Him  now.  It  was  present  with  Him  ten 
thousand  years  ago.  God's  dwelling-place  is  that  eternity 
which  has  neither  past  nor  future,  but  one  vast,  immeasurable 
present. 

There  is  a  second  measure  given  us  of  God  in  this  verse. 
It  is  in  respect  of  Space.  He  dwelleth  in  the  high  and  lofty 
place.  He  dweHeth  moreover  in  the  most  insignificant  place 
— even  the  heart  of  man.  And  the  idea  by  which  the  proph- 
et would  here  exhibit  to  us  the  greatness  of  God  is  that  of 
His  eternal  omnipresence.  It  is  difficult  to  say  which  con- 
ception carries  with  it  the  greatest  exaltation — that  of  bound- 
less space  or  that  of  unbounded  time.  When  we  pass  from 
the  tame  and  narrow  scenery  of  our  own  country,  and  stand 
on  those  spots  of  earth  in  which  nature  puts  on  her  wilder 
and  more  awful  forms,  we  are  conscious  of  something  of  the 
grandeur  which  belongs  to  the  thought  of  space.  Go  where 
the  strong  foundations  of  the  earth  lie  around  you  in  their 
massive  majesty,  and  mountain  after  mountain  rears  its 
snow  to  heaven  in  a  giant  chain,  and  then,  when  this  bursts 
upon  you  for  the  first  time  in  life,  there  is  that  peculiar  feel- 
ing which  we  call,  in  common  language,  an  enlargement  of 
ideas.  But  when  we  are  told  that  the  sublimitv  of  those 


Mans  Greatness  and  God's  Greatness.     591 

dizzy  heights  is  but  a  nameless  speck  in  comparison  with  the 
globe  of  which  they  form  the  girdle ;  and  when  we  pass  on 
to  think  of  that  globe  itself  as  a  minute  spot  in  the  mighty 
system  to  which  it  belongs,  so  that  our  world  might  be  an- 
nihilated and  its  loss  would  not  be  felt ;  and  when  we  are 
told  that  eighty  millions  of  such  systems  roll  in  the  world 
of  space,  to  which  our  own  system  again  is  as  nothing ;  and 
when  we  are  again  pressed  with  the  recollection  that  beyond 
those  farthest  limits  creative  power  is  exerted  immeasurably 
farther  than  eye  can  reach -or  thought  can  penetrate;  then, 
brethren,  the  awe  which  comes  upon  the  heart  is  only,  after 
all,  a  tribute  to  a  portion  of  God's  greatness. 

Yet  we  need  not  science  to  teach  us  this.  It  is  the  thought 
which  oppresses  very  childhood — the  overpowering  thought 
of  space.  A  child  can  put  his  head  upon  his  hands,  and 
think  and  think  till  it  reaches  in  imagination  some  far  dis- 
tant barrier  of  the  universe,  and  still  the  difficulty  presents 
itself  to  his  young  mind,  "And  what  is  beyond  that  barrier  ?" 
and  the  only  answer  is,  "  The  high  and  lofty  place."  And 
this,  brethren,  is  the  inward  seal  with  which  God  has  stamped 
Himself  upon  man's  heart.  If  every  other  trace  of  Deity  has 
been  expunged  by  the  fall,  these  two,  at  least,  defy  destruc- 
tion— the  thought  of  eternal  time,  and  the  thought  of  im- 
measurable space. 

The  third  measure  which  is  given  us  of  God  respects  His 
character.  His  name  is  Holy.  The  chief  idea  which  this 
would  convey  to  us  is  separation  from  evil.  Brethren,  there 
is  perhaps  a  time  drawing  near  when  those  of  us  who  shall 
stand  at  His  right  hand,  purified  from  all  evil  taint,  shall  be 
able  to  comprehend  absolutely  what  is  meant  by  the  holi 
ness  of  God.  At  present,  with  hearts  cleaving  down  to 
earth,  and  tossed  by  a  thousand  gusts  of  unholy  passion,  we 
can  only  form  a  dim  conception  relatively  of  that  which  it 
implies.  None  but  the  pure  can  understand  purity.  The 
chief  knowledge  which  we  have  of  God's  holiness  comes 
from  our  acquaintance  with  unholiness.  We  know  what 
impurity  is — God  is  not  that.  We  know  what  injustice  is — 
God  is  not  that.  We  know  what  restlessness,  and  guilt,  and 
passion  are,  and  deceitfulness,  and  pride,  and  waywardness — 
all  these  we  know.  God  is  none  of  these.  And  this  is  our 
chief  acquaintance  with  His  character.  We  know  what  God 
is  not.  We  scarcely  can  be  rightly  said  to  know,  that  is  to 
feel,  what  God  is.  And  therefore  this  is  implied  in  the  very 
name  of  holiness.  Holiness  in  the  Jewish  sense  means  sim- 
separateness.  From  all  that  is  wrong,  and  mean,  and 
ase,  our  God  is  forever  separate. 


592     Mans  Greatness  and  God's  Greatness 

There  is  another  way  in  which  God  gives  to  us  a  colicep 
tion  of  what  this  holiness  implies.  Tell  us  of  His  justice, 
His  truth,  His  loving-kindness.  All  these  are  cold  abstrac- 
tions. They  convey  no  distinct  idea  of  themselves  to  ouf 
hearts.  What  we  wanted  was,  that  these  should  be  exhib 
ited  to  us  in  tangible  reality.  And  it  is  just  this  which 
God  has  done.  He  has  exhibited  all  these  attributes,  not 
in  the  light  of  speculation,  but  in  the  light  si  facts.  He 
has  given  us  His  own  character  in  all  its  delicacy  of  color- 
ing in  the  history  of  Christ.  Love,  mercy,  tenderness, 
purity — these  are  no  mere  names  when  we  see  them  brought 
out  in  the  human  actions  of  our  Master.  Holiness  is 
only  a  shadow  to  our  minds,  till  it  receives  shape  and  sub- 
stance in  the  life  of  Christ.  All  this  character  of  holiness 
is  intelligible  to  us  in  Christ.  "No  man  hath  seen  God  at 
any  time,  the  only  begotten  of  the  Father  He  hath  declared 
Him." 

-There  is  a  third  light  in  which  God's  holiness  is  shown  to 
us,  and  that  is  in  the  sternness  with  which  He  recoils  from 
guilt.  When  Christ  died  for  man,  I  know  what  God's  love 
means ;  and  when  Jesus  wept  human  tears  over  Jerusalem,  I 
know  what  God's  compassion  means ;  and  when  the  stern 
denunciations  of  Jesus  rung  in  the  Pharisees'  ears,  I  can  com- 
prehend what  God's  indignation  is;  and  when  Jesus  stood 
calm  before  His  murderers,  I  have  a  conception  of  what  se- 
renity is.  Brethren,  revelation  opens  to  us  a  scene  beyond 
the  grave  when  this  shall  be  exhibited  in  full  operation. 
There  will  be  an  everlasting  banishment  from  God's  presence 
of  that  impurity  on  which  the  last  efforts  have  been  tried  in 
vain.  It  will  be  a  carrying  out  of  this  sentence  by  a  law 
that  can  not  be  reversed — "Depart  from  me,  ye  cursed." 
But  it  is  quite  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  this  is  only  a  mat- 
ter of  revelation.  Traces  of  it  we  have  now  on  this  side  the 
sepulchre.  Human  life  is  full  of  God's  recoil  from  sin.  In 
the  writhings  of  a  heart  which  has  been  made  to  possess  its 
own  iniquities — in  the  dark  spot  which  guilt  leaves  upon  the 
conscience,  rising  up  at  times  in  a  man's  gayest  moments,  as 
it  it  will  not  come  out — in  the  restlessness  and  the  feverish- 
ness  which  follow  the  efforts  of  the  man  who  has  indulged 
habits  of  sin  too  long — in  all  these  there  is  a  law  repelling 
wickedness  from  the  presence  of  the  Most  High — which  pro- 
claims that  God  is  holy. 

Brethren,  it  is  in  these  that  the  greatness  of  God  consists 
— eternal  in  time — unlimited  in  space — unchangeable — pure 
in  character — His  serenity  and  His  vastness  arise  from  His 
own  perfections. 


Mans  Greatness  and  God's  Greatness.     593 

II.  We  are  to  consider,  in  the  second  place,  the  greatness 
of  man. 

1.  The  nature  of  that  greatness. 

2.  The  persons  who  are  great. 

Now,  this  is  brought  before  us  in  the  text  in  this  one  fact, 
that  man  has  been  made  a  habitation  of  the  Deity — "  I  dwell 
with  him  that  is  of  a  contrite  and  humble  spirit."  There  is 
in  the  very  outset  this  distinction  between  what  is  great  in 
God  and  what  is  great  in  man.  To  be  independent  of  every 
thing  in  the  universe  is  God's  glory,  and  to  be  independent 
is  mail's  shame.  All  that  God  has,  He  has  from  Himself — • 
all  that  man  has,  he  has  from  God.  And  the  moment  man 
cuts  himself  off  from  God,  that  moment  he  cuts  himself  off 
from  all  true  grandeur. 

There  are  two  things  implied  in  Scripture,  when  it  is  said 
that  God  dwells  with  man.  The  first  is  that  peculiar  pres- 
ence which  He  has  conferred  upon  the  members  of  His  church. 
Brethren,  we  presume  not  to  define  what  that  Presence  is, 
and  how  it  dwells  within  us — we  are  content  to  leave  it  as  a 
mystery.  But  this  we  know,  that  something  of  a  very  pecu- 
liar and  supernatural  character  takes  place  in  the  heart  of 
every  man  upon  whom  the  Gospel  has  been  brought  to  bear 
with  power.  "  Know  ye  not,"  says  the  apostle,  "  that  your 
bodies  are  the  temples  of  the  Holy  Ghost  ?"  And  again,  in 
the  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians — '.'  In  Christ  ye  are  builded  for 
a  habitation  of  God  through  the  Spirit."  There  is  something 
in  these  expressions  which  refuses  to  be  explained  away. 
They  leave  us  but  one  conclusion,  and  that  is — that  in  all 
those  who  have  become  Christ's  by  faith,  God  personally  and 
locally  has  taken  up  His  dwelling-place. 

There  is  a  second  meaning  attached  in  Scripture  to  the  ex- 
pression. God  dwells  in  man.  According  to  the  first  mean- 
ing, we  understand  it  in  the  most  plain  and  literal  sense  the 
words  are  capable  of  conveying.  According  to  the  second, 
we  understand  His  dwelling  in  a  figurative  sense,  implying 
this — that  He  gives  an  acquaintance  with  Himself  to  man. 
So,  for  instance,  when  Judas  asked,  "Lord,  how  is  it,  that 
Thor  wilt  manifest  Thyself  to  us  and  not  to  the  world  ?" 
our  Redeemer's  reply  was  this — "  If  a  man  love  me  he  will 
keep  my  words,  and  my  Father  will  love  him,  and  we  will 
come  uuto  him  and  make  our  abode  with  him."  In  the 
question  it  was  asked  how  God  would  manifest  Himself  to 
His  servants.  In  the  answer  it  was  shown  how  He  would 
make  His  abode  with  them.  And  if  the  answer  be  any  reply 
to  the  question  at  all,  what  follows  is  this — that  God  making 
His  abode  or  dwelling  in  the  heart  is  the  same  thing  exactly 
as  God's  manifesting  himself  to  the  heart. 


594     Mans  Greatness  and  God's  Greatness. 

Brethren,  in  these  two  things  the  greatness  of  man  con« 
sists.  One  is  to  have  God  so  dwelling  in  us  as  to  impart  His 
character  to  us ;  and  the  other  is  to  have  God  so  dwelling  in 
us  that  we  recognize  His  presence,  and  know  that  we  are 
His  and  He  is  ours.  They  are  two  things  perfectly  distinct. 
To  have  God  in  us,  this  is  salvation ;  to  know  that  God  is  in 
us,  this  is  assurance. 

Lastly,  we  inquire  as  to  the  persons  who  are  truly  great. 
And  these  the  Holy  Scripture  has  divided  into  two  classes 
— those  who  are  humble  and  those  who  are  contrite  in 
heart.  Or  rather,  it  will  be  observed  that  it  is  the  same  class 
of  character  under  different  circumstances.  Humbleness  is 
the  frame  of  mind  of  those  who  are  in  a  state  of  innocence, 
contrition  of  those  who  are  in  a  state  of  repentant  guilt. 
Brethren,  let  not  the  expression  innocence  be  misunderstood. 
Innocence  in  its  true  and  highest  sense  never  existed  but 
once  upon  this  earth.  Innocence  can  not  be  the  religion  of 
man  now.  But  yet  there  are  those  who  have  walked  with 
God  from  youth,  not  quenching  the  Spirit  which  He  gave 
them,  and  who  are  therefore  comparatively  innocent  beings. 
All  they  have  to  do  is  to  go  on,  whereas  the  guilty  man  has 
to  stop  and  turn  back  before  he  can  go  on.  Repentance  with 
them  is  the  gentle  work  of  every  jiay,  not  the  work  of  one 
distinct  and  miserable  part  of  life.  They  are  those  whom 
the  Lord  calls  just  men  which  need  no  repentance,  and  of 
whom  He  says,  "  He  that  is  clean  needeth  not  save  to  wash 
his  feet." 

Now  they  are  described  here  as  the  humble  in  heart. 
Two  things  are  required  for  this  state  of  mind.  One  is  that 
a  man  should  have  a  true  estimate  of  God,  and  the  other  is 
that  he  should  have  a  true  estimate  of  himself. 

Vain,  blind  man,  places  himself  on  a  little  corner  of  this 
planet,  a  speck  upon  a  speck  of  the  universe,  and  begins  to 
form  conclusions  from  the  small  fraction  of  God's  govern- 
ment which  he  can  see  from  thence.  The  astronomer  looks 
at  the  laws  of  motion,  and  forgets  that  there  must  have  been 
a  First  Cause  to  commence  that  motion.  The  surgeon  looks 
at  the  materialism  of  his  own  frame,  and  forgets  that  matter 
can  not  organize  itself  into  exquisite  beauty.  The  meta- 
physician buries  himself  in  the  laws  of  mind,  and  forgets  that 
there  may  be  spiritual  influences  producing  all  those  laws. 
And  this,  brethren,  is  the  unhumbled  spirit  of  philosophy — 
intellectual  pride.  Men  look  at  Nature,  but  they  do  not 
look  through  it  up  to  Nature's  God.  There  is  awful  igno- 
rance of  God,  arising  from  indulged  sin,  which  produces  an 
unhumbled  heart.  God  may  be  shut  out  from  the  soul  by 
pride  of  intellect  or  by  pride  of  heart. 


Man's  Greatness  and  God's  Greatness.     595 

Pharaoh  is  placed  before  us  in  Scripture  almost  as  a  type 
01  pride.  His  pride  arose  from  ignorance  of  God.  "  Who  is 
the  Lord  that  I  should  obey  his  voice  ?  I  know  not  the  Lord, 
neither  will  I  let  Israel  go."  And  this  was  not  intellectual 
f pride  ;  it  was  pride  in  a  matter  of  duty.  Pharaoh  had  been 
immersing  his  whole  heart  in  the  narrow  politics  of  Egypt. 
The  great  problem  of  his  day  was  to  aggrandize  his  own 
people  and  prevent  an  insurrection  of  the  Israelites  ;  and  that 
small  kingdom  of  Egypt  had  been  his  universe.  He  shut  his 
heart  to  the  voice  of  justice  and  the  voice  of  humanity :  in 
other  words,  great  in  the  pride  of  human  majesty,  small  in 
the  sight  of  the  high  and  lofty  One-,  he  shut  himself  out 
from  the  knowledge  of  God. 

The  next  ingredient  of  humbleness  is,  that  a  man  must 
have  a  right  estimate  of  himself.  There  is  a  vast  amount  of 
self-deception  on  this  point.  We  say  of  ourselves  that  which 
we  could  not  bear  others  to  say  of  us.  A  man  truly  humbled 
would  take  it  only  as  his  due  when  others  treated  him  in  the 
way  that  he  says  that  he  deserves.  But,  my  brethren,  we 
kneel  in  our  closets  in  shame  for  what  we  are,  and  we  tell 
our  God  that  the  lowest  place  is  too  good  for  us :  and  then 
we  go  into  the  world,  and  if  we  meet  with  slight  or  disre- 
spect, or  if  our  opinion  be  not  attended  to,  or  if  another  be 
preferred  before  us,  there  is  all  the  anguish  of  a  galled  and 
jealous  spirit,  and  half  the  bitterness  of  our  lives  comes  from 
this,  that  we  are  smarting  from  what  we  call  the  wrongs  and 
the  neglect  of  men.  My  beloved  brethren,  if  we  saw  ourselves 
as  God  sees  us,  we  should  be  willing  to  be  anywhere,  to  be  si- 
lent when  others  speak,  to  be  passed  by  in  the  world's  crowd, 
and  thrust  aside  to  make  way  for  others.  We  should  be  wil- 
ling to  put  others  in  the  way  of  doing  that  which  we  might 
have  got  reputation  for  by  doing  ourselves.  This  was  the 
temper  of  our  Master — this  is  the  meek  and  the  quiet  spirit, 
and  this  is  the  temper  of  the  humble  with  whom  the  high 
and  lofty  One  dwells. 

The  other  class  of  those  who  are  truly  great  are  the  con- 
trite in  spirit.  At  first  sight  it  might  be  supposed  that 
there  must  ever  be  a  vast  distinction  between  the  innocent 
and  the  penitent.  It  was  so  that  the  elder  son  in  the  parable 
thought  when  he  saw  his  brother  restored  to  his  father's 
favor.  He  was  surprised  and  hurt.  He  had  served  his  fa- 
ther these  many  years — his  brother  had  wasted  his  substance 
in  riotous  living.  But  in  this  passage  God  makes  no  distinc- 
tion. He  places  the  humble  consistent  follower  and  the 
broken-hearted  sinner  on  a  level.  He  dwells  wTith  both — with 
him  that  is  contrite,  and  with  him  that  is  humble.  He  sheds 


596     Man's  Greatness  and  God's  Greatness. 

around  them  both  the  grandeur  of  His  own  presence,  and  tha 
annals  of  Church  history  are  full  of  exemplifications  of  this 
marvel  of  God's  grace.  By  the  transforming  grace  of  Christ, 
men,  who  have  done  the  very  work  of  Satan,  have  become  as 
conspicuous  in  the  service  of  Heaven  as  they  were  once  con- 
spicuous in  the  career  of  guilt. 

So  indisputably  has  this  been  so,  that  men  have  drawn 
from  such  instances  the  perverted  conclusion,  that  if  a  man 
is  ever  to  be  a  great  saint,  he  must  first  be  a  great  sinner. 
God  forbid,  brethren,  that  we  should  ever  make  such  an  in- 
ference. But  this  we  infer  for  our  own  encouragement,  that 
past  sin  does  not  necessarily  preclude  from  high  attainments. 
We  must  "  forget  the  things  that  are  behind."  We  must 
not  mourn  over  past  years  of  folly  as  if  they  made  saintliness 
impossible.  Deep  as  we  may  have  been  in  earthliness,  so 
deep  we  may  also  be  in  penitence,  and  so  high  we  may  be- 
come in  spirituality. 

We  have  so  many  years  the  fewer  to  do  our  work  in. 
Well,  brethren,  let  us  try  to  do  it  so  much  the  faster.  Christ 
can  crowd  the  work  of  years  into  hours.  He  did  it  with  the 
dying  thief.  If  the  man  who  has  set  out  early  may  take  his 
time,  it  certainly  can  not  be  so  with  us  who  have  lost  our 
time.  If  we  have  lost  God's  bright  and  happy  presence  by 
our  willfulness,  what  then  ?  Unrelieved  sadness  ?  IN  ay,  breth- 
ren, calmness,  purity,  may  have  gone  from  our  heart ;  but  all 
is  not  gone  yet.  Just  as  sweetness  comes  from  the  bark  of 
the  cinnamon  when  it  is  bruised,  so  can  the  spirit  of  the  cross 
of  Christ  bring  beauty  and  holiness  and  peace  out  of  the 
bruised  and  broken  heart.  God  dwells  with  the  contrite  as 
much  as  with  the  humble. 

And  now,  brethren,  to  conclude,  the  first  inference  we  col- 
lect from  this  subject  is  the  danger  of  coming  into  collision, 
with  such  a  God  as  our  God.  Day  by  day  we  commit  sins 
of  thought  and  word  of  which  the  dull  eye  of  man  takes  no 
cognizance.  He  whose  name  is  Holy  can  not  pass  them  by. 
We  may  elude  the  vigilance  of  a  human  enemy  and  place 
ourselves  beyond  his  reach.  God  fills  all  space — there  is  not 
a  spot  in  which  His  piercing  eye  is  not  on  us,  and  His  uplift- 
ed hand  can  not  find  us  out.  Man  must  strike  soon  if  he 
would  strike  at  all;  for  opportunities  pass  away  from  him, 
and  his  victim  may  escape  his  vengeance  by  death.  There 
is  no  passing  of  opportunity  with  God,  and  it  is  this  which 
makes  His  long-suffering  a  solemn  thing.  God  can  wait, 
for  He  has  a  whole  eternity  before  Him  in  which  He  may 
strike.  "All  things  are  open  and  naked  to  Him  with  whom 
we  have  to  do." 


Mans  Greatness  and  God's  Greatness.      597 

In  the  next  place,  we  are  taught  the  heavenly  character 
of  condescension.  It  is  not  from  the  insignificance  of  man 
that  God's  dwelling  with  him  is  so  strange.  It  is  as  much 
the  glory  of  God  to  bend  His  attention  on  an  atom  as  to 
uphold  the  universe.  But  the  marvel  is  that  the  habitation 
which  He  has  chosen  for  Himself  is  an  impure  one.  And 
when  He  came  down  from  His  magnificence  to  make  this 
world  His  home,  still  the  same  character  of  condescension 
was  shown  through  all  the  life  of  Christ.  Our  God  selected 
the  society  of  the  outcasts  of  earth,  those  whom  none  else 
would  speak  to. 

Brethren,  if  we  would  be  Godlike,  we  must  follow  in  the 
same  steps.  Our  temptation  is  to  do  exactly  the  reverse. 
We  are  forever  wishing  to  obtain  the  friendship  and  the  in- 
timacy of  those  above  us  in  the  world.  To  win  over  men 
of  influence  to  truth — to  associate  with  men  of  talent  and 
station  and  title.  This  is  the  world-chase,  and  this,  breth- 
ren, is  too  much  the  religious  man's  chase.  But  if  you  look 
simply  to  the  question  of  resemblance  to  God,  then  the  man 
who  makes  it  a  habit  to  select  that  one  in  life  to  do  good  to, 
and  that  one  in  a  room  to  speak  with,  whom  others  pass  by 
because  there  is  nothing  either  of  intellect,  or  power,  or  name, 
to  recommend  him,  but  only  humbleness,  that  man  has 
stamped  upon  his  heart  more  of  heavenly  similitude  by  con- 
descension, than  the  man  who  has  made  it  his  business  to 
win  this  world's  great  ones,  even  for  the  sake  of  truth. 

Lastly,  we  learn  the  guilt  of  two  things  of  which  this 
world  is  full — vanity  and  pride.  There  is  a  distinction 
between  these  two.  But  the  distinction  consists  in  this, 
that  the  vain  man  looks  for  the  admiration  of  others — the 
proud  man  requires  nothing  but  his  own.  Now,  it  is  this 
distinction  which  makes  vanity  despicable  to  us  all.  We 
can  easily  find  out  the  vain  man — we  soon  discover  what  it 
is  he  wants  to  be  observed,  whether  it  be  a  gift  of  person,  or 
a  gift  of  mind,  or  a  gift  of  character.  If  he  be  vain  of  his 
person,  his  attitudes  will  tell  the  tale.  If  he  be  vain  of  his 
judgment,  or  his  memory,  or  his  honesty,  he  can  not  help  an 
unnecessary  parade.  The  world  finds  him  out,  and  this  is 
why  vanity  is  ever  looked  on  with  contempt.  So  soon  as  we 
let  men  see  that  we  are  suppliants  for  their  admiration,  we 
are  at  their  mercy.  We  have  given  them  the  privilege  of 
feeling  that  they  are  above  us.  We  have  invited  them  to 
spurn  us.  And  therefore  vanity  is  but  a  thing  for  scorn. 
But  it  is  very  different  with  pride.  No  man  can  look  down 
on  him  that  is  proud,  for  he  has  asked  no  man  for  any  thing. 
They  are  forced  to  feel  respect  for  pride,  because  it  is  thor« 


598     The  Lawful  and  Unlawful  Use  of  Law. 

oughly  independent  of  them.  It  wraps  itself  up  in  the  con« 
sequence  of  its  own  excellences,  and  scorns  to  care  whether 
others  take  note  of  them  or  not. 

It  is  just  here  that  the  danger  lies.  We  have  exalted  a 
sin  into  a  virtue.  No  man  will  acknowledge  that  he  is  vain, 
but  almost  any  man  will  acknowledge  that  he  is  proud.  But 
tried  by  the  balance  of  the  sanctuary,  there  is  little  to 
choose  between  the  two.  If  a  man  look  for  greatness  out 
of  God,  it  matters  little  whether  he  seek  it  in  his  own 
applause  or  in  the  applause  of  others.  The  proud  Pharisee, 
who  trusted  in  himself  that  he  was  righteous,  was  condemned 
by  Christ  as  severely,  and  even  more,  than  the  vain  Jews 
who  "  could  not  believe  because  they  sought  honor  from  one 
another,  and  not  that  honor  which  cometh  from  God  only." 
It  may  be  a  more  dazzling  and  a  more  splendid  sin  to  be 
proud.  It  is  not  less  hateful  in  God's  sight.  Let  us  speak 
God's  word  to  our  own  unquiet,  swelling,  burning  hearts. 
Pride  may  disguise  itself  as  it  will  in  its  own  majesty,  but  in 
the  presence  of  the  high  and  lofty  One,  it  is  but  littleness 
after  all. 


XIX. 
THE  LAWFUL  AND  UNLAWFUL  USE  OF  LAW. 

A   FRAGMENT. 

"But  we  know  that  the  law  is  good,  if  a  man  use  it  lawfully." — 1  Tim.  i.  8. 

IT  is  scarcely  ever  possible  to  understand  a  passage  with- 
out some  acquaintance  with  the  history  of  the  circumstances 
under  which  it  was  written. 

At  Ephesus,  over  which  Timothy  was  bishop,  people  had 
been  bewildered  by  the  teaching  of  converted  Jews,  who 
mixed  the  old  leaven  of  Judaism  with  the  new  spirituality  of 
Christianity.  They  maintained  the  perpetual  obligation  of 
the  Jewish  law  (ver.  V).  They  desired  to  be  teachers  of  the 
law.  They  required  strict  performance  of  a  number  of 
severe  observances.  They  talked  mysteriously  of  angels 
and  powers  intermediate  between  God  and  the  human  soul 
(ver.  4).  The  result  was  an  interminable  discussion  at 
Ephesus.  The  Church  was  filled  with  disputations  and  con- 
troversies. 

Now  there  is  something  always  refreshing  to  see  the 
Apostle  Paul  descending  upon  an  arena  of  controversy,  where 


The  Lawful  and  Unlawful  Use  of  Law.    599 

% 

minds  have  been  bewildered  :  and  so  much  is  to  be  said  on 
both  sides  that  people  are  uncertain  which  to  take.  You 
know  at  once  that  he  will  pour  light  upon  the  question,  and 
illuminate  all  the  dark  corners.  You  know  that  he  will  not 
trim,  and  balance,  and  hang  doubtful,  or  become  a  partisan  ; 
but  that  he  will  seize  some  gr§at  principle  which  lies  at  the 
root  of  the  whole  controversy,  and  make  its  true  bearings 
clear  at  once. 

This  he  always  does,  and  this  he  does  on  the  present  occa- 
sion (ver.  5  and  6).  He  does  not,  like  a  vehement  polemic, 
say  Jewish  Ceremonies  and  rules  are  all  worthless,  nor  some 
ceremonies  are  worthless  and  others  essential ;  but  he  says, 
the  root  of  the  whole  matter  is  charity.  If  you  turn  aside 
from  this,  all  is  lost ;  here  at  once  the  controversy  closes. 
So  far  as  any  rule  fosters  the  spirit  of  love,  that  is,  is  used 
lawfully,  it  is  wise,  and  has  a  use.  So  far  as  it  does  not,  it  is 
chaff.  *So  far  as  it  hinders  it,  it  is  poison. 

Now  observe  how  different  this  method  is  from  that  which 
is  called  the  sober,  moderate  way — the  ma  media.  Some 
would  have  said,  the  great  thing  is  to  avoid  extremes.  If 
the  question  respects  fasting,  fast,  only  in  moderation :  if 
the  observance  of  the  sabbath-day,  observe  it  on  the  Jewish 
principle,  only  not  so  strictly. 

St.  Paul,  on  the  contrary,  went  down  to  the  root ;  he  said, 
The  true  question  is  not  whether  the  law  is  good  or  bad,  but 
on  what  principle ;  he  said,  You  are  both  wrong — you,  in 
saying  that  the  observance  of  the  law  is  essential,  for  the 
end  of  it  is  charity,  and  if  that  be  got,  what  matter  how  ; 
you,  in  saying  rules  may  be  dispensed  with  entirely  and  al- 
ways, "  for  we  know  that  the  law  is  good." 

I.  The  unlawful  use,  and 
II.  The  lawful  use  of  law. 

I.  The  unlawful  use. 

Define  law.  By  law,  Paul  almost  always  means,  not  the 
Mosaic  law,  but  law  in  its  essence  and  principle,  that  is,  con- 
straint. This  chiefly  in  two  forms  expresses  itself — 1st.  a 
custom  ;  2d.  a  maxim.  As  examples  of  custom,  we  might 
give  circumcision,  or  the  sabbath,  or  sacrifice,  or  fasting. 

Law  said,  Thou  shalt  do  these  things ;  and  law,  as  mere 
law,  constrained  them.  Or  again,  law  may  express  itself  in 
maxims  and  rules. 

In  rules,  as  when  law  said,  "Thou  shalt  not  steal" — not 
saying  a  word  about  secret  dishonesty  of  heart,  but  simply 
taking  cognizance  of  acts. 
I     In  maxims,  as  when  it  admonished  that  man  ought  to  give 


6oo    The  Lawful  and  Unlawful  Use  of  Law, 

0 

a  tenth  to  God,  leaving  the  principle  of  the  matter  unteue/k 
ed.  Principle  is  one  thing,  and  maxim  is  another.  A  prin- 
ciple requires  liberality,  a  maxim  says  one-tenth.  A  princi- 
ple says,  "  A  merciful  man  is  .merciful  to  his  beast,"  leaves 
mercy  to  the  heart,  and  does  not  define  how  ;  a  maxim  sayi>, 
"  Thou  shalt  not  muzzle  the  ox  that  treadeth  out  thy  corn." 
A  principle  says,  "  Forgive  ;"  a  maxim  defines  "  seven 
times ;"  and  thus  the  whole  law  falls  into  two  divisions : 

The  ceremonial  law,  which  constrains  life  by  customs. 

The  moral  law,  which  guides  life  by  rules  and  maxims. 

Now  it  is  an  illegitimate  use  of  law.  First*  To  expect, 
by  obedience  to  it,  to  make  out  a  title  to  salvation. 

By  the  deeds  of  the  law  shall  no  man  living  be  justified. 
Salvation  is  by  faith  :  a  state  of  heart  right  with  God  ;  faith 
is  the  spring  of  holiness — a  well  of  life.  Salvation  is  not  the 
having  committed  a  certain  number  of  good  acts.  Destruc- 
tion is  not  the  having  committed  a  certain  number  of  crimes. 
Salvation  is  God's  Spirit  in  us,  leading  to  good.  Destruction 
is  the  selfish  spirit  in  us,  leading  to  wrong. 

For  a  plain  reason,  then,  obedience  to  law  can  not  save, 
because  it  is  merely  the  performance  of  a  certain  number  of 
acts  which  may  be  done  by  habit,  from  fear,  from  compul- 
sion. Obedience  remains  still  imperfect.  A  man  may  have 
obeyed  the  rule,  and  kept  the  maxim,  and  yet  not  be  perfect. 
"  All  these  commandments  have  I  kept  from  my  youth  up." 
"  Yet  lackest  thou  one  thing."  The  law  he  had  kept.  The 
spirit  of  obedience  in  its  high  form  of  sacrifice  he  had  not. 

Secondly.  To  use  it  superstitiously. 

It  is  plain  that  this  was  the  use  made  of  it  by  the  Ephe- 
sian  teachers  (ver.  4).  It  seefned  to  them  that  law  was 
pleasing  to  God  as  restraint.  Then  unnatural  restraints 
came  to  be  imposed — on  the  appetites,  fasting  ;  on  the  affec- 
tions, celibacy.  This  is  what  Paul  condemns  (ch.  iv.,  ver.  8) : 
"  Bodily  exercise  profiteth  little." 

And  again,  this  superstition  showed  itself  in  a  false  rever- 
ence—wondrous stories  respecting  angels — respecting  the 
eternal  genealogy  of  Christ — awful  thoughts  about  spirits. 
The  apostle  calls  all  these,  very  unceremoniously,  "  end- 
less genealogies"  (ver.  4),  and  "old  wives'  fables"  (ch.  iv., 
ver.  7). 

The  question  at  issue  is,  wherein  true  reverence  consists : 
according  to  them,  in  the  multiplicity  of  the  objects  of  rever- 
ence ;  according  to  St.  Paul,  in  the  character  of  the  object 
revered God  and  right  the  true  object. 

But  you  are  not  a  Avhit  the  better  for  solemn  and  reveren- 
tial feelings  about  a  mysterious,  invisible  world.  To  trem- 


The  Lawful  and  Unlawful  Use  of  Law.   60 1 

ble  before  a  consecrated  wafer  is  spurious  reverence.  To 
bend  before  the  majesty  of  right  is  Christian  reverence. 

Thirdly.  To  use  it  as  if  the  letter  of  it  were  sacred.  The 
law  commanded  none  to  eat  the  shew-bread  except  the 
priests.  David  ate  it  in  hunger.  If  Abimelech  had  scrupled 
to  give  it  he  would  have  used  the  law  unlawfully. 

The  law  commanded  no  manner  of  work.  The  apostles  in 
hunger  rubbed  the  ears  of  corn.  The  Pharisees  used  the 
law  unlawfully,  in  forbidding  that. 

II.  The  lawful  use  of  law. 

1.  As  a  restraint  to  keep  outward  evil  in  check 

'  The  law  was  made  for  sinners  and  profane."  ....     Illus- 
trate this  by  reference  to  capital  punishment.     No  sane  man 
believes   that   punishment  by  death  will  make  a  nation's 
heart  right,  or  that  the  sight  of  an  execution  can  soften  or 
ameliorate.     Punishment  does  not  work  in  that  way.     It  is 
not  meant  for  that  purpose.     It  is  meant  to  guard  society. 

The  law  commanding  a  blasphemer  to  be  stoned  could  not 
teach  one  Israelite  love  to  God,  but  it  could  save  the  streets 
of  Israel  from  scandalous  ribaldry. 

And  therefore,  clearly  understood,  law  is  a  mere  check  to 
bad  men  :  it  does  not  improve  them ;  it  often  makes  them 
worse ;  it  can  not  sanctify  them.  God  never  intended  that 
it  should.  It  saves  society  from  the  open  transgression ;  it 
does  not  contemplate  the  amelioration  of  the  offender. 

Hence  we  see  for  what  reason  the  apostle  insisted  on  the 
use  of  the  law  for  Christians.  Law  never  can  be  abrogated. 
Strict  rules  are  needed  exactly  in  proportion  as  we  want  the 
power  or  the  will  to  rule  ourselves.  It  is  not  because  the 
Gospel  has  come  that  we  are  free  from  the  law,  but  because, 
and  only  so  far,  as  we  are  in  a  Gospel  state.  "  It  is  for  a 
righteous  man"  that  the  law  is. not  made,  and  thus  we  see 
the  true  nature  of  Christian  liberty.  The  liberty  to  which 
we  are  called  in  Christ  is  not  the  liberty  of  devils,  the  liberty 
of  doing  what  we  will,  but  the  blessed  liberty  of  being  on 
the  side  of  the  law,  and  therefore  unrestrained  by  it  in  do- 
ing right. 

Illustrate  from  laws  of  coining,  housebreaking,  etc.  We 
are  not  under  them  ;  because  we  may  break  them  as  we  like  ? 
Nay,  the  moment  we  desire,  the  law  is  alive  again  to  us. 

2.  As  a  primer  is  used  by  a  child  to  acquire  by  degrees, 
principles  and  a  spirit. 

This  is  the  use  attributed  to  it  in  verse  5 :  "  The  end  of 
the  commandment  is  chanty." 

Compare  with  this  two  other  passages — "  Christ  is  the  end 

26 


GO  2    The  Lawful  and  Unlawful  Use  of  Law. 

of  the  law  for  righteousness,"  and  "  Love  is  the  fulfilling  of 
the  law ;"  "  Perfect  love  casteth  out  fear." 

In  every  law  there  is  a  spirit ;  in  every  maxim  a  principle ; 
and  the  law  and  the  maxim  are  laid  down  for  the  sake  of  con- 
serving the  spirit  and  the  principle  which  they  enshrine. 

St.  Paul  compares  God's  dealing  with  man  to  a  wise  pa 
rent's  instruction  of  his  child — see  the  Epistle  to  the  Gala 
tians.  Boyhood  is  under  law ;  you  appeal  not  to  the  boy's 
reason,  but  his  will,  by  rewards  and  punishments :  Do  this, 
and  I  will  reward  you ;  do  it  not,  and  you  will  be  punished. 
So  long  as  a  man  is  under  law  this  is  salutary  and  necessary, 
but  only  while  under  law.  He  is  free  when  he  discerns  prin- 
ciples, and  at  the  same  time  has  got,  by  habit,  the  will  to 
obey.  So  that  rules  have  done  for  him  a  double  work,  taught 
hini  the  principle  and  facilitated  obedience  to  it. 

Distinguish,  however.  In  point  of  time,  law  is  first — in 
point  of  importance,  the  Spirit. 

In  point  of  time,  charity  is  the  "  end  "  of  the  commandment 
— in  point  of  importance,  first  and  foremost. 

The  first  thing  a  boy  has  to  do  is  to  learn  implicit  obedi- 
ence to  rules.  The  first  thing  in  importance  for  a  man  to 
learn  is,  to  sever  himself  from  maxims,  rules,  laws.  Why  ? 
That  he  may  become  an  Antinomian,  or  a  Latitudinariau  ? 
No.  He  is  severed  from  submission  to  the  maxim  because 
he  has  got  allegiance  to  the  principle.  He  is  free  from  the 
rule  and  the  law  because  he  has  got  the  Spirit  written  in  his 
heart. 

This  is  the  Gospel.  A  man  is  redeemed  by  Christ  so  far 
as  he  is  not  under  the  law  ;  he  is  free  from  the  law  so  faf 
as  he  is  free  from  the  evil  which  the  law  restrains;  he 
progresses  so  far  as  there  is  no  evil  in  him  which  it  is 
an  effort  to  keep  down ;  and  perfect  salvation  and  liberty 
are  when  we — who,  though  having  the  first-fruits  of  the 
Spirit,  yet  groan  within  ourselves,  waiting  for  the  adoption, 
"  to  wit,  the  redemption  of  our  body  " — shall  have  been 
freed  in  body,  soul,  and  spirit,  from  the  last  traces  of  the 
evil  which  can  only  be  kept  down  by  force.  In  other  words, 
90  far  as  Christ's  statement  is  true  of  ?«,  "  The  Prince  of  this 
arorld  cometh,  and  hath  nothing  in  me." 


Tlie  Prodigal  and  his  Brother.  603 


xx. 
THE  PRODIGAL  AND  HIS  BROTHER. 

is  And  he  said  unto  him,  Son,  thou  art  ever  with  me,  and  all  that  I  havo  is 
thine.  It  was  meet  that  we  should  make  merry,  and  be  glad :  for  this  thy 
bi  other  was  dead,  and  is  alive  again;  and  was  lost,  and  is  found." — Luke 
xv.  31,32. 

THERE  are  two  classes  of  sins.  There  are  some  sins  by  which 
man  crushes,  wounds,  malevolently  injures  his  brother  man , 
those  sins  which  speak  of  a  bad,  tyrannical,  and  selfish  heart. 
Christ  met  those  with  denunciation.  There  are  other  sins  by 
which  a  man  injures  himself.  There  is  a  life  of  reckless  in- 
dulgence ;  there  is  a  career  of  yielding  to  ungovernable  pro- 
pensities, which  most  surely  conducts  to  wretchedness  and 
ruin,  but  makes  a  man  an  object  of  compassion  rather  than 
of  condemnation. 

The  reception  which  sinners  of  this  class  met  from  Christ 
was  marked  by  strange  and  pitying  mercy.  There  was  no 
maudlin  sentiment  on  His  lips.  He  called  sin  sin,  and  guilt 
guilt.  But  yet  there  were  sins  which  His  lips  scourged,  and 
others  over  which,  containing  in  themselves  their  own 
scourge,  His  heart  bled.  That  which  was  melancholy,  and 
marred,  and  miserable  in  this  world,  was  more  congenial  to 
the  heart  of  Christ  than  that  which  was  proudly  happy.  It 
was  in  the  midst  of  a  triumph,  and  all  the  pride  of  a  proces- 
sion, that  He  paused  to  weep  over  ruined  Jerusalem.  And  if 
we  ask  the  reason  why  the  character  of  Christ  was  marked  by 
this  melancholy  condescension,  it  is  that  He  was  in  the  midst 
of  a  world  of  ruins,  and  there  was  nothing  there  to  gladden, 
but  very  much  to  touch  with  grief.  He  was  here  to  restore 
that  which  was  broken  down  and  crumbling  into  decay.  An 
enthusiastic  antiquarian,  standing  amidst  the  fragments  of 
an  ancient  temple  surrounded  by  dust  and  moss,  broken  pil- 
lar and  defaced  architrave,  with  magnificent  projects  in  his 
mind  of  restoring  all  this  to  former  majesty,  to  draw  out  to 
light  from  mere  rubbish  the  ruined  glories,  and  therefore 
stooping  down  amongst  the  dank  ivy  and  the  rank  nettles ; 
such  was  Christ  amidst  the  wreck  of  human  nature.  He  was 
striving  to  lift  it  out  of  its  degradation.  He  was  searching 
out  in  revolting  places  that  which  had  fallen  down,  that  He 
might  build  it  up  again  in  fair  proportions,. a  holy  temple  to 
the-  Lord. 


604  Tlie  Prodigal  and  his  Brother. 

Therefore  He  labored  among  the  guilty  ;  therefore  He  was 
the  companion  of  outcasts ;  therefore  He  spoke  tenderly  and 
lovingly  to  those  whom  society  counted  undone ;  therefore  He 
loved  to  bind  up  the  bruised  and  the  broken-hearted ;  therefore 
His  breath  fanned  the  spark  which  seemed  dying  out  in  the 
wick  of  the  expiring  taper,  when  men  thought  that  it  was  too 
late,  and  that  the  hour  of  hopeless  profligacy  was  come.  It 
was  that  feature  in  His  character,  that  tender,  hoping,  en- 
couraging spirit  of  His  which  the  prophet  Isaiah  fixed  upon 
as  a  characteristic.  "  A  bruised  reed  will  He  not  break." 

It  was  an  illustration  of  this  spirit  which  He  gave  in  the 
parable  which  forms  the  subject  of  our  consideration  to-day. 
"VVe  find  the  occasion*  which  drew  it  from  Him  in  the  com- 
mencement of  this  chapter,  "  Then  drew  near  unto  Him  all 
the  publicans  and  sinners  for  to  hear  Him.  And  the  Phari- 
sees and  Scribes  murmured,  saying,  This  man  receiveth  sin- 
ners and  eateth  with  them."  It  was  then  that  Christ  con- 
descended to  offer  an  excuse  or  an  explanation  of  his  conduct. 
And  His  excuse  was  this :  It  is  natural,  humanly  natural,  to 
rejoice  more  over  that  which  has  been  recovered  than  over 
that  which  has  been  never  lost.  He  proved  that  by  three 
illustrations  taken  from  human  life.  The  first  illustration  in- 
tended to  show  the  feelings  of  Christ  in  winning  back  a  sin- 
ner, was  the  joy  which  the  shepherd  feels  in  the  recovery  of 
a  sheep  from  the  mountain  wilderness.  The  second  was  the 
satisfaction  which  a  person  feels  for  a  recovered  coin.  The 
last  was  the  gladness  which  attends  the  restoration  of  an 
erring  son. 

Now  the  three  parables  are  alike  in  this,  that  they -all 
describe  more  or  less  vividly  the  feelings  of  the  Redeemer 
on  the  recovery  of  the  lost.  But  the  third  parable  differs 
from  the  other  two  in  this,  that  besides  the  feelings  of  the 
Saviour,  it  gives  us  a  multitude  of  particulars  respecting  the 
feelings,  the  steps,  and  the  motives  of  the  penitent  who  is 
reclaimed  back  to  goodness.  In  the  first  two  the  thing  lost 
is  a  coin  or  a  sheep.  It  would  not  be  possible  to  find  any 
picture  of  remorse  or  gladness  there.  But  in  the  third  para- 
ble the  thing  lost  is  not  a  lifeless  thing,  nor  a  mute  thing, 
but  a  being,  the  workings  of  whose  human  heart  are  all  de- 
scribed. So  that  the  subject  opened  out  to  us  is  a  more  ex- 
tensive one — not  merely  the  feelings  of  the  finder,  God  in 
Christ,  but  besides  that,' the  sensations  of  the  wanderer  him- 
self! 

In  dealing  with  this  parable,  this  is  the  line  which  we 
lhall  adopt.  We  shall  look  at  the  picture  which  it  draws  of 
—1.  God's  treatment  of  the  penitent.  2.  God's  expostulation 


The  Prodigal  and  his  Brother.  605 

with  the  saint.  God's  treatment  of  the  penitent  divides  it- 
self in  this  parable  into  three  distinct  epochs.  The  period 
of  alienation,  the  period  of  repentance,  and  the  circumstances 
of  a  penitent  reception.  We  shall  consider  all  these  in  turn. 

The  first  truth  exhibited  in  this  parable  is  the  alienation 
of  man's  heart  from  God.  Homelessness,  distance  from  our 
Father — that  is  man's  state  by  nature  in  this  world.  The 
youngest  son  gathered  all  together  and  took  his  journey  into 
a  far  country.  Brethren,  this  is  ilie  history  of  worldliness. 
It  is  a  state  far  from  God ;  in  other  words,  it  is  a  state  of 
homelessness.  And  now  let  us  ask  what  that  means.  To 
English  hearts  it  is  not  necessary  to  expound  elaborately  the 
infinite  meanings  which  cluster  round  that  blessed  expres- 
sion, "  home."  Home  is  the  one  place  in  all  this  world 
where  hearts  are  sure  of  each  other.  It  is  the  place  of  con- 
fidence. It  is  the  place  where  we  tear  off  that  mask  of 
guarded  and  suspicious  coldness  which  the  world  forces  us 
to  wear  in  self-defense,  and  where  we  pour  out  the  unre- 
served communications  of  full  and  confiding  hearts.  It  is 
the  spot  where  expressions  of  tenderness  gush  out  without 
any  sensation  of  awkwardness  and  without  any  dread  of 
ridicule.  Let  a  man  travel  where  he  will,  home  is  the  place 
to  which  "his  heart  untravelled  fondly  turns."  He  is  to 
double  all  pleasure  there.  He  is  there  to  divide  all  pain.  A 
happy  home  is  the  single  spot  of  rest  which  a  man  has  upon 
this  earth  for  the  cultivation  of  his  noblest  sensibilities. 

And  now,  my  brethren,  if  that  be  the  description  of  home, 
is  God's  place  of  rest  your  home  ?  Walk  abroad  and  alone 
by  night.  That  awful  other  world  in  the  stillness  and  the 
solemn  deep  of  the  eternities  above,  is  it  your  home  ?  Those 
graves  that  lie  beneath  you,  holding  in  them  the  infinite  se- 
cret, and  stamping  upon  all  earthly  loveliness  the  mark  of 
frailty  and  change  and  fleetingness — are  those  graves  th? 
prospect  to  which  in  bright  days  and  dark  days  you  can 
turn  without  dismay  ?  God  in  his  splendors — dare  we  feel 
with  Him  affectionate  and  familiar,  so  that  trial  comes  soft- 
ened by  this  feeling — it  is  my  Father,  and  enjoyment  can  be 
taken  with  a  frank  feeling  ;  my  Father  ha?  given  it  me,  with- 
out grudging,  to  make  me  happy?  All  that  is  having  a 
home  in  God.  Are  we  at  home  there  ?  Why,  there  is  dem- 
onstration in  our  very  childhood  that  we  are  not  at  home 
with  that  other  world  of  God's.  An  infant  fears  to  be  alone, 
because  he  feels  he  is  not  alone.  He  trembles  in  the  dark, 
because  he  is  conscious  of  the  presence  of  the  world  of  spirits. 
Long  before  he  has  been  told  tales  of  terror,  there  is  an  in- 
stinctive dread  of  the  supernatural  in  the  infant  mind.  It  is 


606  The  Prodigal  and  his  Brother. 

the  instinct  which  we  have  from  childhood  that  gives  us  the 
feeling  of  another  world.  And  mark,  brethren,  if  the  child 
is  not  at  home  in  the  thought  of  that  world  of  God's,  the 
deep  of  darkness  and  eternity  is  around  him — God's  home, 
but  not  his  home,  for  his  flesh  creeps.  And  that  feeling 
grows  through  life;  not  the  fear — when  the  child  becomes  a 
man  he  gets  over  fear — but  the  dislike.  The  man  feels  as 
much  aversion  as  the  child  for  the  world  of  spirits. 

Sunday  comes.  It  breaks  across  the  current  of  his  world- 
liness.  It  suggests  thoughts  of  death  and  judgment  and 
everlasting  existence.  Is  that  home  ?  Can  the  worldly  man 
feel  Sunday  like  a  foretaste  of  his  Father's  mansion  ?  If  we 
could  but  know  how  many  have  come  here  to-day,  not  to 
have  their  souls  lifted  up  heavenward,  but  from  curiosity,  or 
idleness,  or  criticism,  it  would  give  us  an  appalling  estimate 
of  the  number  who  are  living  in  a  far  country,  "  having  no 
hope,  and  without  God  in  the  world." 

The  second  truth  conveyed  to  us  in  this  parable  is  the  un- 
satisfying nature  of  worldly  happiness.  The  outcast  son 
tried  to  satiate  his  appetite  with  husks.  A  husk  is  an  empty 
thing;  it  is  a  thing  which  looks  extremely  like  food,  and 
promises  as  much  as  food  ;  but  it  is  not  food.  It  is  a  thing 
which  when  chewed  will  stay  the  appetite,  but  leaves  the 
emaciated  body  without  nourishment.  Earthly  happiness  is 
a  husk.  We  say  not  that  there  is  no  satisfaction  in  the  pleas- 
ures of  a  worldly  life.  That  would  be  an  over-statement  of 
the  truth.  Something  there  is,  or  else  why  should  men  per- 
sist in  living  for  them  ?  The  cravings  of  man's  appetite  may 
be  stayed  by  things  which  can  not  satisfy  him.  Every  new 
pursuit  contains  in  it  a  new  hope  ;  and  it  is  long  before  hope 
is  bankrupt.  But,  my  brethren,  it  is  strange  if  a  man  has  not 
found  out,  long  before  he  has  reached  the  age  of  thirty,  that 
every  thing  here  is  empty  and  disappointing.  The  nobler 
his  heart  and  the  more  unquenchable  his  hunger  for  the  high 
and  the  good,  the  sooner  will  he  find  that  out.  Bubble  after 
bubble  bursts,  each  bubble  tinted  with  the  celestial  colors  of 
the  rainbow,  and  each  leaving  in  the  hand  which  crushes  it 
a  cold  damp  drop  of  disappointment.  All  that  is  described 
in  Scripture  by  the  emphatic  metaphor  of"  sowing  the  wind 
and  reaping  the  whirlwind,"  the  whirlwind  of  blighted  hopes 
and  unreturned  feelings  and  crushed  expectations — that  is 
the  harvest  which  the  world  gives  you  to  reap. 

And  now  is  the  question  asked,  Why  is  this  world  unsatis- 
fying ?  Brethren,  it  is  the  grandeur  of  the  soul  which  God 
has  given  us,  which  makes  it  insatiable  in  its  desires — with 
an  infinite  void  which  can  not  be  filled  up.  A  soul  which 


The  Prodigal  and  his  Brother.  607 

was  made  for  God,  how  can  the  world  fill  it  ?  If  the  ocean 
can  be  still  with  miles  of  unstable  waters  beneath  it,  then 
the  soul  of  man,  rocking  itself  upon  its  own  deep  longings, 
with  the  Infinite  beneath  it,  may  rest.  We  were  created 
once  in  majesty,  to  find  enjoyment  in  God,  and  if  our  hearts 
are  empty  now,  there  is  nothing  for  it  but  to  fill  up  the  hoi- 
lowness  of  the  soul  with  God. 

Let  not  that  expression — filling  the  soul  with  God — pass 
away  without  a  distinct  meaning.  God  is  love  and  good- 
ness. Fill  the  soul  with  goodness,  and  fill  the  soul  with 
love,  that  is  the  filling  it  with  God.  If  we  love  one  another, 
God  dwelleth  in  us.  There  is  nothing  else  that  can  satisfy. 
So  that  when  we  hear  men  of  this  world  acknowledge,  as 
they  sometimes  will  do,  when  they  are  wearied  with  this 
phantom  chase  of  life,  sick  of  gayeties  and  tired  of  toil,  that 
it  is  not  in  their  pursuits  that  they  can  drink  the  fount  of 
blessedness  ;  and  when  we  see  them,  instead  of  turning  aside 
either  broken-hearted  or  else  made  wise,  still  persisting  to 
trust  to  expectations — at  fifty,  sixty,  or  seventy  years,  still 
feverish  about  some  new  plan  of  ambition — -what  we  see  is 
this  :  we  see  a  soul  formed  with  a  capacity  for  high  and  no- 
ble things,  fit  for  the  banquet-table  of  God  Himself,  trying 
to  fill  its  infinite  hollowness  with  husks. 

Once  more :  there  is  degradation  in  the  life  of  irreligion. 
The  things  which  the  wanderer  tried  to  live  on  were  not 
husks  only.  They  were  husks  which  the  swine  did  eat. 
Degradation  means  the  application  of  a  thing  to  purposes 
lower  than  that  for  which  it  was  intended.  It  is  degrada- 
tion to  a  man  to  live  on  husks,  because  these  are  not  his  true 
food,,  We  call  it  degradation  when  we  see  the  members  of 
an  ancient  family,  decayed  by  extravagance,  working  foi 
their  bread.  It  is  not  degradation  for  a  born  laborer  to 
work  for  an  honest  livelihood.  It  is  degradation  for  them, 
for  they  are  not  what  they  might  have  been.  And  there- 
fore, for  a  man  to  be  degraded,  it  is  not  necessary  that  he 
should  have  given  himself  up  to  low  and  mean  practices. 
It  is  quite  enough  that  he  is  living  for  purposes  lower 
than  those  for  which  God  intended  him.  He  may  be  a  man 
of  unblemished  reputation,  and  yet  debased  in  the  truest 
meaning  of  the  word.  We  were  sent  into  this  world  to  love 
God  and  to  love  man  ;  to  do  good — to  fill  up  life  with  deeds 
of  generosity  and  usefulness.  And  he  that  refuses  to  work 
out  that  high  destiny  is  a  degraded  man.  He  may  turn 
away  revolted  from  every  thing  that  is  gross.  His  sensuous 
indulgences  may  be  all  marked  by  refinement  and  taste, 
His  house  may  be  filled  with  elegance.  His  library  may  be 


608  The  Prodigal  and  his  Brother 

adorned  with  books.  There  may  be  the  sounds  in  his  man. 
sion  which  can  regale  the  ear,  the  delicacies  which  can  stim- 
ulate the  palate,  and  the  forms  of  beauty  which  can  please 
the  eye.  There  may  be  nothing  in  his  whole  life  to  offend 
the  most  chastened  and  fastidious  delicacy ;  and  yet,  if  the 
history  of  all  this  be,  powers  which  were  meant  for  eternity 
frittered  upon  time,  the  man  is  degraded — if  the  spirit  which 
was  created  to  find  its  enjoyment  in  the  love  of  God  has  set- 
tled down  satisfied  with  the  love  of  the  world,  then,  just  as 
surely  as  the  sensualist  of  this  parable,  that  man  has  turned 
aside  from  a  celestial  feast  to  prey  on  garbage. 

We  pass  on  to  the  second  period  of  the  history  of  God's 
treatment  of  a  sinner.  It  is  the  period  of  his  coming  to  him- 
self, or  what  we  call  repentance.  The  first  fact  of  religious 
experience  which  this  parable  suggests  to  us  is  that  common 
truth — men  desert  the  world  when  the  world  deserts  them. 
The  renegade  came  to  himself  when  there  were  no  more 
husks  to  eat.  He  would  have  remained  away  if  he  could 
have  got  them,  but  it  is  written,  "  no  man  gave  unto  him." 
And  this,  brethren,  is  the  record  of  our  shame.  Invitation 
is  not  enough  ;  we  must  be  driven  to  God.  And  the  famine 
comes  not  by  chance.  God  sends  the  famine  into  the  soul — 
the  hunger,  and  thirst,  and  the  disappointment — to  bring 
back  his  erring  child  again. 

Now  the  world  fastens  upon  that  truth,  and  gets  out  of  it 
a  triumphant  sarcasm  against  religion.  They  tell  us  that 
just  as  the  caterpillar  passes  into  the  chrysalis,  and  the 
chrysalis  into  the  butterfly,  so  profligacy  passes  into  disgust, 
and  disgust  passes  into  religion.  To  use  their  own  phraseol- 
ogy, when  people  become  disappointed  with  the  world  it  is 
the  last  resource,  they  say,  to  turn  saint.  So  the  men  of  the 
world  speak,  and  they  think  they  are  profoundly  philosophi- 
cal and  concise  in  the  account  they  give.  The  world  is  wel- 
come to  its  very  small  sneer.  It  is  the  glory  of  our  Master's 
Gospel  that  it  is  the  refuge  of  the  broken-hearted.  It  is  the 
strange  mercy  of  our  God  that  He  does  not  reject  the  writh- 
ings  of  a  jaded  heart.  Let  the  world  curl  its  lip  if  it  will, 
when  it  sees  through  the  causes  of  the  prodigal's  return. 
And  if  the  sinner  does  not  come  to  God  taught  by  this  dis- 
appointment, what  then?  If  affections  crushed  in  early  life 
have  driven  one  man  to  God ;  if  wrecked  and  ruined  hopes 
have  made  another  man  religious ;  if  want  of  success  in  a 
profession  has  broken  the  spirit ;  if  the  human  life  lived  out 
too  passionately  has  left  a  surfeit  and  a  craving  behind 
which  end  in  seriousness  ;  if  one  is  brought  by  the  sadness 
of  widowed  life,  and  another  by  the  forced  desolation  of  in- 


The  Prodigal  and  his  Brother.  609 

voluntary  single  life  ;  if  when  the  mighty  famine  comes  into 
the  heart,  and  not  a  husk  is  left,  not  a  pleasure  untried,  then, 
and  not  till  then,  the  remorseful  resolve  is  made,  "  I  will 
arise  and  go  to  my  Father:" — well,  brethren,  what  then? 
Why  this,  that  the  history  of  penitence,  produced  as  it  so 
often  is  by  mere  disappointment,  sheds  only  a  brighter  lustre 
round  the  love  of  Christ,  who  rejoices  to  receive  such  wan- 
derers, worthless  as  they  are,  back  into  His  bosom.  Thank 
God,  the  world's  sneer  is  true.  It  is  the  last  resource  to  turn 
saint.  Thanks  to  our  God  that  when  this  gaudy  world  has 
ceased  to  charm,  when  the  heart  begins  to  feel  its  hollow- 
ness,  and  the  world  has  lost  its  satisfying  power,  still  all  is 
not  yet  lost,  if  penitence  and  Christ  remain,  to  still,  to  hum- 
ble, and  to  soothe  a  heart  which  sin  has  fevered. 

There  is  another  truth  contained  in  this  section  of  the 
parable.  After  a  life  of  wild  sinfulness,  religion  is  servitude 
at  first,  not  freedom.  Observe,  he  went  back  to  duty  with 
the  feelings  of  a  slave  :  "  I  am  no  more  worthy  to  be  called 
thy  son  ;  make  me  as  one  of  thy  hired  servants."  Any  one 
who  has  lived  in  the  excitement  of  the  world,  and  then  tried 
to  settle  down  at  once  to  quiet  duty,  knows  how  true  that  is. 
To  borrow  a  metaphor  from  Israel's  desert  life,  it  is  a  tasteless 
thing  to  live  on  manna  after  you  have  been  feasting  upon 
quails.  It  is  a  dull  cold  drudgery  to  find  pleasure  in  simple 
occupation  when  life  has  been  a  succession  of  strong  emo- 
tions. Sonship  it  is  not ;  it  is  slavery.  A  son  obeys  in 
love,  entering  heartily  into  his  father's  meaning.  A  servant 
obeys  mechanically,  rising  early  because  he  must ;  doing,  it 
may  be,  his  duty  well,  but  feeling  in  all  its  force  the  irksome- 
ness  of  the  service.  Sonship  does  not  come  all  at  once. 
The  yoke  of  Christ  is  easy,  the  burden  of  Christ  is  light ; 
but  it  is  not  light  to  every  body.  It  is  light  when  you  love 
it,  and  no  man  who  has  sinned  much  can  love  it  all  at  once. 

Therefore,  if  I  speak  to  any  one  who  is  trying  to  be  relig- 
ious, and  heavy  in  heart  because  his  duty  is  done  too  formal- 
ly, my  Christian  brother,  fear  not.  You  are  returning,  like 
the  prodigal,  with  the  feelings  of  a  servant.  Still  it  is  a  real 
return.  The  spirit  of  adoption  will  come  afterwards.  You 
will  often  have  to  do  duties  which  you  can  not  relish,  and  in 
which  you  see  no  meaning.  So  it  was  with  Naajnan  at  the 
prophet's  command.  He  bathed,  not  knowing  why  he  was 
bidden  to  bathe,  in  Jordan.  When  you  bend  to  prayer,  often 
and  often  you  will  have  to  kneel  with  wandering  thoughts, 
and  constraining  lips  to  repeat  words  into  which  your  heart 
scarcely  enters.  You  will  have  to  perform  duties  when  the 
heart  is  cold,  and  without  a  spark  of  enthusiasm  to  warm 

26* 


6 1  o  The  Prodigal  and  his  Brother. 

you.  But,  my  Christian  brother,  onward  still.  Struggle  to 
the  cross,  even  though  it  be  struggling  as  in  chains.  Just 
as  on  a  day  of  clouds,  when  you  have  watched  the  distant 
hills,  dark  and  gray  with  mist,  suddenly  a  gleam  of  sunshine 
passing  over  reveals  to  you,  in  that  flat  surface,  valleys  and 
dells  and  spots  of  sunny  happiness,  which  slept  before  unsus- 
pected in  the  fog,  so  in  the  gloom  of  penitential  life  there 
will  be  times  when  God's  deep  peace  and  love  will  be  felt 
shining  into  the  soul  with  supernatural  refreshment.  Let  the 
penitent  be  content  with  the  servant's  lot  at  first.  Liberty 
and  peace,  and  the  bounding  sensations  of  a  Father's  arms 
around  you,  come  afterwards. 

The  last  circumstance  in  this  division  of  our  subject  is  the 
reception  which  a  sinner  meets  with  on  his  return  to  God. 
"  Bring  forth  the  best  robe  and  put  it  on  him,  and  put  a  ring 
on  his  hand,  and  Shoes  on  his  feet,  and  bring  hither  the  fat- 
ted calf  and  kill  it,  and  let  us  eat  and  be  merry."  This  ban 
quet  represents  to  us  two  things.  It  tells  of  the  father's  glad- 
ness on  his  son's  return.  That  represents  God's  joy  on  the 
reformation  of  a  sinner.  It  tells  of  a  banquet  and'a  dance 
given  to  the  long-lost  son.  That  represents  the  sinner's 
gladness  when  he  first  understood  that  God  was  reconciled 
to  him  in  Christ.  There  is  a  strange,  almost  wild,  rapture,  a 
strong  gush  of  love  and  happiness  in  those  days  which  are 
called  the  days  of  the  first  conversion.  When  a  man  who 
has  sinned  much — a  profligate — turns  to  God,  and  it  becomes 
first  clear  to  his  apprehension  that  there  is  love  instead  of 
spurning  for  him,  there  is  a  luxury  of  emotion — a  banquet  of 
tumultuous  blessedness  in  the  moment  of  first  love  to  God, 
which  stands  alone  in  life,  nothing  before  and  nothing  after 
like  it.  And,  brethren,  let  us  observe :  This  forgiveness  is  a 
thing  granted  while  a  man  is  yet  afar  off.  We  are  not  to 
wait  for  the  right  of  being  happy  till  we  are  good  :  we  might 
wait  forever.  Joy  is  not'delayed  till  we  deserve  it.  JustTso 
soon  as  a  sinful  man  trusts  that  the  mercy  of  God  in  Christ 
has  done  away  with  his  transgression,  the  ring,  and  the  robe, 
and  the  shoes  are  his,  the  banquet  and  the  light  of  a  Father's 
countenance. 

Lastly,  we  have  to  consider  very  briefly  God's  expostula- 
tion with  a  saint.  There  is  another  brother  mentioned  in 
this  parabfe,  who  expressed  something  like  indignation  at 
the  treatment  which  his  brother  met  with.  There  are  com- 
mentators who  have  imagined  that  this  personage  represents 
the  Pharisees  who  complained  that  Jesus  was  receiving  sin- 
ners. But  this  is  manifestly  impossible,  because  his  father 
expostulates  with  him  in  this  language,  "Son,  thou  art  evel 


The  Prodigal  and  his  Brother.  6 1 1 

with  me ;"  not  for  one  moment  could  that  be  true  of  the  Phar- 
isees. The  true  interpretation  seems  to  be  that  this  elder 
brother  represents  a  real  Christian  perplexed  with  God's 
mysterious  dealings.  We  haye  before  us  the  description  of 
one  of  those  happy  persons  who  have  been  filled  with  the 
Holy  Ghost  from  their  mother's  womb,  and  on  the  whole 
(with  imperfections  of  course)  remained  God's  servant  all  his 
life.  For  this  is  his  own  account  of  himself,  which  the  father 
does  not  contradict.  "  Lo !  these  many  years  do  I  serve 
thee." 

We  observe,  then,  the  objection  made  to  the  reception  of 
a  notorious  sinner — "Thou  never  gavest  me  a  kid."  Now, 
in  this  we  have  a  fact  true  to  Christian  experience.  Joy 
seems  to  be  felt  more  vividly  and  more  exuberantly  by  men 
who  have  sinned  much,  than  by  men  who  have  grown  up 
consistently  from  childhood  with  religious  education.  Rap- 
ture belongs  to  him  whose  sins,  which  are  forgiven,  are 
many.  In  the  perplexity  which  this  fact  occasions,  there  is 
a  feeling  which  is  partly  right  and  partly  wrong.  There  is  a 
surprise  which  is  natural"  There  is  a  resentful  jealousy 
which  is  to  be  rebuked. 

There  is  first  of  all  a  natural  surprise.  It  was  natural  that 
the  elder  brother  should  feel  perplexed  and  hurt.  When  a 
sinner  seems  to  be  rewarded  with  more  happiness  than  a 
saint,  it  appears  as  if  good  and  evil  were  alike  undistinguish- 
ed in  God's  dealings.  It  seems  like  putting  a  reconciled  en- 
emy over  the  head  of  a  tried  servant.  It  looks  as  if  it  were 
a  kind  of  encouragement  held  out  to  sin,  and  a  man  begins 
to  feel,  Well,  if  this  is  to  be  the  caprice  of  my  father's  deal- 
ing ;  if  this  rich  feast  of  gladness  be  the  reward  of  a  licen- 
tious life,  "Verily  I  have  cleansed  my  heart  in  vain,  and 
washed  my  hands  in  innocency."  This  is  natural  surprise. 

But  besides  this  there  is  a  jealousy  in  these  sensations  of 
ours  which  God  sees  fit  to  rebuke.  You  have  been  trying  to 
serve  God  all  your  life,  and  find  it  struggle,  and  heaviness, 
and  dullness  still.  You  see  another  who  has  outraged  every 
obligation  of  life,  and  he  is  not  tried  by  the  deep  prostration 
you  think  he  ought  to  have,  but  bright  with  happiness  at 
once.  You  have  been  making  sacrifices  all  your  life,  and 
your  worst  trials  come  out  of  your  most  generous  sacrifices. 
Your  errors  in  judgment  have  been  followed  by  sufferings 
sharper  than  those  which  crime  itself  could  have  brought. 
And  you  see  men  who  never  made  a  sacrifice  unexposed  to 
trial — men  whose  life  has  been  rapture  purchased  by  Jhe 
ruin  of  others'  innocence — tasting  first  the  pleasures  of  sin, 
and  then  the  banquet  of  religion.  You  have  been  a  moral 


612  The  Prodigal  and  his  Brother. 

man  from  childhood,  and  yet  with  all  your  efforts  you  feel 
the  crushing  conviction  that  it  has  never  once  been  granted 
you  to  win  a  soul  to  God.  And  you  see  another  man  mark- 
ed by  inconsistency  and  impetuosity,  banqueting  every  day 
upon  the  blest  success  of  impressing  and  saving  souls.  All 
that  is  startling.  And  then  comes  sadness  and  despondency ; 
then  come  all  those  feelings  which  are  so  graphically  depict- 
'ed  here :  irritation — "  he  was  angry ;"  swelling  pride — "  he 
would  not  go  in;"  jealousy,  which  required  soothing — "his 
father  went  out  and  entreated  him." 

And  now,  brethren,  mark  the  father's  answer.  It  does  not 
account  for  this  strange  dealing  by  God's  sovereignty.  It 
does  not  cut  the  knot  of  the  difficulty,  instead  of  untying  it, 
by  saying,  God  has  Bright  to  do  what  He  will.  He  does  not 
urge,  *God  has  a  right  to  act  on  favoritism  if  He  please.  But 
it  assigns  two  reasons.  The  first  reason  is,  "It  was  meet, 
right  that  we  should  make  merry."  It  is  meet  that  God 
should  be  glad  on  the  reclamation  of  a  sinner.  It  is  meet 
that  that  sinner,  looking  down  into  the  dreadful  chasm  over 
which  he  had  been  tottering,  should  feel  a  shudder  of  delight 
through  all  his*  frame  on  thinking  of  his  escape.  And  it  is 
meet  that  religious  men  should  not  feel  jealous  of  one  anoth- 
er, but  freely  and  generously  join  in  thanking  God  that 
others  have  got  happiness,  even  if  they  have  not.  The  spirit 
of  religious  exclusiveness,  which  looks  down  contemptuously 
instead  of  tenderly  on  worldly  men,  and  banishes  a  man  for- 
ever from  the  circle  of  its  joys  because  he  has  sinned  notori- 
ously, is  a  bad  spirit.  * 

Lastly,  the  reason  given  for  this  dealing  is,  "  Son,  thou  art 
always  with  me,  and  all  that  I  have  is  thine."  By  which 
Christ  seems  to  tell  us  that  the  disproportion  between  man 
and  man  is  much  less  than  we  suppose.  The  profligate  had 
had  one  hour  of  ecstasy — the  other  had  had  a  whole  life  of 
peace.  A  consistent  Christian  may  not  have  rapture ;  but 
he  has  that  which  is  much  better  than  rapture  :  calmness — 
God's  serene  and  perpetual  presence.  And  after  all,  breth- 
ren, that  is  the  best.  One  to  whom  much  is  forgiven  has 
much  joy.  He  must  have  it,  if  it  were  only  to  support  him 
through  those  fearful  trials  which  are  to  come — those  haunt- 
ing reminiscences  of  a  polluted  heart — those  frailties — those 
inconsistencies  to  which  the  habits  of  past  indulgence  have 
made  him  liable.  A  terrible  struggle  is  in  store  for  him  yet. 
Grudge  him  not  one  hour  of  unclouded  exultation.  But  re- 
ligion's best  gift — rest,  serenity — the  quiet  daily  love  of  one 
who  lives  perpetually  with  his  Father's  family — uninterrupt- 
ed usefulness — that  belongs  to  him  who  has  lived  steadily, 


The  Prodigal  and  his  Brother.  613 

ancl  walked  with  duty,  neither  grieving  nor  insulting  the 
Holy  Spirit  of  hie  God.  The  man  who  serves  God  early  has 
the  best  of  it ;  joy  is  well  in  its  way,  but  a  few  flashes  of  joy 
are  trifles  in  comparison  with  a  life  of  peace.  Which  is  best : 
the  flash  of  joy  lighting  up  the  whole  heart,  and  then  dark- 
ness till  the  next  flash  comes — or  the  steady  calm  sunlight 
of  day  in  which  men  work  ? 

And  now,  one  word  to  those  who  are  living  this  young 
man's  life — thinking  to  become  religious,  as  he  did,  when 
they  have  got  tired  of  the  world.  I  speak  to  those  who  are 
leading  what,  in  the  world's  softened  language  of  conceal- 
ment, is  called  a  gay  life.  Young  brethren,  let  two  motives 
be  urged  earnestly  upon  your  attention.  The  first  is  the 
motive  of  mere  honorable  feeling.  We  will  say  nothing 
about  the  uncertainty  of  life.  We  will  not  dwell  upon  this 
fact,  that  impressions  resisted  now  may  never  come  back 
again.  We  will  not  appeal  to  terror.  That  is  not  the 
weapon  which  a  Christian  minister  loves  to  use.  If  our  lips 
were  clothed  with  thunder,  it  is  not  denunciation  which 
makes  men  Christians ;  let  the  appeal  be  made  to  every 
high  and  generous  feeling  in  a  young  man's  bosom. 

Deliberately  and  calmly  you  are  going  to  do  this:  to 
spend  the  best  and  most  vigorous  portion  of  your  days  in 
idleness,  in  uselessness,  in  the  gratification  of  self,  in  the  con- 
tamination of  others.  And  then  weakness,  the  relics  and 
the  miserable  dregs  of  life — you  are  going  to  give  that  sor- 
ry offering  to  God,  because  His  mercy  endureth  forever ! 
Shame — shame  upon  the  heart  which  can  let  such  a  plan  rest 
in  it  one  moment.  If  it  be  there,  crush  it  like  a  man.  It  is 
a  degrading  thing  to  enjoy  husks  till  there  is  no  man  to  give 
them.  It  is  a  base  thing  to  resolve  to  give  to  God  as  little 
as  possible,  and  not  to  serve  Him  till  you  must. 

Young  brethren,  I  speak  principally  to  you.  You  have 
health  for  God  now.  You  have  strength  of  mind  and  body. 
IL^HI  have  powers  which  may  fit  you  for  real  usefulness. 
You  have  appetites  for  enjoyment  which  can  be  consecrated 
to  God.  You  acknowledge  the  law  of  honor.  Well,  then, 
by  every  feeling  of  manliness  and  generosity  remember  this : 
now.  and  not  later,  is  your  time  to  learn  what  religion 
means. 

There  is  another  motive,  and  a  very  solemn  one,  to  be 
urged  upon  those  who  are  delaying.  Every  moment  of  de- 
lay adds  bitterness  to  after-struggles.  The  moment  of  a 
feeling  of  hired  servitude  must  come.  If  a  man  will  not 
obey  God  with  a  warm  heart,  he  may  hereafter  have  to  do  it 
with  a  cold  one.  To  be  holy  is  the  work  of  a  lonjr  life.  The 


6 1 4  John  "s  Rebuke  of  Herod. 

experience  often  thousand  lessbns  teaches  only  a  little  of  it; 
and  all  this,  the  work  of  becoming  like  God,"the  man  who 
delays  is  crowding  into  the  space  of  a  few  years  or  a  few 
months.  When  we  have  lived  long  a  life  of  sin,  do  we  think 
that  repentance  and  forgiveness  will  obliterate  all  the  traces 
of  sin  upon  the  character?  Be  sure  that  every  sin  pays  its 
price :  "  Whatsoever  a  man  soweth,  that  shall  he  also  reap." 
Oh!  there  are  recollections  of  past  sin  which  come  crowd- 
ing up  to  the  brain,  with  temptation  in  them.  There  are 
old  habits  which  refuse  to  be  mastered  by  a  few  enthusiastic 
sensations.  There  is  so  much  of  the  old  man  clinging  to  the 
penitent  who  has  waited  long — he  is  so  much,  as  a  religious 
man,  like  what  he  was  when  he  was  a  worldly  man — that  it 
is  doubtful  whether  he  ever  reaches  in  this  world  the  full 
stature  of  Christian  manhood.  Much  warm  earnestness,  but 
strange  inconsistencies — that  is  the  character  of  one  who  is 
an  old  man  and  a  young  Christian.  Brethren,  do  we  wrish  to 
risk  all  this  ?  Do  we  want  to  learn  holiness  with  terrible 
struggles,  and  sore  affliction,  and  the  plague  of  much  re- 
maining evil  ?  Then  wait  before  you  turn  to  God. 


XXI. 
JOHN'S  REBUKE  OF  HEROD. 

"But  Herod  the  tetrarch,  being  reproved  by  him  for  Herodiashis  brother 
Philip's  wife,  and  for  all  the  evils  which  Herod  had  done,  added  yet  this 
above  all,  that  he  shut  up  John  in -prison." — Luke  iii.  19,  20. 

THE  life  of  John  the  Baptist  divides  itself  into  three  dis- 
tinct periods.  Of  the  first  we  are  told  almost  nothing,  but 
we  may  conjecture  much.  We  are  told  that  he  was  in  the 
deserts  till  his  sho wing  unto  Israel.  It  was  a  period,  proba- 
bly, in  which,  saddened  by  the  hollowness  of  all  life  in  Is- 
rael, and  perplexed  with  the  controversies  of  Jerusalem,  the 
controversies  of  Sadducee  with  Pharisee,  of  formalist  with 
mystic,  of  the  disciples  of  one  infallible  rabbi  with  the  disci- 
ples of  another  infallible  rabbi,  he  fled  for  refuge  to  the  wil- 
derness, to  see  whether  God  could  not  be  found  there  by  the 
heart  that  sought  Him,  without  the  aid  of  churches,  rituals, 
creeds,  and  forms.  This  period  lasted  thirty  years. 

The  second  period  is  a  shorter  one.  It  comprises  the  few 
months  of  his  public  ministry.  His  difficulties  were  over; 
he  had  reached  conviction  enough  to  live  and  die  on.  He 


John  "s  Rebuke  of  Herod.  6 1 5 

knew  not  all,  but  he  knew  something.  He  could  not  baptize 
with  the  Spirit,  but  he  could  at  least  baptize  with  water. 
It  was  not  given  to  him  to  build  up,  but  it  was  given  to  him 
to  pull  down  all  false  foundations.  He  knew  that  the  high- 
est truth  of  spiritual  life  was  to  be  given  by  One  that  should 
come  after.  What  he  had  learned  in  the  desert  was  con- 
tained in  a  few  words — Reality  lies  at  the  root  of  religious 
life.  Ye  must  be  real,  said  John.  "  Bring  forth  fruits  meet 
for  repentance."  Let  each  man  do  his  own  duty ;  let  the  rich 
impart  to  those  who  are  not  rich ;  let  the  publican  accuse 
no  man  falsely ;  let  the  soldier  be  content  with  his  wages. 
The  coming  kingdom  is  not  a  mere  piece  of  machinery  which 
will  make  you  all  good  and  happy  without  effort  of  your 
own.  Change  yourselves,  or  you  will  have  no  kingdom  at 
all.  Personal  reformation,  personal  reality,  that  was  John's 
message  to  the  world. 

It  was  an  incomplete  one ;  but  he  delivered  it  as  his  all, 
manfully ;  and  his  success  was  signal,  astonishing  even  to 
himself.  Successful  it  was,  because  it  appealed  to  all  the 
deepest  wants  of  the  human  heart.  It  told  of  peace  to  those 
who  had  been  agitated  by  tempestuous  passion.  It  promised 
forgetfulness  of  past  transgression  to  those  whose  consciences 
smarted  with  self-accusing  recollections.  It  spoke%of  refuge 
from  the  wrath  to  come  to  those  who  had  felt  it  a  fearful 
expectation  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  an  angry  God.  And  the 
result  of  that  message,  conveyed  by  the  symbol  of  baptism, 
was  that  the  desert  swarmed  with  crowds  who  owned  the 
attractive  spell  of  the  power  of  a  new  life  made  possible. 
Warriors,  paupers,  profligates — some  admiring  the  nobleness 
of  religious  life,  others  needing  it  to  fill  up  the  empty  hollow 
of  an  unsatisfied  heart ;  the  penitent,  the  heart-broken,  the 
worldly,  and  the  disappointed,  all  came.  And  with  them 
there  came  two  other  classes  of  men,  whose  approach  roused 
the  Baptist  to  astonishment. 

The  formalist,  not  satisfied  with  his  formality,  and  the 
infidel,  unable  to  rest  on  his  infidelity — they  came  too — 
startled,  for  one  hour  at  least,  to  the  real  significance  of  life, 
and  shaken  out  of  unreality.  The  Baptist's  message  wrung 
the  confession  from  their  souls :  "  Yes,  our  system  will  not 
do.  We  are  not  happy,  after  all ;  w6~  are  miserable.  Proph- 
et, whose  solitary  life,  far  away  there  in  the  desert,  has 
been  making  to  itself  a  home  in  the  mysterious  and  the  in- 
visible, what  hast  thou  got  to  tell  us  from  that  awful  other 
world  ?  What  are  we  to  do  ?" 

These  things  belong  to  a  period  of  John's  life  anterior  to 
the  text.  The  prophet  has  been  hitherto  in  a  self-selected 


6 1 6  John  "s  Rebuke  of  Herod. 

solitude,  the  free  wild  desert,  opening  his  heart  to  the  strange 
sights  and  sounds  through  which  the  grand  voice  of  orient- 
al nature  speaks  of  God  to  the  soul,  in  "a  way  that  books  can 
not  speak. 

We  have  arrived  at  the  third  period  of  his  history.  We 
are  now  to  consider  him  as  the  tenant  of  a  compelled  solitude, 
in  the  dungeon  of  a  capricious  tyrant.  Hitherto,  by  that 
rugged  energy  with  which  he  battled  with  the  temptations 
of  this  world,  he  has  been  shedding  a  glory  round  human 
life.  We  are  now  to  look  at  him  equally  alone ;  equally 
majestic,  shedding  by  martyrdom  almost  a  brighter  glory 
round  human  death.  He  has  hitherto  been  receiving  the 
homage  of  almost  unequalled  popularity.  We  are  now  to 
observe  him  reft  of  every  admirer,  every  soother,  every  friend. 
He  has  been  hitherto  overcoming  the  temptations  of  existence 
by  entire  seclusion  from  them  all.  We  are  now  to  ask  how 
he  will  stem  those  seductions  when  he  is  brought  into  the 
very  midst  of  them,  and  the  whole  outward  aspect  of  his  life 
has  laid  aside  its  distinctive  and  peculiar  character ;  when  he 
has  ceased  to  be  the  anchorite,  and  has  become  the  idol  of 
court.  » 

Much  instruction,  brethren,  there  ought  to  be*  in  all  this, 
if  we  only  knew  rightly  how  to  bring  it  out,  or  even  to  paint 
in  any  thing  like  intelligible  colors  the  picture  which  our 
own  minds  have  formed.  Instructive,  because  human  life 
must  ever  be  instructive.  How  a  human  spirit  contrived  to 
get  its  life  accomplished  in  this  confused  world  :  what  a  man 
like  us,  and  yet  no  common  man,  felt,  did,  suffered ;  how  he 
fought,  and  how  he  conquered ;  if  we  could  only  get  a  clear 
possession  and  firm  grasp  of  that,  we  should  have  got  almost 
all  that  is  worth  having  in  truth,  with  the  technicalities 
stripped  off,  for  what  is  the  use  of  truth  except  to  teach  man 
how  to  live  ?  There  is  a  vast  value  in  genuine  biography.  It 
is  good  to  have  real  views  of  what  life  is,  and  what  Christian 
life  may  be.  It  is  good  to  familiarize  ourselves  with  the  his- 
tory of  those  wjiom  God  has  pronounced  the  salt  of  the  earth. 
We  can  not  help  contracting  good  from  such  association. 

And  just  one  thing  respecting  this  man  whom  we  are  to 
follow  for  some  time  to-day.  Let  us  not  be  afraid  of  seeming 
to  rise  into  a  mere  enthusiastic  panegyric  of  a  man.  It  is  a 
rare  man  we  have  to  deal  with,  one  of  God's  heroic  ones,  a 
true  conqueror ;  one  whose  life  and  motives  it  is  hard  to 
understand  without  feeling  warmly  and  enthusiastically 
about  them ;  one  of  the  very  highest  characters,  rightly 
understood,  of  all  the  Bible.  Panegyric  such  as  we  can  give, 
what  is  it  after  he  has  been  stamped  by  his  Master's 


John  Js  Rebuke  of  Herod.  6 1 7 

eulogy — "  A  prophet  ?  Yea,  I  say  unto  you,  and  more  than  a 
prophet.  Among  them  that  are  born  of  women  there  hath 
not  risen  a  greater  than  John  the  Baptist."  In  the  verse 
which  is  to  serve  us  for  our  guidance  on  this  subject  there 
are  two  branches  which  will  afford  us  fruit  of  contempla- 
tion. It  is  written, "  Herod  being  reproved  by  John  for  He- 
lodias." 

Here  is  our  first  subject  of  thought.  The  truthfulness  of 
Christian  character. 

And  then  next,  he  "  shut  up  John  in  prison." 

Here  is  our  second  topic.  The  apparent  failure  of  religious 
life. 

The  point  which  we  have  to  look  at  in  this  section  of  the 
Baptist's  life  is  the  truthfulness  of  religious  character.  For 
the  prophet  was  now  in  a  sphere  of  life  altogether  new.  He 
had  got  to  the  third  act  of  his  history.  The  first  was  per- 
formed right  manfully  in  the  desert — that  is  past.  He  has 
now  become  a  known  man,  celebrated  through  the  country, 
brought  into  the  world,  great  men  listening  to  him,  and  in 
the  way,  if  he  chooses  it,  to  become  familiar  with  the  polished 
life  of  Herod's  court.  For  this  we  read  :  Herod  observed 
John,  that  is,  cultivated  his  acquaintance,  paid  him  marked 
attention,  heard  him,  did  many  things  at  his  bidding,  and 
heard  him  gladly. 

For  thirty  long  years  John  had  lived  in  that  far-off  desert, 
filling  his  soul  with  the  grandeur  of  solitude,  content  to  be 
unknown,  not  conscious,  most  likely,  that  there  was  any  thing 
supernatural  in  him — living  with  the  mysterious  God  in 
silence.  And  then  came  the  day  when  the  qualities,  so 
secretly  nursed,  became  known  in  the  great  world  :  men  felt 
that  there  was  a  greater  than  themselves  before  them,  and 
then  came  the  trial  of  admiration,  when  the  crowds  congre- 
gated round  to  listen.  And  all  that  trial  John  bore  unin- 
jured, for  when  those  vast  crowds  dispersed  at  night,  he  was 
left  alone  with  God  and  the  universe  once  more.  That  pre- 
vented his  being  spoilt  by  flattery.  But  now  comes  the 
great  trial.  John  is  transplanted  from  the  desert  to  the 
town :  he  has  quitted  simple  life ;  he  has  come  to  artificial 
life.  John  has  won  a  king's  attention,  and  now  the  question 
is,  Will  the  diamond  of  the  mine  bear  polishing  without 
breaking  into  shivers  ?  Is  the  iron  prophet  melting  into 
voluptuous  softness?  Is  he  getting  the  world's  manners 
and  the  world's  courtly  insincerity  ?  Is  he  becoming  arti- 
ficial through  his  change  of  life  ?  My  Christian  brethren,  we 
find  nothing  of  the  kind.  There  he  stands  in  Herod's  volup- 
tuous court  the  prophet  of  the  desert  still,  unseduced  by 


6 1 8  John 's  Rebuke  of  Herod. 

blandishment  from  his  high  loyalty,  and  fronting  his  patron 
and  his  prince  with  the  stern  unpalatable  truth  of  God. 

It  is  refreshing  to  look  on  such  a  scene  as  this — the  highest, 
the  very  highest  moment,  I  think,  in  all  John's  history ; 
higher  than  his  ascetic  life.  For  after  all,  ascetic  life  such  as 
he  had  led  before,  when  he  fed  on  locusts  and  wild  honey,  is 
hard  only  in  the  first  resolve.  When  you  have  once  made 
up  your  mind  to  that,  it  becomes  a  habit  to  live  alone.  To 
lecture  the  poor  about  religion  is  not  hard.  To  speak  of  un- 
worldliness  to  men  with  whom  we  do  not  associate,  and  who 
do  not  see  our  daily  inconsistencies,  that  is  not  hard.  To 
speak  contemptuously  of  the  world  when  we  have  no  power 
of  commanding  its  admiration,  that  is  not  difficult.  But 
when  God  has  given  a  man  accomplishments  or  powers 
which  would  enable  him  to  shine  in  society,  and  he  can  still 
be  firm,  and  steady,  and  uncompromisingly  true ;  when  he 
can  be  as  undaunted  before  the  rich  as  before  the  poor ;  when 
rank  and  fashion  can  not  subdue  him  into  silence :  when  he 
hates  moral  evil  as  sternly  in  a  great  man  as  he  would  in  a 
peasant,  there  is  truth  in  that  man.  This  was  the  test  to 
which  the  Baptist  was  submitted. 

And  now  contemplate  him  for  a  moment ;  forget  that  he 
is  an  historical  personage,  and  remember  that  he  was  a  man 
like  us.  Then  comes  the  trial.  All  the  habits  and  rules  of 
polite  life  would  be  whispering  such  advice  as  this  :  "  Only 
keep  your  remarks  within  the  limits  of  politeness.  If  you 
can  not  approve,  be  silent;  you  can  do  no  good  by  finding 
fault  with  the  great."  We  know  how  the  whole  spirit  of  a 
man  like  John  would  have  revolted  at  that.  Imprisonment  ? 
Yes.  Death  ?  Well,  a  man  can  die  but  once — any  thing, 
but  not  cowardice — not  meanness — not  pretending  what  I  do 
not  feel,  and  disguising  what  I  do  feel.  Brethren,  death  is 
not  the  worst  thing  in  this  life  ;  it  is  not  difficult  to  die — five 
minutes  and  the  sharpest  agony  is  past.  The  worst  thing  in 
this  life  is  cowardly  untruthfulness.  Let  men  be  rough,  if 
they  will,  let  them  be  unpolished,  but  let  Christian  men  in  all 
they  say  be  sincere.  No  flattery,  no  speaking  smoothly  to  a 
man  before  his  face,  while  all  the  time  there  is  a  disapproval 
of  his  conduct  in  the  heart.  The  thing  we  want  in  Christi- 
anity is  not  politeness,  it  is  sincerity. 

There  are  three  things  which  we  remark  in  this  truthful- 
ness of  John.  The  first  is  its  straightforwardness,  the  second 
is  its  unconsciousness,  and  the  last  its  unselfishness.  The 
straightforwardness  is  remarkable  in  this  circumstance,  that 
there  is  no  indirect  coming  to  the  point.  At  once,  without 
circumlocution,  the  true  man  speaks.  "  It  is  not  lawful  for 


John  3  Rebuke  of  Herod.  619 

thee  to  have  her."  There  are  some  men  whom  God  has 
gifted  -with  a  rare  simplicity  of  heart,  which  makes  them  ut- 
terly incapable  of  pursuing  the  subtle  excuses  which  can  be 
made  for  evil.  There  is  in  John  no  morbid  sympathy  for  the 
offender  :  "  It  is  not  lawful."  He  does  not  say, "  It  is  best  to 
do  otherwise  ;  it  is  unprofitable  for  your  own  happiness  to 
live  in  this  way."  He  says  plainly,  "  It  is  wrong  for  you  to 
do  this  evil." 

Earnest  men  in  this  world  have  no  time  for  subtleties  and 
casuistry.  Sin  is  detestable,  horrible,  in  God's  sight,  and 
when  once  it  has  been  made  clear  that  it  is  not  lawful,  a 
Christian  has  nothing  to  do  with  toleration  of  it.  If  we  dare 
not  tell  our  patron  of  his  sin  we  must  give  up  his  patronage. 
In  the  next  place,  there  was  unconsciousness  in  John's  rebuke. 
We  remark,  brethren,  that  he  was  utterly  ignorant  that  he 
was  doing  a  fine  thing.  There  was  no  sidelong  glance,  as 
in  a  mirror,  of  admiration  for  himself.  He  was  not  feeling, 
This  is  brave.  He  never  stopped  to  feel  that  after-ages 
would  stand  by,  and  look  at  that  deed  oi  nis,  and  say,  "  Well 
done."  His  reproof  comes  out  as  the  natural  impulse  of  an 
earnest  heart.  John  was  the  last  of  all  men  to  feel  that  he 
had  done  any  thing  extraordinary.  And  this  we  hold  to  be 
an  inseparable  mark  of  truth.  No  true  man  is  conscious  that 
he  is  true ;  he  is  rather  conscious  of  insincerity.  No  brave 
man  is  conscious  of  his  courage ;  bravery  is  natural  to  him. 
The  skin  of  Moses's  face  shone  after  he  had  been  with  God, 
but  Moses  wist  not  of  it. 

There  are  many  of  us  who  would  have  prefaced  that  re- 
buke with  a  long  speech.  We  should  have  begun  by  ob- 
serving how  difficult  it  was  to  speak  to  a  monarch,  how  del- 
icate the  ^subject,  how  much  proof  we  were  giving  of  our 
friendship.  We  should  have  asked  the  great  man  to  accept 
it  as  a  proof  of  our  devotion.  John  does  nothing  of  this. 
Prefaces  betray  anxiety  about  self;  John  was  not  thinking 
of  himself.  He  was  thinking  of  God's  offended  law,  and  the 
guilty  king's  soul.  Brethren,  it  is  a  lovely  and  a  graceful 
thing  to  see  men  natural.  It  is  beautiful  to  see  men  sincere 
without  being  haunted  with  the  consciousness  of  their  sincer- 
ity. There  is  a  sickly  habit  that  men  get  of  looking  into 
themselves,  and  thinking  how  they  are  appearing.  We  are 
always  unnatural  when  we  do  that.  The  very  tread  of  one 
who  is  thinking  how  he  appears  to  others,  becomes  dizzy 
with  affectation.  He  is  too  conscious  of  what  he  is  doing,  and 
self-consciousness  is  affectation.  Let  us  aim  at  being  natural. 
And  we  can  only  become  natural  by  thinking  of  God  and  duty, 
instead  of  the  way  in  which  we  are  serving  God  and  duty. 


62O  Johns  Rebuke  of  Herod. 

There  was,  lastly,  something  exceedingly  unselfish  in 
John's  truthfulness.  We  do  not  build  much  on  a  man's  be- 
ing merely  true.  It  costs  some  men  nothing  to  be  true,  for 
they  have  none  of  those  sensibilities  which  shrink  from  in- 
flicting pain.  There  is  a  surly,  bitter  way  of  speaking  truth 
which  says  little  for  a  man's  heart.  Some  men  have  not 
delicacy  enough  to  feel  that  it  is  an  awkward  and  a  painful 
thing  to  rebuke  a  brother:  they  are  in  their  element  when 
they  can  become,  censors  of  the  great.  John's  truthfulness 
was  not  like  that.  It  was  the  earnest  loving  nature  of  the 
man  which  made  him  say  sharp  things.  Was  it  to  gratify 
spleen  that  he  reproved  Herod  for  all  the  evils  he  had  done  ? 
Was  it  to  minister  to  a  diseased  and  disappointed  misan- 
thropy ?  Little  do  we  understand  the  depth  of  tenderness 
which  there  is  in  a  rugged,  true  nature,  if  we  think  that. 
John's  whole  life  was  an  iron  determination  to  crush  self  in 
every  thing. 

Take  a  single  instance.  John's  ministry  was  gradually  su- 
perseded by  the  ministry  of  Christ.  It  was  the  moon  wan- 
ing before  the  Sun.  They  came  and  told  him  that,  "  Rabbi, 
He  to  whom  thou  barest  witness  beyond  Jordan  baptizeth, 
and  all  men  come  unto  Him."  Two  of  his  own  personal 
friends,  apparently  some  of  the  last  he  had  left,  deserted  him, 
and  went  to  the  new  teacher. 

And  now  let  us  estimate  the  keenness  of  that  trial.  Re- 
member John  was  a  man :  he  had  tasted  the  sweets  of  in- 
fluence ;  that  influence  was  dying  away,  and  just  in  the  prime 
of  life  he  was  to  become  nothing.  Who  can  not  conceive  the 
keenness  of  that  trial  ?  Bearing  that  in  mind,  what  is  the 
prophet's  answer  ?  One  of  the  most  touching  sentences  in 
all  Scripture — calmly,  meekly,  the  hero  recognizes  his  des- 
tiny— "  He  must  increase,  but  I  must  decrease."  He  does 
more  than  recognize  it — he  rejoices  in  it,  rejoices  to  be  noth- 
ing, to  be  forgotten,  despised,  so  as  only  Christ  can  be  every 
thing.  "  The  friend  of  the  bridegroom  rejoiceth  because  he 
heareth  the  bridegroom's  voice,  this  my  joy  is  fulfilled."  And 
it  is  this  man,  with  self  so  thoroughly  crushed — the  outward 
self  by  bodily  austerities,  the  inward  self  by  Christian  hum- 
bleness— it  is  this  man  who  speaks  so  sternly  to  his  sovereign,, 
"  It  is  not  lawful."  Was  there  any  gratification  of  human 
feeling  there  ?  Or  was  not  the  rebuke  unselfish  ?  Meant  for 
God's  honor,  dictated  by  the  uncontrollable  hatred  of  all  evil, 
careless  altogether  of  personal  consequences  ? 

Now  it  is  this,  my  brethren,  that  we  want.  The  world- 
spirit  can  rebuke  as  sharply  as  the  Spirit  which  was  in  John ; 
the  world-spirit  can  be  severe  upon  the  great  when  it  is 


John 's  Rebuke  of  Herod.  6  2 1 

jealous.  The  worldly  man  can  not  bear  to  hear  of  another's 
success,  he  can  not  endure  to  hear  another  praised  for  accom- 
plishments, or  another  succeeding  in  a  profession,  and  the 
world  can  fasten  very  bitterly  upon  a  neighbor's  faults,  and 
say,"  It  is  not  lawful."  We  expect  that  in  the  world.  But 
that  this  should  creep  among  religious  men,  that  we  should 
be  bitter — that  we,  Christians,  should  suffer  jealousy  to  en- 
throne itself  in  our  hearts — that  we  should  find  fault  from 
spleen,  and  not  from  love — that  we  shoujd  not  be  able  to  be 
calm  and  gentle,  and  sweet-tempered,  when  we  decrease, 
when  our  powers  fail — that  is  the  shame.  The  love  of  Christ 
is  intended  to  make  such  men  as  John  such  high  and  heaven- 
ly characters.  What  is  our  Christianity  worth  if  it  can  not 
teach  us  a  truthfulness,  an  unselfishness,  and  a  generosity  be* 
yond  the  world's  ? 

We  are  to  say  something,  in  the  second  place,  of  the  ap- 
parent failure  of  Christian  life. 

The  concluding  sentence  of  this  verse  informs  us  that  John 
was  shut  up  in  prison.  And  the  first  thought  which  sug- 
gests itself  is,  that  a  magnificent  career  is  cut  short  too  soon. 
At  the  very  outset  of  ripe  and  experienced  manhood  the 
whole  thing  ends  in  failure.  John's  day  of  active  usefulness 
is  over ;  at  thirty  years  of  age  his  work  is  done ;  and  what 
permanent  effect  have  all  his  labors  left  ?  The  crowds  that 
listened  to  his  voice,  awed  into  silence  by  Jordan's  side,  we 
hear^  of  them  no  more.  Herod  heard  John  gladly,  did  much 
good  by  reason  of  his  influence.  What  was  all  that  worth  ? 
The  prophet  comes  to  himself  in  a  dungeon,  and  wakes  to 
the  bitter  conviction  that  his  influence  had  told  much  in  the 
way  of  commanding  attention,  and  even  winning  reverence, 
but  very  little  in  the  way  of  gaining  souls;  the  bitterest,  the 
most  crushing  discovery  in  the  whole  circle  of  ministerial  ex- 
perience. All  this  was  seeming  failure. 

And  this,  brethren,  is  the  picture  of  almost  all  human  life. 
To  some  moods,  and  under  some  aspects,  it  seems,  as  it  seem- 
ed to  the  psalmist, "  Man  walketh  in  a  vain  shadow  and  dis- 
quieteth  himself  in  vain."  Go  to  any  church-yard,  and  stand 
ten  minutes  among  the  grave-stones ;  read  inscription  after 
inscription  recording  the  date  of  birth,  and  the  date  of  death, 
of  him  who  lies  below,  all  the  trace  which  myriads  h/ive  left 
behind  of  their  having  done  their  day's  work  on  God's  earth 
— that  is  failure  or — seems  so.  Cast  the  eye  down  the  col- 
umns of  any  commander's  dispatch  after  a  general  action. 
The  men  fell  by  thousands ;  the  officers  by  hundreds.  Cour- 
age, high  hope,  self-devotion,  ended  in  smoke — forgotten  by 
the  time  of  the  next  list  of  slain :  that  is  the  failure  of  life 


622  Johns  Rebuke  of  Herod. 

once  more.  Cast  your  eye  over  the  shelves  of  a  public  li- 
brary— there  is  the  hard  toil  of  years,  the  product  of  a  life 
of  thought ;  all  that  remains  of  it  is  there  in  a  worm-eaten 
folio,  taken  down  once  in  a  century.  Failure  of  human  life 
again.  .  Stand  by  the  most  enduring  of  all  human  labors, 
the  pyramids  of  Egypt.  One  hundred  thousand  men,  year 
by  year,,  raised  those  enormous  piles  to  protect  the  corpses 
of  the  buried  from  rude  inspection.  The  spoiler's  hand  has 
been  there,  and  the  bodies  have  been  rifled  from  their  mau- 
soleum, and  three  thousand  years  have  written  "  failure  " 
upon  that.  In  all  that,  my  Christian  brethren,  if  we  look  no 
deeper  than  the  surface,  we  read  the  grave  of  human  hope, 
the  apparent  nothingness  of  human  labor. 

And  then  look  at  this  history  once  more.  In  the  isolation 
of  John's  dying  hour  there  appears  failure  again.  When  a 
great  man  dies  we  listen  to  hear  what  he  has  to  say,  we  turn 
to  the  last  page  of  his  biography  first,  to  see  what  he  had  to 
bequeath  to  the  world  as  his  experience  of  life.  We  expect 
that  the  wisdom,  which  he  has  been  hiving  up  for  years,  wrill 
distill  in  honeyed  sweetness  then.  It  is  generally  not  so. 
There  is  stupor  and  silence  at  the  last.  "How  dieth  the 
wise  man  ?"  asks  Solomon  :  and  he  answers  bitterly,  "As  the 
fool."  The  martyr  of  truth  dies  privately  in  Herod's  dun- 
geon. We  have  no  record  of  his  last  words.  There  were  no 
crowds  to  look  on.  We  can  not  describe  how  he  received 
his  sentence.  Was  he  calm?  Was  he  agitated?  Did  he 
bless  his  murderer?  Did  he  give  utterance  to  any  deep  re- 
flections on  human  life  ?  All  that  is  shrouded  in  silence. 
He  bowed  his  head,  and  the  sharp  stroke  fell  flashing  down. 
We  know  that,  we  know  no  more — apparently  a  noble  life 
abortive. 

And  now  let  us  ask  the  question  distinctly,  Was  all  this 
indeed  failure  ?  No,  my  Christian  brethren,  it  was  sublimest 
victory.  John's  work  was  no  failure  ;  he  left  behind  him  no 
sect  to  which  he  had  given  his  name,  but  his  disciples  passed 
into  the  service  of  Christ,  and  were  absorbed  in  the  Christian 
Church.  Words  from"  John  had  made  impressions,  and  men 
forgot  in  after  years  where  the  impressions  first  came  from, 
but  the  day  of  judgment  will  not  forget.  John  laid  the 
foundations  of  a  temple,  and  others  built  upon  it.  He  laid  it 
in  struggle,  in  martyrdom.  It  was  covered  up  like  the  rough 
masonry  below  ground,  but  when  we  look  round  on  the  vast 
Christian  Church  we  are  looking  at  the  superstructure  of 
John's  toil. 

There  is  a  lesson  for  us  in  all  that,  if  we  will  learn  it. 
Work,  true  work,  done  honestly  and  manfully  for  Christ, 


.    John  's  Rebuke  of  Hercd.  623 

never  can  be  a  failure.  Your  own  work,  my  brethren,  which 
God  has  given  you  to  do,  whatever  that  is,  let  it  be  done 
truly.  Leave  eternity  to  show  that  it  has  not  been  in  vain 
in  the  Lord.  Let  it  but  be  work,  it  will  tell.  True  Chris- 
tian life  is  like  the  march  of  a  conquering  army  into  a  for- 
tress which  has  been  breached ;  men  fall  by  hundreds  in  the 
ditch.  Was  their  fall  a  failure  ?  Nay,  for  their  bodies 
bridge  over  the  hollow,  and  over  them  the  rest  pass  on  to 
victory.  The  quiet  religious  worship  that  we  have  this  day 
—how  comes  it  to  be  ours  ?  It  was  purchased  for  us  by  the 
constancy  of  such  men  as  John,  who  freely  gave  their  lives. 
We  are  treading  upon  a  bridge  of  martyrs.  The  suffering 
was  theirs — the  victory  is  ours.  John's  career  was  no  failure. 

Yet  we  have  one  more  circumstance  which  seems  to  tell  of 
failure.  In  John's  prison,  solitude,  misgiving,  black  doubt, 
seem  for  a  time  to  have  taken  possession  of  the  prophet's 
soul.  AH  that  we  know  of  those  feelings  is  this  :  John 
while  in  confinement  sent  two  of  his  disciples  to  Christ,  to 
say  to  Him,  "Art  thou  He  that  should  come,  or  do  we  look 
for  another  ?"  Here  is  the  language  of  painful  uncertainty. 
We  shall  not  marvel  at  this  if  we  look  steadily  at  the  cir- 
cumstances. Let  us  conceive  John's  feelings.  The  enthu- 
siastic child  of  Nature,  who  had  roved  in  the  desert,  free  as 
the  air  he  breathed,  is  now  suddenly  arrested,  and  his  strong 
restless  heart  limited  to  the  four  walls  of  a  narrow  dungeon. 
And  there  he  lay  startled.  An  eagle  cleaving  the  air  with 
motionless  wing,  and  in  the  midst  of  his  career  brought  from 
the  black  cloud  by  an  arrow  to  the  ground,  and  looking 
round  with  his  wild,  large  eye,  stunned,  and  startled  there ; 
just  such  was  the  free  prophet  of  the  wilderness,  when  Her- 
od's guards  had  curbed  his  noble  flight,  and  left  him  alone 
in  his  dungeon. 

Now  there  is  apparent  failure  here,  brethren  :  it  is  not  the 
thing  which  we  should  have  expected.  We  should  have  ex- 
pected that  a  man  who  had  lived  so  close  to  God  all  his  life 
would  have  no  misgivings  in  his  last  hours.  But,  my  breth- 
ren, it  is  not  so.  It  is  the  strange  truth  that  some  of  the 
highest  of  God's  servants  are  tried  with  darkness  on  the  dy- 
ing bed.  Theory  would  say,  when  a  religious  man  is  laid  up 
for  his  last  struggles,  now  he  is  alone  for  deep  communion 
with  his  God.  Fact  very  often  says, "  No — now  he  is  alone, 
as  his  Master  was  before  him,  in  the  wilderness  to  be  tempted 
of  the  devil."  Look  at  John  in  imagination,  and  you  would 
say,  "  Now  his  rough  pilgrimage  is  done.  He  is  quiet,  out 
of  the  world,  with  the  rapt  foretaste  of  heaven  in  his  soul." 
Look  at  John  in  fact.  He  is  agitated,  sending  to  Christ,  not 


624  Johns  Rebuke  of  Herod. 

able  to  rest,  grim  doubt  wrestling  with  his  soul,  misgiving 
for  one  last  black  hour  whether  all  his  hope  has  not  been  de- 
lusion. 

There  is  one  thing  we  remark  here  by  the  way.  Doubt 
often  comes  from  inactivity.  We  can  not  give  the  philoso- 
phy of  it,  but  this  is  the  fact,  Christians  who  have  nothing  ic 
do  but  to  sit  thinking  of  themselves,  meditating,  sentimental- 
izing, are  almost  sure  to  become  the  prey  of  dark,  black  mis- 
fivings.  John  struggling  in  the  desert  needs  no  proof  that 
esus  is  the  Christ.  John  shut  up  became  morbid  and  doubt- 
ful immediately.  Brethren,  all  this  is  very  marvellous.  The 
history  of  a  human  soul  is  marvellous.  We  are  mysteries, 
but  here  is  the  practical  lesson  of  it  all.  For  sadness,  for 
suffering,  for  misgiving,  there  is  no  remedy  but  stirring  and 
doing. 

Now  look  once  more  at  these  doubts  of  John's.  All  his 
life  long  John  had  been  wishing  and  expecting  that  the  king- 
dom of  God  would  come.  The  kingdom  of  God  is  right  tri- 
umphant over  wrong,  moral  evil  crushed,  goodness  set  up  in 
its  place,  the  true  man  recognized,  the  false  man  put  down 
and  forgotten.  All  his  life  long  John  had  panted  for  that ; 
his  hope  was  to  make  men  better.  He  tried  to  make  the  sol- 
diers merciful,  and  the  publicans  honest,  and  the  Pharisees  sin- 
cere. His  complaint  was,  Why  is  the  world  the  thing  it  is  ? 
All  his  life  long  he  had  been  appealing  to  the  invisible  jus- 
tice of  Heaven  against  the  visible  brute  force* which  he  saw 
around  him.  Christ  had  appeared,  and  his  hopes  were  strain- 
ing to  the  utmost.  "  Here  is  the  man  !"  And  now,  behold, 
here  is  no  kingdom  of  heaven  at  all,  but  one  of  darkness  still, 
oppression  and  cruelty  triumphant,  Herod  putting  God's 
prophet  in  prison,  and  the  Messiah  quietly  letting  things 
take  their  course.  Can  that  be  indeed  Messiah  ?  "All  this 
was  exceedingly  startling.  And  it  seems  that  then  John  be- 
gan to  feel  the  horrible  doubt  whether  the  whole  thing  were 
not  a  mistake,  and  whether  all  that  which  he  had  taken  for 
inspiration  were  not,  after  all,  only  the  excited  hopes  of  an 
enthusiastic  temperament.  Brethren,  the  prophet  was  well 
nigh  on  the  brink  of  failure. 

But  let  us  mark — that  a  man  has  doubts — that  is  not  the 
svil;  all  earnest  men  must  expect  to  be  tried  with  doubts. 
All  men  who  feel,  with  their  whole  souls,  the  value  of  the 
truth  which  is  at  stake, can  not  be  satisfied  with  a  "perhaps." 
Why,  when  all  that  is  true  and  excellent  in  this  world,  all 
that  is  worth  living  for,  is  in  that  question  of  questions,  it  is 
no  marvel  if  we  sometimes  wish,  like  Thomas,  to  see  the  prints 
of  the  nails,  to  know  whether  Christ  be  indeed  our  Lord  or 


John  s  Rebuke  of  Herod.  625 

not.  Cold -hearts  are  not  anxious  enough  to  doubt.  Men 
who  love  will  have  their  misgivings  at  times ;  that  is  not 
the  evil.  But  the  evil  is,  when  men  go  on  in  that  languid 
doubting  way,  content  to  doubt,  proud  of  their  doubts,  mor- 
bidly glad  to  talk  about  them,  liking  the  romantic  gloom  of 
twilight,  without  the  manliness  to  say — I  must  and  will 
know  the  truth.  That  did  not  John.  Brethren,  John  ap- 
pealed to  Christ.  He  did  exactly  what  we  do  when  we 
pray — and  he  got  his  answer.  Our  Master  said  to  his  disci- 

5les,  Go  to  my  suffering  servant,  and  give  him  proof.  Tell 
ohn  the  things  ye  see  and  hear — "  The  blind  see,  the  deaf 
hear,  the  dead  are  raised,  to  the  poor  the  Gospel  is  preached." 
There  is  a  deep  lesson  wrapped  up  in  this.  We  get  a  firm 
grasp  of  truth  by  prayer.  Communion  with  Christ  is  the 
best  proof  of  Christ's  existence  and  Christ's  love.  It  is  so 
even  in"  human  life.  Misgivings  gather  darkly  round  our 
heart  about  our  friend  in  his  absence  ;  but  we  seek  his  frank 
smile,  we  feel  his  affectionate  grasp :  our  suspicions  go  to 
sleep  again.  It  is  just  so  in  religion.  No  man  is  in  the 
habit  of  praying  to  God  in  Christ,  and  then  doubts  whether 
Christ  is  He  "  that  should  come."  It  is  in  the  power  of 
prayer  to  realize  Christ,  to  bring  Him  near,  to  make  you  feel 
His  life  stirring  like  a  pulse  within  you.  Jacob  could  not 
doubt  whether  he  had  been  with  God  when  his  sinew  shrunk. 
John  could  not  doubt  whether  Jesus  was  the  Christ,  when 
the  things  He  had  done  were  pictured  out  so  vividly  in  an- 
swer to  his  prayer.  Let  but  a  man  live  with  Christ,  anxious 
to  have  his  own  life  destroyed  and  Christ's  life  established 
in  its  place,  losing  himself  in  Christ,  that  man  will  have  all 
his  misgivings  silenced.  These  are  the  two  remedies  for 
doubt — activity  and  prayer.  He  wrho  works,  and  feels  he 
works — he  who  prays,  and  knows  he  prays — lias  got  the  se- 
cret of  transforming  life-failure  into  life-victory. 

In  conclusion,  brethren,  we  make  three  remarks  which 
could  not  be  introduced  into  the  body  of  this  subject.  The 
first  is :  let  young  and  ardent  minds,  under  the  first  impres- 
sions of  religion,  beware  how  they  pledge  themselves  by  any 
open  profession  to  more  than  they  can  perform.  Herod 
warmly  took  up  religion  at  first,  courted  the  prophet  of  re- 
ligion, and  then  when  the  hot  fit  of  enthusiasm  had  passed 
away,  he  found  that  he  had  a  clog  round  his  life  from  which  he 
could  only  disengage  himself  by  a  rough,  rude  effort.  Breth- 
ren whom  God  has  touched,  it  is  good  to  count  the  cost  be- 
fore you  begin.  If  you  give  up  present  pursuits  impetuously, 
are  you  sure  that  present  impulses  will  last  ?  Are  you  quite 
certain  that  a  day  will  not  come  when  you  will  curse  the 

2T   ' 


626  John 's  Rebuke  of  Herod. 

hour  in  which  you  broke  altogether  with  the  world  ?  Are 
you  quite  sure  that  the  revulsion  back  again  will  not  be  as 
impetuous  as  Herod's,  and  your  hatred  of  the  religion  which 
has  become  a  clog  as  intense  as  it  now  is  ardent  ? 

Many  things  doubtless  there  are  to  be  given  up  —  amuse- 
ments that  are  dangerous,  society  that  is  questionable.  What 
we  give  up,  let  us  give  up,  not  from  quick  feeling  but  from 
principle.  Enthusiasm  is  a  lovely  thing,  but  let  us  be  calm 
in  what  we  do.  In  that  solemn,  grand  thing — Christian  life 
— one  step  backward  is  religious  death. 

Once  more :  we  get  from  this  subject  the  doctrine  of  a  res- 
urrection. John's  life  was  hardness,  his  end  was  agony. 
That  is  frequently  Christian  life.  Therefore,  says  the  apos- 
tle, if  there  be  no  resurrection  the  Christian's  choice  is  wrong ; 
"  If  in  this  life  only  we  have  hope  in  Christ,  then  are  we  of 
all  men  most  miserable."  Christian  life  is  not  visible  success 
— very  often  it  is  the  apparent  opposite  of  success.  It  is  the 
resurrection  of  Christ  working  itself  out  in  us  ;  but  it  is  very 
often  the  cross  of  Christ  imprinting  itself  on  us  very  sharply. 
The  highest  prize  which  God  has  to  give  here  is  martyrdom. 
The  highest  style  of  life  is  the  Baptist's — heroic,  enduring, 
manly  love.  The  noblest  coronet  which  any  son  of  man  can 
wear  is  a  crown  of  thorns.  Christian,  this  is  not  your  rest. 
Be  content  to  feel  that  this  world  is  not  your  home.  Home- 
less upon  earth,  try  more  and  more  to  make  your  home  in 
heaven,  above  with  Christ. 

Lastly,  we  have  to  learn  from  this,  that  devotedness  to 
Christ  is  our  only  blessedness.  It  is  surely  a  strange  thing 
to  see  the  way  in  which  men  crowded  round  the  austere 
prophet,  all  saying,  "  Guide  us,  we  can  not  guide  ourselves." 
Publicans,  Pharisees,  Sadducees,  Herod,  whenever  John  ap- 
pears, all  bend  before  him,  offering  him  homage  and  leader- 
ship. How  do  we  account  for  this  ?  The  truth  is,  the  spirit 
of  man  groans  beneath  the  weight  of  its  own  freedom.  When 
a  man  has  no  guide,  no  master  but  himself,  he  is  miserable  ? 
we  want  guidance,  and  if  we  find  a  man  nobler,  wiser  than 
ourselves,  it  is  almost  our  instinct  to  prostrate  our  affections 
before  that  man,  as  the  crowds  did  by  Jordan,  and  say, "  Be 
my  example,  my  guide,  my  soul's  sovereign."  That  passion- 
ate need  of  worship — hero-worship  it  has  been  called — is  a 
primal,  universal  instinct  of  the  heart.  Christ  is  the  answer 
to  it.  Men  will  not  do  ;  we  try  to  find  men  to  reverence 
thoroughly,  and  we  can  not  do  it.  We  go  through  life,  find- 
ing guides,  rejecting  them  one  after  another,  expecting  no- 
bleness and  finding  meanness ;  and  we  turn  away  with  a  re- 
coil of  disappointment. 


John  ys  Rebuke  of  Herod.  627 

There  is  no  disappointment  in  Christ.  Christ  can  be  our 
souls'  sovereign.  Christ  can  be  our  guide.  Christ  can  ab- 
sorb all. the  admiration  which  our  hearts  long  to  give.  We 
want  to  worship  men.  These  Jews  wanted  to  worship  man. 
They  were  right — man  is  the  rightful  object  of  our  worship ; 
but  in  the  roll  of  ages  there  has  been  but  one  Man  whom  we 
can  adore  without  idolatry: — the  Man  Christ  Jesus. 


SERMONS 


Jcmrtlj  Seric0. 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  ELI. 

"And  the  child  Samuel  ministered  unto  the  Lord  before  Eli.  And  the 
word  of  the  Lord  was  precious  in  those  days;  there  was  no  open  vision." — 
1  Sam.  iii.  1. 

IT  is  impossible  to  read  this  chapter  without  perceiving 
that  it  draws  a  marked  contrast  between  the  two  persons 
of  whom  it  speaks — Eli  and  Samuel. 

1.  They  are  contrasted  in  point  of  years :  for  the  one  is  a 
boy,  the  other  a  gray-headed  old  man ;  and  if  it  were  for 
only  this,  the  chapter  would  be  one  of  deep  interest.     For 
it  is  interesting  always  to  see  a  friendship  between  the  old 
and  the  young.     It  is  striking  to  see  the  aged  one  retaining 
so  much  of  freshness  and  simplicity  as  not  to  repel  the  sym- 
pathies of  boyhood.     It  is  surprising  to  see  the  younger  one 
so  advanced  and  thoughtful  as  not  to  find  dull  the  society 
of  one  who  has  outlived  excitability  and  passion.     This  is 
the  picture  presented  in  this  chapter.     A  pair  of  friends — 
childhood  and  old  age  standing  to  each  other  in  the  relation- 
ship, not  of  teacher  and  pupil,  but  of  friend  and  friend. 

2.  They  are  contrasted,  again,  in  point  of  office.     Both  are 
judges  of  Israel.     But  Eli  is  a  judge  rendering  up  his  trust, 
and  closing  his  public  career.     Samuel  is  a  judge  entering 
upon  his  office  :  and  the  outgoing  ruler,  Eli,  is  placed  under 
very  novel  and  painful   circumstances  in  reference   to  his 
successor.     He  receives  God's  sentence  of  doom  from  the 
lips  of  the  child  he  has  taught,  and  the  friend  he  has  loved. 
The  venerable  judge  of  forty  years  is  sentenced  by  the  judge 
elect. 

3.  Still  more  striking  is  the  contrast  in  point  of  character. 


630  The  Character  of  Eli. 

A  difference  of  character  we  expect  when  ages  are  so  differ- 
ent. But  here  the  difference  of  inferiority  is  on  the  wrong 
side.  It  is  the  young  who  is  counselling,  supporting,  ad- 
monishing the  old.  It  is  not  the  ivy  clinging  for  its  own 
sake  to  the  immovable  wall,  to  be  held  up :  but  it  is  the 
badly  built,  mouldering  wall  held  together  by  the  ivy,  and 
only  by  the  ivy  kept  from  falling  piecemeal  into  ruin. 

4.  Once  more :  we  have  here  the  contrast  between  a  judge 
by  office  and  a  judge  by  Divine  call.  In  the  first  days  of 
the  judges  of  Israel  we  find  them  raised  up  separately  by 
God,  one  by  one,  one  for  each  emergency.  So  that  if  war 
threatened  the  coasts  of  Israel,  no  man  knew  whence  the 
help  would  come,  or  who  would  be  Israel's  deliverer.  It 
always  did  come :  there  was  always  one,  qualified  by  God, 
found  ready  for  the  day  of  need,  equal  to  the  need ;  one 
whose  fitness  to  be  a  leader  no  one  had  before  suspected. 
But  when  he  did  appear,  he  proved  himself  to  be  Israel's 
acknowledged  greatest  —  greatest  by  the  qualities  he  dis- 
played, qualities  given  unto  him  by  God.  Therefore  men 
rightly  said  he  was  a  judge  raised  up  by  God.  But  it  seems 
that  in  later  days  judges  were  appointed  by  hereditary  suc- 
cession. When  danger  was  always  near,  men  became  afraid 
of  trusting  to  God  to  raise  up  a  defender  for  them,  and  making 
no  preparations  for  danger  of  invasion  ;  therefore,  in  the  ab- 
sence of  any  special  qualification  marking  out  the  man,  the 
judge's  son  became  judge  at  his  father's  death ;  or  the  office 
devolved  on  the  high-priest.  This  was  Eli's  qualification,  it 
would  seem.  Eli  was  high -priest,  and  therefore  he  was 
judge.  He  appears  not  to  have  had  a  single  ruling  quality. 
He  was  only  a  judge  because  he  was  born  to  the  dignity. 

There  is  an  earthly  wisdom  in  such  an  arrangement — nay, 
such  an  arrangement  is  indispensable.  It  is  wise  after  an 
earthly  sort  to  have  an  appointed  succession.  Hereditary 
judges,  hereditary  nobles,  hereditary  sovereigns :  without 
them,  human  life  would  run  into  inextricable  confusion. 
Nevertheless,  such  earthly  arrangements  only  represent  the 
heavenly  order.  The  Divine  order  of  government  is  the 
rule  of  the  wise  and  good.  The  earthly  arbitrary  arrange- 
ment— hereditary  succession,  or  any  other — stands  for  this, 
representing  it,  more  or  less  fulfills  it,  but  never  is  it  perfect- 
ly. And  from  time  to  time  God  sets  aside  and  quashes  the 
arbitrary  arrangement,  in  order  to  declare  that  it  is  only  a 
representation  of  the  true  and  Divine  one.  From  time  to 
time,  one  who  has  qualifications  direct  from  God  is  made,  in 
Scripture,  to  stand  side  by  side  with  one  who  has  his  qualifi- 
cations only  from  office  or  earthly  appointment;  and  then 


The  Character  of  Eli.  631 

the  contrast  is  marvellous  indeed.  Thus  Saul,  the  king  ap- 
pointed by  universal  suffrage  of  the  nation,  is  set  aside  for 
David,  the  man  after  God's  own  heart :  and  thus  the  Jews, 
the  world's  hereditary  nobles,  descended  from  the  blood  and 
stock  of  Abraham,  are  set  aside  for  the  true  spiritual  succes- 
sion, the  Christian  Church — inheritors  by  Divine  right,  not 
of  Abraham's  blood,  but  of  Abraham's  faith.  Thus  the  he- 
reditary high  -  priests  in  the  genuine  line  of  Aaron,  priests 
by  lawful  succession,  representing  priestly  powers,  are  set 
aside  at  once,  so  soon  as  the  real  High-Priest  of  God,  Jesus 
Christ,  whose  priestly  powers  are  real  and  personal,  appears 
on  earth. 

And  thus  by  the  side  of  Eli,  the  judge  by  office,  stands 
Samuel,  the  judge  by  Divine  call :  qualified  by  wisdom,  in- 
sight, will,  resting  on  obedience,  to  guide  and  judge  God's 
people  Israel.  Very  instructive  are  the  contrasts  of  this 
chapter: — We  will  consider — 

I.  Eli's  character. 
II.  Eli's  doom. 

1.  Eli's  character  has  two  sides;  we  will  take  the  bright 
side  first.  The  first  point  remarkable  in  him  is  the  absence  of 
envy.  Eli  furthers  Samuel's  advancement,  and  assists  it  to 
his  own  detriment.  Very  mortifying  was  that  trial.  Eli 
was  the  one  in  Israel  to  whom,  naturally,  a  revelation  should 
have  come.  God's  priest  and  God's  judge"  to  whom  so  fitly 
as  to  him  could  God  send  a  message  ?  But  another  is  pre- 
ferred :  the  inspiration  comes  to  Samuel,  and  Eli  is  super- 
seded and  disgraced.  Besides  this,  every  conceivable  cir- 
cumstance of  bitterness  is  added  to  his  humiliation — God's 
message  for  all  Israel  comes  to  a  boy  :  to  one  who  had  been 
Eli's  pupil,  to  one  beneath  him,  who  had  performed  for  him 
servile  offices.  This  was  the  bitter  cup  put  into  his  hand  to 
drink. 

And  yet  Eli  assists  him  to  attain  this  dignity.  He  per- 
ceives that  God  has  called  the  child.  He  does  not  say  in 
petulance — "  Then,  let  this  favored  child  find  out  for  himself 
all  he  has  to  do,  I  will  leave  him  to  himself."  Eli  meekly 
tells  him  to  go  back  to  his  place,  instructs  him  how  he  is  to 
accept  the  revelation,  and  appropriate  it :  "  Go  lie  down  :  and 
it  shall  be,  if  He  call  thee,  that  thou  shall  say,  Speak,  Lord  ; 
for  thy  servant  heareth."  He  conducts  his  rival  to  the  pres- 
ence-chamber, which  by  himself  he  can  not  find,  and  leaves 
him  there  with  the  King,  to  be  invested  with  the  order  which 
has  been  stripped  off  himself. 

Consider  how  difficult  this  conduct  of  Eli's  was.     Remem- 


632  The  Character  of  Eli. 

ber  how  difficult  it  is  to  be  surpassed  by  a  younger  brother, 
and  bear  it  with  temper ;  how  hard  it  is  even  to  be  set  right^ 
with  meekness;  to  have  our  faults  pointed  out  to  us:  es- 
pecially by  persons  who,  in  rank,  age,  or  standing,  are  oul 
inferiors.  Recollect  how  in  our  experience  of  life,  in  all  pro- 
fessions, merit  is  kept  down,  shaded  by  jealousies.  Recollect 
how  rare  generous  enthusiasm  is,  or  even  fairness ;  how  men 
depreciate  their  rivals  by  coldness,  or  by  sneering  at  those 
whom  they  dare  not  openly  attack. 

It  is  hard  to  give  information  which  we  have  collected 
with  pains,  but  which  we  can  not  use,  to  another  who  can 
make  use  of  it.  Consider,  again,  how  much  of  our  English 
reserve  is  but  another  name  for  jealousy.  Men  often  meet 
in  society  with  a  consciousness  of  rivalry  ;  and  conversation 
flags  because  they  fear  to  impart  information,  lest  others 
should  make  use  of  it,  and  they  should  thus  lose  the  credit 
of  being  original. 

One  soldier  we  have  heard  of  who  gave  up  the  post  of 
honor  and  the  chance  of  high  distinction  to  cover  an  early 
failure  of  that  great  warrior  whom  England  has  lately  lost, 
and  to  give  him  a  fresh  chance  of  retrieving  honor.  He  did 
what  Eli  did :  assisted  his  rival  to  rise  above  him.  But 
where  is  the  man  of  trade  who  will  throw  in  a  rival's  way  the 
custom  which  he  can  not  use  himself?  Where  is  the  profes- 
sional man,  secular  or  clerical,  who  will  so  speak  of  another 
of  the  same  profession,  while  struggling  with  him  in  honor- 
able rivalry,  or  so  assist  him,  as  to  insure  that  the  brightest 
lustre  shall  shine  upon  what  he  really  is  ?  Whoever  will 
ponder  these  things  will  feel  that  Eli's  was  no  common  act. 

Now,  for  almost  all  of  us,  there  are  one  or  two  persons  in 
life  who  cross  our  path,  whose  rise  will  be  our  eclipse,  whose 
success  will  abridge  ours,  whose  fair  career  will  thwart  ours, 
darken  our  prospects,  cross  our  affections.  Those  one  or  two 
form  our  trial;  they  are  the  test  and  proof  of  our  justice. 
How  we  feel  and  act  to  them  proves  whether  we  are  just  or 
not.  It  was  easy  for  Eli  to  have  instructed  any  one  else 
how  to  approach  God.  But  the  difficulty  was  how  to  in- 
struct Samuel.  Samuel  alone,  in  all  Israel,  crossed  his  path. 
And  yet  Eli  stood  the  test.  He  was  unswervingly  just.  He 
threw  no  petty  hindrances  in  his  way.  He  removed  alL 
He  gave  a  clear,  fair,  honorable  field.  That  act  of  Eli's  is 
fair  and  beautiful  to  gaze  upon. 

2.  Remark  the  absence  of  all  priestly  pretensions. 

Eli  might  with  case  have  assumed  the  priestly  tone. 
When  Samuel  came  with  his  strange  story,  that  he  had  heard 
a  voice  calling  to  him  in  the  dark,  Eli  might  have  fixed  upon 


The  Character  of  Eli.  633 

him  a  clear,  cold,  unsympathizing  eye,  and  said,  "  This  is 
excitement — mere  enthusiasm.  I  am  the  appointed  channel 
of  God's  communications ;  I  am  the  priest.  Hear  the 
Church.  Unordained,  unanointed  with  priestly  oil,  a  boy,  a 
child,  it  is  presumption  for  you  to  pretend  to  communica- 
tions from  Jehovah  !  A  layman  has  no  right  to  hear 
Voices;  it  is  fanaticism."  Eli  might  have  done  this;  he 
would  have  only  done  what  ordained  men  have  done  a 
thousand  times  when  they  have  frowned  irregular  enthusiasm 
into  dissent.  And  then  Samuel  would  have  become  a  mys- 
tic, or  a  self-relying  enthusiast.  For  he  could  not  have  been 
made  to  think  "that  the  Voice  was  a  delusion.  That  Voice 
no  priest's  frown  could  prevent  his  hearing.  On  the  other 
hand,  Eli  might  have  given  his  own  authoritative  interpreta- 
tion to  Samuel  of  that  word  of  God  which  he  had  heard. 
But  suppose  that  interpretation  had  been  wrong? 

Eli  did  neither  of  these  things.  He  sent  Samuel  to  God. 
He  taught  him  to  inquire  for  himself.  He  did  not  tell  him 
to  reject  as  fanaticism  the  belief  that  an  inner  Voice  was 
speaking  to  him,  a  boy ;  nor  did  he  try  to  force  his  own  in- 
terpretation on  that  Voice.  His  great  care  was  to  put  Sam- 
uel in  direct  communication  with  God ;  to  make  him  listen 
to  God  ;  nay,  and  that  independently  of  him,  Eli.  Not  to 
rule  him;  not  to  direct  his  feelings  and  belief;  not  to  keep 
him  in  the  leading-strings  of  spiritual  childhood,  but  to  teach 
him  to  walk  alone. 

There  are  two  sorts  of  men  who  exercise  influence.  Tho 
first  are  those  who  perpetuate  their  own  opinions,  bequeath 
their  own  names,  form  a  sect,  gather  a  party  round  them 
who  speak  their  words,  believe  their  belief.  Such  men  were 
the  ancient  rabbis.  And  of  such  men,  in  and  out  of  the 
Church,  we  have  abundance  now.  It  is  the  influence  most 
aimed  at  and  most  loved.  The  second  class  is  composed  of 
those  who  stir  up  faith,  conscience,  thought,  to  do  their  own 
work.  They  are  not  anxious  that  those  they  teach  should 
think  as  they  do,  but  that  they  should  think.  Nor  that  tKey 
should  take  this  or  that  rule  of  right  and  wrong,  but  that  th^y 
should  be  conscientious.  Nor  that  they  should  adopt  their 
own  views  of  God,  but  that  faith  in  God  should  be  roused  in 
eamest.  Such  men  propagate  not  many  views;  but  they 
propagate  life  itself  in  inquiring  minds  and  earnest  hearts. 

Now  this  is  God's  real,  best  work.  Men  do  not  think  so. 
They  like  to  be  guided.  They  ask,  What  am  I  to  think  ? 
and  what  am  I  to  believe  ?  and  what  am  I  to  feel  ?  Make  it 
easy  for  me.  Save  me  the  trouble  of  reflecting  and  the  an- 
guish of  inquiring.  It  is  very  easy  to  do  this  for  them  ;  but 

27* 


634  The  Character  of  Eli. 

from  what  minds,  and  from  what  books,  do  we  really  gain 
most  of  that  which  we  can  really  call  our  own  ?  From  those 
that  are  suggestive,  from  those  that  can  kindle  life  within  us^ 
and  set  us  thinking,  and  call  conscience  into  action — not  from 
those  that  exhaust  a  subject  and  seem  to  leave  it  threadbare, 
but  from  those  that  make  us  feel  there  is  a  vast  deal  more 
in  that  subject  yet,  and  send  us,  as  Eli  sent  Samuel,  into  tho 
dark  Infinite  to  listen  for  ourselves. 

And  this  is  the  ministry  and  its  work — not  to  drill  hearts, 
and  minds,  and  consciences,  into  right  forms  of  thought  and 
mental  postures,  but  to  guide  to  the  Living  God  who  speaks. 
It  is  a  thankless  work  ;  for,  as  I  have  said,  men  love  to  have 
all  their  religion  done  out  for  them.  They  want  something 
definite,  and  sharp,  and  clear — words — not  the  life  of  God  in 
the  soul :  and  indeed,  it  is  far  more  flattering  to  our  vanity 
to  have  men  take  our  views,  represent  us,  be  led  by  us. 
Rule  is  dear  to  all.  To  rule  men's  spirits  is  the  dearest  rule 
of  all ;  but  it  is  the  work  of  every  true  priest  of  God  to  lead 
men  to  think  and  feel  for  themselves — to  open  their  ears 
that  God  may  speak.  Eli  did  this  part  of  his  work  in  a  true 
spirit.  He  guided  Samuel,  trained  his  character.  But 
"  God's  Spirit !"  Eli  says,  "  I  can  not  give  that.  God's 
voice  !  I  am  not  God's  voice.  I  am  only  God's  witness, 
erring,  listening  for  myself.  I  am  here,  God's  witness,  to 
say — God  speaks.  I  may  err — let  God  be  true.  Let  me  be 
a  liar,  if  you  will.  My  mission  is  done  when  your  ear  is 
opened  for  God  to  whisper  into."  Very  true,  Eli  was  super- 
seded. Very  true,  his  work  was  done.  A  new  set  of  views, 
not  his,  respecting  Israel's  policy  and  national  life,  were  to 
be  propagated  by  his  successor ;  but  it  was  Eli  that  had 
guided  that  successor  to  God  who  gave  the  views :  and  Eli 
had  not  lived  in  vain. 

My  brethren,  if  any  man  or  any  body  of  men  stand  be- 
tween us  and  the  living  God,  saying,  "  Only  through  us — the 
Church — can  you  approach  God  ;  only  through  my  conse- 
crated touch  can  you  receive  grace ;  only  through  my  or- 
dained teaching  can  you  hear  God's  voice  ;  and  the  voice 
which  speaks  in  your  soul  in  the  still  moments  of  existence 
is  no  revelation  from  God,  but  a  delusion  and  a  fanaticism  " 
— that  man  is  a  false  priest.  To  bring  the  soul  face  to  face 
with  God,  and  supersede  ourselves,  that  is  the  work  of  the 
Christian  ministry. 

3.  There  was  in  Eli  a  resolve  to  know  the  whole  truth. 
"  What  is  the  thing  that  the  Lord  hath  said  unto  thee  ?  I 
pray  thee  hide  it  not  from  me :  God  do  so  to  thee,  and  more 
also,  if  thou  hide  any  thing  from  me  of  all  the  things  that 


The  Character  of  Eli.  635 

He  said  unto  thee."  Eli  asked  in  earnest  to  know  the 
worst. 

It  would  be  a  blessed  thing  to  know  what  God  thinks  of 
us.  But  next  best  to  this  would  be  to  see  ourselves  in  the 
light  in  which  we  appear  to  others :  other  men's  opinion  is  a 
mirror  in  which  we  learn  to  see  ourselves.  It  keeps  us  hum- 
ble when  bad  and  good  alike  are  known  to  us.  The  worst 
slander  has  in  it  some  truth  from  which  we  may  learn  a  les- 
son, which  may  make  us  wiser  when  the  first  smart  is 
passed. 

Therefore  it  is  a  blessing  to  have  a  friend  like  Samuel, 
who  can  dare  to  tell  us  truth,  judicious,  candid,  wise  ;  one  to 
whom  we  can  say,  "  Now  tell  me  what  I  am,  and  what  I 
seem ;  hide  nothing,  but  tell  me  the  worst."  But  observe, 
we  are  not  to  beg  praise  or  invite  censure — that  were  weak. 
We  are  not  to  askYor  every  malicious  criticism  or  torment- 
ing report — that  were  hypochondria,  ever  suspecting,  and 
ever  self-tormenting ;  and  to  that  diseased  sensibility  it 
would  be  no  man's  duty  to  minister.  True  friendship  will 
not  retail  tormenting  trifles ;  but  what  we  want  is  one  friend 
at  least,  who  will  extenuate  nothing,  but  with  discretion  tell 
the  worst,  using  unflinchingly  the  sharp  knife  which  is  to  cut 
away  the  fault. 

4.  There  was  pious  acquiescence  in  the  declared  will  of 
God.  When  Samuel  had  told  him  every  whit,  Eli  replied, 
"It  is  the  Lord."  The  highest  religion  could  say  no  more. 
What  more  can  there  be  than  surrender  to  the  will  of  God  ? 
In  that  one  brave  sentence  you  forget  all  Eli's  vat-illation. 
Free  from  envy,  free  from  priestcraft,  earnest,  humbly  sub- 
missive— that  is  the  bright  side  of  Eli's  character,  and  the 
side  least  known  or  thought  of. 

There  is  another  side  to  Eli's  character.  He  was  a  waver- 
ing, feeble,  powerless  man,  with  excellent  intentions,  but  an 
utter  want  of  will ;  and  if  we  look  at  it  deeply,  it  is  will  that 
makes  the  difference  between  man  and  man ;  not  knowledge, 
not  opinions,  not  devoutness,  not  feeling,  but  will — the  pow- 
er to  be.  Let  us  look  at  the  causes  of  this  feebleness. 

There  are  apparently  two.  1.  A  recluse  life — he  lived  in 
the  temple.  Praying  and  sacrificing,  perhaps,  were  the  sub- 
stance of  his  life ;  all  that  unfitted  him  for  the  world ;  he 
knew  nothing  of  life  ;  he  knew  nothing  of  character.  When 
Hannah  came  before  him  in  an  agony  of  prayer,  he  mis- 
judged her.  He  mistook  the  tremulousness  of  her  lip  for 
the  trembling  of  intoxication.  He  could  not  rule  his  own 
household  ;  he  could  not  rule  the  Church  of  God — a  shy,  sol- 
itary, amiable  ecclesiastic  and  recluse — that  was  Eli. 


636  The  Character  of  Eli. 

And  such  are  the  really  fatal  men  in  the  work  of  life,  those 
who  look  out  on  human  life  from  a  cloister,  or  who  know 
nothing  of  men  except  through  books.  Religious  persons 
dread  worldliness.  They  will  not  mix  in  politics.  They 
keep  aloof  from  life.  Doubtless  there  is  a  danger  in  know- 
ing too  much  of  the  world.  But,  beyond  all  comparison,  of 
the  two  extremes  the  worst  is  knowing  too  little  of  life.  A 
priesthood  severed  from  human  sympathies,  separated  from 
men,  cut  off  from  human  affections,  and  then  meddling  fatal- 
ly with  questions  of  human  life — that  is  the  Romish  priest- 
hood. And  just  as  fatal,  when  they  come  to  meddle  with 
public  questions,  is  the  interference  of  men  as  good  as  Eli,  as 
devout  and  as  incompetent,  who  have  spent  existence  in  a 
narrow  religious  party  which  they  mistake  for  the  wrorld. 

2.  That  feebleness  arose  out  of  original  temperament.  Eli's 
feelings  were  all  good :  his  acts  were  all  wrong.  In  senti- 
ment Eli  might  be  always  trusted :  in  action  he  was  forever 
false,  because  he  was  a  weak,  vacillating  man.  * 

Therefore  his  virtues  were  all  of  a  negative  character.  He 
was  forgiving  to  his  sons,  because  unable  to  feel  strongly  the 
viciousness  of  sin ;  free  from  jealousy,  because  he  had  no 
keen  affections ;  submissive,  because  too  indolent  to  feel  re- 
bellious. Before  we  praise  a  man  for  his  excellences,  we 
must  be  quite  sure  that  they  do  not  rise  out  of  so  many  de- 
fects. No  thanks  to  a  proud  man  that  he  is  not  vain.  No 
credit  to  a  man  without  love  that  he  is  not  jealous :  he  has 
not  strength  enough  for  passion. 

All  history  overrates  such  men.  Men  like  Eli  ruin  families 
by  instability,  produce  revolutions,  die  well  when  only  pas- 
sive courage  is  wanted,  and  are  reckoned  martyrs.  They 
live  like  children,  and  die  like  heroes.  Deeply  true  to  na- 
ture, brethren,  and  exceedingly  instructive,  is  this  history  of 
Eli.  It  is  quite  natural  that  such  men  should  suffer  well. 
For  if  only  their  minds  are  made  up  for  them  by  inevitable 
circumstances,  they  can  submit.  When  people  come  to  Eli 
and  say,  "  You  should  reprove  your  sons,"  he  can  do  it  after 
a  fashion ;  when  it  is  said  to  him,  "  You  must  die,"  he  can 
make  up  his  mind  to  die :  but  this  is  not  taking  up  the  cross, 
Let  us  look  at  the  result  of  such  a  character. 

1.  It  had  no  influence.  Eli  was  despised  by  his  own  sons. 
He  was  not  respected  by  the  nation.  One  only  of  all  he 
lived  with,  kept  cleaving  to  him  till  the  last — Samuel ;  but 
that  was  in  a  kind  of  mournful  pity.  The  secret  of  influence 
is  will — not  goodness,  not  badness — both  bad  and  good  may 
have  it ;  but  will.  And  you  can  not  counterfeit  will  if  you 
have  it  not.  Men  speak  strongly  and  vehemently  when 


The  Character  of  Eli.  637 

most  conscious  of  their  own  vacillation.  The j  commit  them« 
selves  to  hasty  resolutions,  but  the  resolve  is  not  kept ;  and 
so,  with  strong  feelings  and  good  feelings,  they  lose  influence 
day  by  day. 

2.  It  manifested  incorrigibility.     Eli  was  twice  warned; 
once  by  a  prophet,  once  by  Samuel.     Both  times  he  answer- 
ed submissively.     He  used  strong,  nay,  passionate  expres- 
sions of  penitence.     Both  times  you  would  have  thought  an 
entire  reformation  and  change  of  life  was  at  hand.     Both 
times  he  was  warned  in  vain. 

There  are  persons  who  go  through  life  sinning  and  sorrow- 
ing— sorrowing  and  sinning.  No  experience  teaches  them. 
Torrents  of  tears  flow  from  their  eyes.  They  are  full  of  elo- 
quent regrets.  You  can  not  find  it  in  your  heart  to  condemn 
them,  for  their  sorrow  is  so  graceful  and  touching,  so  full  of 
penitence  and  self-condemnation.  But  tears,  heart-breaks,  re- 
pentance, warnings,  are  all  in  vain.  Where  they  did  wrong 
once,  they  do  wrong  again.  What  are  such  persons  to  do  in 
the  next  life  ?  Where  will  the  Elis  of  this  world  be  ?  God 
only  knows.  But  Christ  has  said,  "  Not  every  one  that 
saith  unto  me,  Lord,  Lord,  shall  enter  into  the  kingdom  of 
heaven." 

3.  It  resulted  in  misery  to  others. 

Recollect  what  this  weakness  caused.  Those  young  men, 
Eli's  sons,  grew  up  to  be  their  country's  plague.  They  sap- 
ped the  moral  standard  of  their  countrymen  and  country- 
women. They  degraded  the  ministry.  "  Men  abhorred  the 
offering  of  the  Lord."  The  armies  of  Israel,  without  faith  in 
God,  and  without  leadership  of  man,  fled  before  the  enemy. 
All  that  was  Eli's  doing.  A  weak  man  with  good  feelings 
makes  more  misery  than  a  determined  bad  man.  Lender  a 
tyranny  men  are  at  least  at  rest,  for  they  know  the  worst. 
But  when  subjects  or  children  know  that  by  entreaty,  or 
persistence,  or  intimidation,  they  can  obtain  what  they  want, 
then  a  family  or  a  nation  is  cursed  with  restlessness.  Better 
to  live  under  bad  laws  which  are  firmly  administered,  than 
under  good  ones  where  there  is  a  misgiving  whether  they  may 
not  be  changed.  There  is  no  wretchedness  like  the  wretched- 
ness caused  by  an  undetermined  will  to  those  who  serve  un- 
der it. 


638    Appointment  of  the  First  King  in  Israel* 


n. 

THE  APPOINTMENT  OF  THE  FIRST  KING  EN 
ISRAEL. 

"And  Samuel  said  unto  all  Israel,  Behold,  I  have  hearkened  unto  you! 
voice  in  all  that  ye  said  unto  me,  and  have  made  a  king  over  you. " — 1  Sam. 
xii.  1. 

OUR  subject  to-day  is  the  selection  of  the  first  king  of  Is- 
rael. 

We  have  arrived  at  that  crisis  in  Israel's  history  when  the 
first  shock  occurred  in  her  national  life.  That  shock  was  be- 
reft of  part  of  its  violence  by  the  wisdom  of  a  single  man. 
By  the  lustre  of  his  personal  character,  by  his  institutions, 
and  by  his  timely  concessions,  Samuel  won  that  highest  of 
all  privileges  which  can  be  given  to  a  mortal — the  power  of 
saving  his  country.  He  did  not  achieve  the  best  conceiva- 
ble ;  but  he  secured  the  best  possible.  The  conceivable  best 
was,  that  there  should  have  been  no  shock  at  all,  that  Israel's 
elders  should  have  calmly  insisted  on  a  reformation  of  abuses : 
that  they  should  have  come  to  Samuel,  and  demanded  repa- 
ration for  the  insulted  majesty  of  Hebrew  law  in  the  persons 
of  the  young  judges,  his  sons,  who  had  dared  to  dishonor  it. 
This  would  have  been  the  first  best.  The  second  best  was 
the  best  practicable — that  the  shock  should  be  made  as  light 
as  possible;  that  Samuel  should  still  control  the  destinies  of 
his  country,  select  the  new  king,  and  modify  the  turbulence 
of  excess.  So  that  Israel  was  in  the  position  of  a  boat  which 
has  been  borne  down  a  swift  stream  into  the  very  suction  of 
the  rapids.  The  best  would  be  that  she  should  be  put  back ; 
but  if  it  be  too  late  for  this,  then  the  best  is  that  there  should 
be  in  her  a  strong  arm  and  a  steady  eye  to  keep  her  heal 
straight.  And  thus  it  was  with  Israel.  She  plunged  down 
the  fall  madly,  rashly,  wickedly;  but,  under  Samuel's  con- 
trol, steadily.  This  part  of  the  chapter  we  arrange  in  two 
branches : — 

I.  Samuel's  conduct  after  the  mortification  of  his  own  re- 
jection. 

II.  The,  selection  of  the  first  monarch  of  Israel. 

I.  The  tenth  chapter  broke  off  in  a  moment  of  suspense. 
The  people,  having  accepted  Saul  as  their  king,  had  been  dis- 


Appointment  of  the  First  King  in  Israel.    639 

missed,  and  Samuel  was  left  alone ;  but  his  feelings  were  very 
different  from  those  which  he  had  in  that  other  moment  of 
solitude,  when  he  had  dismissed  the  delegates  of  the  people. 
That  struggle  was  past.  He  was  now  calm.  The  first  mo- 
ment was  a  terrible  one.  It  was  one  of  those  periods  in  hu- 
man life  when  the  whole  meaning  of  life  is  perplexed,  its 
aims  and  hopes  frustrated;  when  a  man  is  down  upon  his 
face  and  gust  after  gust  sweeps  desolately  over  his  spirit, 
Samuel  was  there  to  feel  all  the  ideas  that  naturally  suggest 
themselves  in  such  hours — the  instability  of  human  affection 
— the  nothingness  of  the  highest  earthly  aims.  But  by  de- 
grees two  thoughts  calmed  him.  The  first  was  the  feeling 
of  identification  with  God's  cause.  "  They  have  not  rejected 
thee,  but  they  have  rejected  Me."  Had  it  been  mere  wound- 
ed pride,  or  pique,  or  family  aggrandizement  arrested,  or  am- 
bition disappointed,  it  would  have  been  a  cureless  sorrow. 
But  Samuel  had  God's  cause  at  heart,  and  this  gave  a  loftier 
character  to  his  sadness.  There  was  no  envenomed  feeling, 
no  resentment,  no  smarting  scornfulness.  To  be  part  of  a 
great  Divine  cause  which  has  failed,  is  an  elevating  as  well 
as  a  saddening  sensation.  A  conviction  mingles  with  it  that 
the  cause  ot  God  will  one  day  be  the  conquering  side. 

The  other  element  of  consolation  was  the  Divine  sympa- 
thy. If  they  had  been  rebellious  to  their  ruler,  they  had 
also  been  disloyal  to  Jehovah.  An  unruly  subject  has  had 
a  poor  school  in  which  to  learn  reverence  for  things  heaven- 
ly. Atheism  and  revolution  here,  as  elsewhere,  went  hand- 
in-hand.  We  do  not  know  how  this  sentence  was  impressed 
by  the  Infinite  Mind  on  Samuel's  mind ;  all  we  know  is,  he 
had  a  conviction  that  God  was  a  fellow-sufferer.  This,  how- 
ever, was  inferior,  in  point  of  clearness,  to  our  knowledge  of 
the  Divine  sympathy :  Jehovah,  the  unnameable  and  awful, 
was  a  very  different  conception  from  "  God  manifested  in 
the  flesh."  To  the  Jew,  His  dwelling  was  the  peak  round 
which  the  cloud  had  wreathed  its  solemn  form,  and  the  thun- 
ders spent  themselves ;  but  the  glory  of  the  life  of  Jesus  to 
us  is,  that  it  is  full  of  the  human.  The  many-colored  phases 
of  human  feeling  all  find  themselves  reflected  in  the  lights 
and  shadows  of  ever-varying  sensitiveness  which  the  differ- 
ent sentences  of  His  conversation  exhibit.  Be  your  tone  of 
feeling  what  it  may,  whether  you  are  poor  or  rich,  gay  or 
sad — in  society  or  alone — adored,  loved,  betrayed,  misunder- 
stood, .despised — weigh  well  His  words  first,  by  thinking 
what  they  mean,  and  you  will  become  aware  that  one  heart 
in  space  throbs  in  conscious  harmony  with  yours.  In  its 
degree,  that  was  Samuel's  support. 


640   Appointment  of  the  First  King  in  Israel. 

Next,  Samuel's  cheerful  way  of  submitting  to  his  fate  is  to 
be  observed.  Another  prophet,  when  his  prediction  was 
nullified,  built  himself  a  booth  and  sat  beneath  it,  fretting  in 
sullen  pride,  to  see  the  end  of  Nineveh.  Samuel  might  have 
done  this ;  he  might  have  withdrawn  himself  in  offended  dig- 
nity from  public  life,  watched  the  impotent  attempts  of  the 
people  to  guide  themselves,  and  seen  dynasty  after  dynasty 
fall  with  secret  pleasure.  Very  different  is  his  conduct.  He 
addresses  himself  like  a  man  to  the  exigencies  of  the  mo- 
ment. His  great  scheme  is  frustrated.  Well,  he  will  not 
despair  of  God's  cause  yet.  Bad  as  things  are,  he  will  try  to 
make  the  best  of  them. 

Now  remark  in  all  this  the  healthy,  vigorous  tone  of  Sam- 
uel's religion.  This  man,  the  greatest  and  wisest  then  alive, 
thought  this  the  great  thing  to  live  for — to  establish  a  king- 
dom of  God  on  earth — to  transform  his  own  country  into  a 
kingdom  of  God.  It  is  worth  while  to  see  how  he  set  about 
it.  From  first  to  last,  it  was  in  a  practical,  real  way — by 
activity  in  every  department  of  life.  We  recollect  his  early 
childhood ;  his  duty  then  was  to  open  the  gates  of  the  tem- 
ple of  the  Lord,  and  he  did  that  regularly,  with  scrupulous 
fidelity,  in  the  midst  of  very  exciting  scenes.  He  was  turn- 
ing that  narrow  circumscribed  sphere  of  his  into  a  kingdom 
of  God.  Afterwards  he  became  ruler.  His  spirituality  then 
consisted  in  establishing  courts  of  justice,  founding  acade- 
mies, looking  into  every  thing  himself.  Now  he  is  deposed  : 
but  he  has  duties  still.  He  has  a  king  to  look  for,  public  fes- 
tivals to  superintend,  a  public  feast  to  preside  over ;  and 
later  on  we  shall  find  him  becoming  the  teacher  of  a  school. 
All  this  was  a  religion  for  life.  His  spirituality  was  no  fan- 
ciful, shadowy  thing ;  the  kingdom  of  God  to  him  was  to  be 
in  this  world,  and  we  know  no  surer  sign  of  enfeebled  relig- 
ion than  the  disposition  to  separate  religion  from  life  and 
life-duties. 

Listen:  what  is  secularity  or  worldliness?  Meddling 
with  worldly  things?  or  meddling  with  a  worldly  spirit? 
We  brand  political  existence  and  thought  with  the  name 
"  worldly  " — we  stigmatize  first  one  department  of  life  and 
then  another  as  secular;  and  so  religion  becomes  a  pale, 
unreal  thing,  which  must  end,  if  we  are  only  true  to  our 
principles,  in  the  cloister.  Spirituality  becomes  the  exclusive 
property  of  a  few  amiable  mystics;  men  of  thought  and  men 
of  action  draw  off;  religion  becomes  feeble,  and  the  world, 
deserted  and  proscribed,  becomes  infidel. 

IL  Samuel's  treatment  of  his  successor,  after  his  own  rejeo 


Appointment  of  the  First  King  in  Israel.   64 1 

tion,  is  remarkable.  It  was  characterized  by  two  things- 
courtesy  and  generosity.  When  he  saw  the  man  who  was 
to  be  his  successor,  he  invited  him  to  the  entertainment ;  he 
gave  him  precedence,  bidding  him  go  up  before  him ;  placed 
him  as  a  stranger  at  the  post  of  honor,  and  set  before  him 
the  choice  portion.  This  is  politeness ;  what  we  allude  to  is 
a  very  different  thing,  however,  from  that  mere  system  of 
etiquette  and  conventionalisms  in  which  small  minds  find 
their  very  being,  to  observe  which  accurately  is  life,  and  to 
transgress  which  is  a  sin. 

Courtesy  is  not  confined  to  the  high-bred;  often  theirs  is 
but  the  artistic  imitation  of  courtesy.  The  peasant  who 
rises  to  put  before  you  his  only  chair,  while  he  sits  upon  the 
oaken  chest,  is  a  polite  man.  Motive  determines  every 
thing.  If  we  are  courteous  merely  to  substantiate  our 
claims  to  mix  in  good  society,  or  exhibit  good  manners 
chiefly  to  show  that  we  have  been  in  it,  this  is  a  thing  in- 
deed to  smile  at ;  contemptible,  if  it  were  not  rather  pitiable. 
But  that  politeness  which  springs  spontaneously  from  the 
heart,  the  desire  to  put  others  at  their  ease,  to  save  the 
stranger  from  a  sensation  of  awkwardness,  to  soothe  the 
feeling  of  inferiority — that,  ennobled  as  it  is  by  Jove,  mounts 
to  the  high  character  of  a  heavenly  grace. 

Something  still  more  beautiful  marks  Samuel's  generosity. 
The  man  who  stood  before  him  wasva  successful  rival.  One 
who  had  been  his  inferior  now  was  to  supersede  him.  And 
Samuel  lends  him  a  helping  hand — gracefully  assists  him  to 
rise  above  him,  entertains  him,  recommends  him  to  the  peo- 
ple. It  is  very  touching. 

Curiously  enough^  Samuel  had  twice  in  life  to  do  a  sim- 
ilar thing.  Once  he  had  to  depose  Eli,  by  telling  him  God's 
doom.  Now  he  has  to  depose  himself.  The  first  he  shrank 
from,  and  only  did  it  at  last  when  urged.  That  was  deli- 
cate. On  the  present  occasion,  with  a  large  and  liberal  full- 
ness of  heart,  he  elevates  Saul  above  himself.  And  that  we 
call  the  true,  high  Gospel  spirit.  Samuel  and  the  people  did 
the  same  thing — they  made  Saul  king.  But  the  people  did 
it  by  drawing  down  Samuel  nearer  to  themselves.  Samuel 
did  it  by  elevating  Saul  above  himself.  One  was  the  spirit 
of  revolution,  the  other  was  the  spirit  of  the  Gospel. 

In  our  own  day  it  specially  behooves  us  to  try  the  spirits, 
whether  they  be  of  God.  The  reality  and  the  counterfeit,  as 
in  this  case,  are  singularly  like  each  other.  Three  spirits 
make  their  voices  heard  in  a  cry  for  freedom,  for  brother- 
hood, for  human  equality.  And  we  must  not  forget,  these 
are  names  hallowed  by  the  very  Gospel  itself.  They  are  in- 


642    Appointment  of  the  First  King  in  Israel. 

scribed  on  its  forehead.  Unless  we  realize  them,  we  have  no 
Gospel  kingdom.  Distinguish,  however,  well,  the  reality 
from  the  baser  alloy.  The  spirit  which  longs  for  freedom 
puts  forth  a  righteous  claim;  for  it  is  written,  "If  the  Son 
shall  make  you  free  ye  shall  be  free  indeed."  Brotherhood — 
the  Gospel  promises  brotherhood  also — "One  is  your  Mas- 
ter, even  Christ ;  and  all  ye  are  brethren."  Equality — yes. 
"  There  is  neither  Jew  nor  Greek,  circumcision  nor  uncircum- 
eision,  barbarian,  Scythian,  bond  nor  free."  This  is  the  grand 
federation,  brotherhood,  emancipation  of  the  human  race. 

Now,  the  world's  spirit  aims  at  bringing  all  this  about  by 
drawing  others  down  to  the  level  on  which  each  one  stands. 
The  Christian  spirit  secures  equality  by  raising  up.  The 
man  that  is  less  wise,  less  good  than  I — I  am  to  raise  up  to 
my  level  in  these  things.  Yes,  and  in  social  position,  too,  if 
he  be  fit  for  it.  I  am  to  be  glad  to  see  him  rise  above  me,  as 
generously  as  Samuel  saw  Saul.  And  those  that  are  above 
me,  better  than  I,  wiser  than  I,  I  have  a  right  to  expect  to 
elevate  me,  if  they  can,  to  be  as  wise  and  good  as  themselves. 
This  is  the  only  levelling  the  Gospel  knows.  What  was  the 
mission  of  the  Redeemer  but  this  ?  To  raise  the  lower  to 
the  higher,  to  make  men  partakers  of  the  Divine  nature — His 
nature,  standing  on  His  ground ;  to  descend  to  the  roots  of 
society,  reclaiming  the  outcasts,  elevating  the  degraded,  en- 
nobling the  low,  and  reminding,  in  the  thunder  of  reiterated 
"  woes,"  those  who  had  left  their  inferiors  in  the  dark,  and 
those  who  stood  aloof  in  the  titled  superiority  of  rabbi — of 
the  account  to  be  rendered  by  them  yet. 

And  if  we  could  but  all  work  in  this  generous  rivalry,  our 
rent  and  bleeding  country,  sick  at  heart,  gangrened  with  an 
exclusiveness  which  narrows  our  sympathies  and  corrupts  our 
hearts,  might  be  all  that  the  most  patriotic  love  would  have 
her.  Brethren  in  Christ,  I  earnestly  urge  again  the  lesson 
of  last  Sunday.  Not  by  pulling  down  those  that  are  above 
us,  not  by  the  still  more  un-Christlike  plan  of  keeping  down 
those  that  are  beneath  us,  can  we  make  this  country  of  ours 
a  kingdom  of  Christ.  If  we  can  not  practise  nor  bear  to  have 
impressed  upon  us,  more  condescension,  more  tenderness,  and 
the  duty  of  unlearning  much,  very  much  of  that  galling,  in- 
sulting spirit  of  demarkation  with  which  we  sever  ourselves 
from  the  sympathies  of  the  class  immediately  beneath  us, 
those  tears  may  have  to  flow  again  which  were  shed  over  the 
city  which  would  not  know  the  day  of  her  visitation  :  lulled 
into  an  insane  security  even  at  the  moment  when  the  judg- 
ment-eagles were  gathered  together  and  plunging  for  thei? 
prey. 


Appointment  of  the  First  King  in  Israel.   643 

Once  more :  there  is  suggested  to  us  the  thought  that  Sam- 
uel  was  now  growing  old.  It  seems  by  the  eleventh  and 
thirteenth  chapters,  in  connection  with  the  text,  tha^t  the 
cause  which  hastened  the  demand  of  the  elders  for  a  king 
was  the  danger  of  invasion.  The  Ammonites  and  Philistines 
were  sharpening  their  swords  for  war.  And  men  felt  that 
Samuel  was  too  old  for  such  a  crisis.  Only  a  few  Sundays 
ago  we  were  considering  Samuel's  childhood,  his  weaning, 
education,  and  call.  Now  he  is  old :  his  hair  is  gray,  and 
men  beginning  to  feel  that  he  is  no  longer  what  he  was.  A 

high,  great  life  :  and  a  few  chapters  sum  it  all  up.     And  such 
•  n  T»  /» 
is  all  me. 

To-day  we  baptize  a  child ;  in  a  period  of  time  startlingly 
short,  the  minister  is  called  upon  to  prepare  the  young  man 
for  confirmation.  A  little  interval  and  the  chimes  are  ring- 
ing a  merry  wedding-peal.  One  more  pause,  and  the  winds 
are  blowing  their  waves  of  shadow  over  the  long  grass  that 
grows  rankly  on  his  grave.  The  font,  the  altar,  and  the 
sepulchre,  and  but  a  single  step  between.  Now  we  do  not 
dwell  on  this.  It  is  familiar — a  tale  that  is  told. 

But  what  we  mention  this  for  is,  to  observe  that  though 
Samuel's  life  was  fast  going,  Samuel's  work  was  permanent. 
Evidence  of  this  lies  in  the  chapter  before  us.  When  Saul 
came  to  the  city  and  inquired  for  the  seer's  house,  some  young 
maidens,  on  their  way  to  draw  water,  replied ;  and  their  re- 
ply contained  an  accurate  account,  even  to  details,  of  the  re- 
ligious service  which  was  about  to  take  place.  The  judge 
had  arrived ;  there  was  to  be  a  sacrifice,  the  people  would 
not  eat  till  he  came,  he  would  pronounce  a  blessing,  after 
that  there  would  be  a  select  feast.  Now  compare  the  state 
of  things  in  Israel  when  Samuel  became  judge.  Had  a  man 
come  to  a  city  in  Israel  then,  there  would  have  been  no 
sacrifice  going  on,  or  if  there  had,  no  one  would  have  been 
found  so  accurately  familiar  with  the  whole  service ;  for  then 
"  men  abhorred  the  offering  of  the  Lord."  But  now  the  first 
chance  passer-by  could  run  through  it  all,  as  a  thing  habitu- 
al— as  a  Church  of  England  worshipper  would  tell  you  the 
hours  of  service,  and  the  order  of  its  performance.  So  that 
they  might  forget  Samuel — they  might  crowd  round  his  suc- 
cessor— but  Samuel's  work  could  not  be  forgotten  :  years 
after  he  was  quiet  and  silent  under  ground,  his  courts  in  Bethel 
and  Mizpeh  would  form  the  precedents  and  the  germs  of  the 
national  jurisprudence. 

A  very  pregnant  lesson.  Life  passes,  work  is  permanent. 
It  is  all  going — fleeting  and  withering.  Youth  goes.  Mind 
decays.  That  which  is  done  remains.  Through  ages,  through 


644  Prayer. 

eternity,  what  you  have  done  for  God,  that,  and  only  that, 
you  are.  Ye  that  are  workers,  and  count  it  the  soul's  worst 
disgrace  to  feel  life  passing  in  idleness  and  uselessness.  take 
courage.  Deeds  never  die. 


III. 
PRAYER. 

"  And  he  went  a  little  further,  and  fell  on  his  face,  and  prayed,  saying,  0 
my  Father,  if  it  be  possible,  let  this  cup  pass  from  me :  nevertheless,  not  as  I 
will,  but  as  thou  wilt." — Matt.  xxvi.  39. 

No  one  will  refuse  to  identify  holiness  with  prayer.  To 
say  that  a  man  is  religious  is  to  say  the  same  thing  as  to  say 
he  prays.  For  what  is  prayer  ?  To  connect  every  thought 
with  the  thought  of  God.  To  look  on  every  thing  as  His 
work  and  His  appointment.  To  submit  every  thought,  wish, 
and  resolve  to  Him.  To  feel  His  presence,  so  that  it  shall 
restrain  us  even  in  our  wildest  joy.  That  is  prayer.  And 
what  we  are  now,  surely  we  are  by  prayer.  If  we  have  at- 
tained any  measure  of  goodness,  if  we  have  resisted  tempta- 
tions, if  we  have  any  seTf-command,  or  if  we  live  with  aspira- 
tions and  desires  beyond  the  common,  we  shall  not  hesitate 
to  ascribe  all  to  prayer. 

There  is  therefore  no  question  among  Christians  about  the 
efficacy  of  prayer ;  but  that  granted  generally,  then  question- 
ings and  diversities  of  view  begin.  What  is  prayer?  What 
is  the  efficacy  of  prayer?  Is  prayer  necessarily  words  in 
form  and  sequence ;  or  is  there  a  real  prayer  that  never  can 
be  syllabled  ?  Does  prayer  change  the  outward  universe,  or 
does  it  alter  our  inward  being  ?  Does  it  work  on  God,  or 
does  it  work  on  us? 

To  all  these  questions,  I  believe  a  full  and  sufficient  answer 
is  returned  in  the  text.  Let  us  examine  it  calmly,  and  with- 
out prejudice  or  prepossession.  If  we  do,  it  can  not  be  but 
that  we  shall  obtain  a  conclusion  in  which  we  may  rest  with 
peace,  be  it  what  it  eventually  may.  We  will  consider — 

I.  The  right  of  petition. 
H.  Erroneous  views  of  what  prayer  is. 
III.  The  true  efficacy  of  prayer. 

I.  The  right  of  petition.  "  Let  this  cup  pass  from  me." 
We  infer  it  to  be  a  right — 1.  Because  it  is  a  necessity  of  oul 
human  nature. 


The  Son  of  Man  feels  the  hour  at  hand :  shrinks  from  it, 
seeks  solitude,  flies  from  human  society — feels  the  need  of  it 
again,  and  goes  back  to  his  disciples.  Here  is  that  need  of 
sympathy  which  forces  us  to  feel  for  congenial  thought 
among  relations  ;  and  here  is  that  recoil  from  cold  unsympa- 
thizing  natures,  which  forces  us  back  to  our  loneliness  again. 
In  such  an  hour,  they  who  have  before  forgotten  prayer  be- 
take themselves  to  God :  and  in  such  an  hour,  even  the  most 
resigned  are  not  without  the  wish,  "Let  this  cup  pass." 
Christ  Himself  has  a  separate  wish — one  human  wish. 

Prayer,  then,  is  a  necessity  of  our  humanity,  rather  than  a 
duty.  To  force  it  as  a  duty  is  dangerous.  Christ  did  not ; 
never  commanded  it,  never  taught  it  till  asked.  This  neces- 
sity is  twofold.  First,  the  necessity  of  sympathy.  We  touch 
other  human  spirits  only  at  a  point  or  two.  In  the  deepest 
departments  of  thought  and  feeling  we  are  alone ;  and  the 
desire  to  escape  that  loneliness  finds  for  itself  a  voice  in 
prayer. 

Next,  the  necessity  of  escaping  the  sense  of  a  crushing 
fate.  The  feeling  that  al^  things  are  fixed  and  unalterable, 
that  we  are  surrounded  by  necessities  which  we  can  not 
break  through,  is  intolerable  whenever  it  is  realized.  Our- 
egotism  cries  against  it ;  our  innocent  egotism,  and  the  prac- 
tical reconciliation*  between  our  innocent  egotism  and  hid- 
eous fatalism  is  prayer,  which  realizes  a  living  Person  ruling 
all  things  with  a  will. 

2.  Again,  we  base  this  right  on  our  privilege  as  Children. 
"My  Father" — that  sonship  Christ  shares  with  us  reveals 
the  human  race  as  a  family  in  which  God  is  a  Father,  and 
Himself  the  elder  brother.     It  would  be  a  strange  family, 
where  the  child's  will  dictates ;  but  it  would  be  also  strange 
where  a  child  may  not,  as  a  child,  express  its  foolish  wish, 
if  it  be  only  to  have  the  impossibility  of  gratifying  it  ex- 
plained. 

3.  Christ  used  it  as  a  right,  therefore  we  may. 

There  is  many  a  case  in  life,  where  to  act  seems  useless — 
many  a  truth  which  at  times  appears  incredible.  Then  we 
throw  ourselves  on  Him — He  did  it,  He  believed  it,  that  is 
enough.  He  was  wise,  where  I  am  foolish.  He  was  holy, 
where  I  am  evil.  He  must  know.  He  must  be  right.  I  rely 
on  Him.  Bring  what  arguments  you  may:  say  that  prayer 
can  not  change  God's  will.  I  know  it.  Say  that  prayer  ten 
thousand  times  comes  back  like  a  stone.  Yes,  but  Christ 
prayed-,  therefore  I  may  and  I  will  pray.  Not  only  so,  but  I 
must  pray;  the  wish  felt  and  not  uttered  before  God,  is  a 
*  Mesothesis. 


646  Prayer. 

prayer.  -Speak,  if  your  heart  prompts,  in  articulate  words, 
but  there  is  an  unsyllabled  wish,  which  is  also  prayer.  You 
can  not  help  praying,  if  God's  Spirit  is  in  yours. 

Do  not  say,  I  must  wait  till  this  tumult  has  subsided  and  I 
am  calm.  The  worst  storm  of  spirit  is  the  time  for  prayer: 
the  Agony  was  the  hour  of  petition.  Do  not  stop  to  calcu- 
late improbabilities.  Prayer  is  truest  when  there  is  most  of 
instinct  and  least  of  reason.  Say,  "  My  Father,  thus  I  fear 
and  thus  I  wish.  Hear  thy  foolish,  erring  child — let  this 
cup  pass  from  me." 

IL  Erroneous  notions  of  what  prayer  is.  They  are  con- 
tained in  that  conception  which  He  negatived,  "As  I  will." 

A  common  popular  conception  of  prayer  is,  that  it  is  the 
means  by  which  the  wish  of  man  determines  the  will  of  God. 
This  conception  finds  an  exact  parallel  in  those  anecdotes 
with  which  Oriental  history  abounds,  wherein  a  sovereign 
gives  to  his  favorite  some  token,  on  the  presentation  of  which 
every  request  must  be  granted.  As  when  Ahasuerus  prom- 
ised Queen  Esther  that  her  petition  should  be  granted,  even 
to  the  half  of  his  kingdom.  As  when  Herod  swore  to  He- 
rodias's  daughter  that  he  would  do  whatever  she  should  re- 
quire. It  will  scarcely  be  said  that  this  is  a  misrepresenta- 
tion of  a  very  common  doctrine,  for  they  who  hold  it  would 
state  it  thus,  and  would  consider  the  mercifulness  and  privi- 
lege of  prayer  to  consist  in  this,  that  by  faith  we  can  obtain 
all  that  we  wa.it. 

Now,  in  the  text  it  is  said  distinctly  this  is  not  the  aim  of 
prayer,  nor  its  meaning.  "Not  as  I  will."  The  wish  of  man 
does  not  determine  the  will  of  God. 

Try  this  conception  by  four  tests. 

1.  By  its  incompatibility  with  the  fact  that  this  uniTerse 
is  a  system  of  laws.  Things  are  thus,  rather  than  thus. 
Such  an  event  is  invariably  followed  by  such  a  consequence. 
This  we  call  a  law.  All  is  one  vast  chain,  from  which  if  you 
strike  a  single  link,  you  break  the  whole.  It  has  been  truly 
said  that  to  heave  a  pebble  on  the  sea-shore  one  yard  higher 
up  would  change  all  antecedents  from  the  creation,  and  all 
^consequents  to  the  end  of  time.  For  it  would  have  required 
a  greater  force  in  the  wave  that  threw  it  there — and  that 
would  have  required  a  different  degree  of  strength  in  the 
storm — that  again,  a  change  of  temperature  all  over  the 
globe — and  that  again,  a  corresponding  difference  in  the  tem- 
peraments and  characters  of  the  men  inhabiting  the  different 
countries. 

So  that  when  a  child  wishes  a  fine  day  for  his  morrow's 


Prayer.  647 

excursion,  and  hopes  to  have  it  by  an  alteration  of  what 
would  have  been  without  his  wish,  he  desires  nothing  less 
than  a  whole  new  universe. 

It  is  difficult  to  state  this  in  all  its  force  except  to  men 
who  are  professionally  concerned  with  the  daily  observation 
of  the  uniformity  of  the  Divine  laws.  But  when  the  astron- 
omer descends  from  his  serene  gaze  upon  the  moving  heav- 
ens, and  the  chemist  rises  from  contemplating  those  marvel- 
lous affinities,  the  proportions  of  which  are  never  altered, 
realizing  the  fact  that  every  atom  and  element  has  its  own 
mystic  number  in  the  universe  to  the  end  of  time  ;  or  when 
the  economist  has  studied  the  laws  of  wealth,  and  seen  how 
fixed  they  are  and  sure :  then  to  hear  that  it  is  expected 
that,  to  comply  with  a  mortal's,  convenience  or  plans,  God 
shall  place  this  whole  harmonious  system  at  the  disposal  ol 
selfish  humanity,  seems  little  else  than  impiety  against  the 
Lord  of  law  and  order. 

2.  Try  it  next  by  fact. 

Ask  those  of  spiritual  experience.  We  do  not  ask  whether 
prayer  has  been  efficacious — of  course  it  has.  It  is  God's  or- 
dinance. Without  prayer  the  soul  dies.  But  what  we  ask 
is,  whether  the  good  derived  has  been  exactly  this,  that 
prayer  brought  them  the  very  thing  they  wished  for?  FOT 
instance,  did  the  plague  come  and  go  according  to  the  laws 
of  prayer  or  according  to  the  laws  of  health  ?  Did  it  come 
because  men  neglected  prayer,  or  because  they  disobeyed 
those  rules  which  His  wisdom  has  revealed  as  the  conditions 
of  salubrity  ?  And  when  it  departed,  was  it  because  a  na- 
tion lay  prostrate  in  sackcloth  and  ashes,  or  because  it  arose 
and  girded  up  its  loins  and  removed  those  causes  and  those 
obstructions  which,  by  everlasting  law,  are  causes  and  ob- 
structions? Did  the  catarrh  or  the  consumption  go  from 
him  who  prayed,  sooner  than  from  him  who  humbly  bore  it 
in  silence  ?  Try  it  by  the  case  of  Christ — Christ's  prayer 
did  not  eucceed.  He  prayed  that  the  cup  might  pass  from 
Him.  It  did  not  so  pass. 

Now  lay  down  the  irrefragable  principle,  "The  disciple  is 
not  above  his  master,  nor  the  servant  above  his  lord.  It  is 
enough  for  the  disciple  that  he  be  as  his  master,  and  the 
servant  as  his  lord."  What  Christ's  prayer  was  not  effica. 
cious  to  do,  that  ours  is  not  certain  to  effect.  If  the  object 
of  petition  be  to  obtain,  then  Christ's  prayer  failed ;  if  the 
refusal  of  His  petition  did  not  show  the  absence  of  the  favor 
of  His  Father,  then  neither  does  the  refusal  of  ours. 

Nor  can  you  meet  this  by  saying,  "  His  prayer  could  not 
succeed,  because  it  was  decreed  that  Christ  should  die ;  but 


648  Prayer. 

ours  may,  because  nothing  hangs  on  our  fate,  and  we 
of  no  decree  that  is  against  our  wish." 

Do  you  mean  that  some  things  are  decreed  and  some  are 
left  to  chance  ?  That  would  make  a  strange,  disconnected 
universe.  The  death  of  a  worm,  your  death,  its  hour  and 
moment,  are  all  fixed,  as  much  as  His  was.  Fortuity,  chance, 
contingency,  are  only  words  which  express  our  ignorance  of 
causes. 

3.  Try  it  by  the  prejudicial  results  of  such  a  belief. 

To  think  that  prayer  changes  God's  will  gives  unworthy 
ideas  of  God.  It  supposes  our  will  to  be  better  than  His, 
the  Unchangeable,  the  Unsearchable,  the  All -wise.  Can 
you  see  the  All  of  things — the  consequences  and  secret  con- 
nections of  the  event  you  wish  ?  and  if  not,  would  you  really 
desire  the  terrible  power  of  infallibly  securing  it  ? 

Consider,  also,  the  danger  of  vanity  and  supineness  result- 
ing from  the  fulfillment  of  our  desires  as  a  necessity.  Who 
does  not  recollect  such  cases  in  childhood,  when  some  curi- 
ous coincidences  with  our  wishes  were  taken  for  direct  re- 
plies to  prayer,  and  made  us  fancy  ourselves  favorites  of 
Heaven,  in  possession  of  a  secret  spell.  These  coincidences 
did  not  make  us  more  earnest,  more  holy,  but  rather  the  re- 
verse. Careless  and  vain,  we  fancied  we  had  a  power  which 
superseded  exertion,  we  looked  down  contemptuously  on 
others.  Those  were  startling  and  wholesome  lessons  which 
came  when  our  prayer  failed,  and  threw  our  whole  childish 
theory  into  confusion.  It  is  recorded  that  a  favorite  once 
received  from  his  sovereign  a  ring  as  a  mark  of  her  regard, 
with  a  promise  that  whenever  he  presented  that  ring  to  her 
she  would  grant  his  request.  He  entered  on  rebellion,  from 
a  vain  confidence  in  the  favor  of  his  sovereign.  The  ring 
which  he  sent  was  kept  back  by  his  messenger,  and  he  was 
executed.  So  would  we  rebel  if  prayer  were  efficacious  to 
change  God's  will  and  to  secure  His  pardon. 

4.  It  would  be  most  dangerous,  too,  as  a  criterion  of  our 
spiritual  state.     If  we  think  that  answered  prayer  is  a  proof 
of  grace,  we  shall  be  unreasonably  depressed  and  unreason- 
ably elated — depressed  when  we  do  not  get  wrhat  we  wish, 
elated  when  we  do  ;  besides,  we  shall  judge  uncharitably  of 
other  men. 

Two  farmers  pray,  the  one  whose  farm  is  on  light  land, 
for  rain ;  the  other,  whose  contiguous  farm  is  on  heavy  soil, 
for  fine  weather ;  plainly  one  or  the  other  must  come,  and 
that  which  is  good  for  one  may  be  injurious  to  the  other. 
If  this  be  the  right  view  of  prayer,  then  the  one  who  does 
not  obtain  his  wish  must  mourn,  doubting  God's  favor3  or 


Prayer.  649 

oelieving  that  he  did  not  pray  in  faith.  Two  Christian 
armies  meet  for  battle — Christian  men  on  both  sides  pray 
for  success  to  their  own  arms.  Now  if  victory  be  given  to 
prayer,  independent  of  other  considerations,  we  are  driven 
to  the  pernicious  principle,  that  success  is  the  test  of  right. 

From  all  which  the  history  of  this  prayer  of  Christ  "deliv- 
ers us.  It  is  a  precious  lesson  of  the  cross,  that  apparent 
failure  is  eternal  victory.  It  is  a  precious  lesson  of  thia 
prayer,  that  the  object  of  prayer  is  not  the  success  of  its  pe- 
tition ;  nor  is  its  rejection  a  proof  of  failure.  Christ's  peti- 
tion was  not  gratified,  yet  He  was  the  One  well-beloved  of 
His  Father. 

IIL  The  true  efficacy  of  prayer—  *  As  Thou  wilt." 
All  prayer  is  to  change  the  will  human  into  submission  to 
the  will  Divine.  Trace  the  steps  in  this  history  by  which 
the  mind  of  the  Son  of  Man  arrived  at  this  result.  First,  we 
find  the  human  wish  almost  unmodified,  that  "  that  cup 
might  pass  from  Him."  Then  He  goes  to  the  disciples,  and 
it  would  appear  that  the  sight  of  those  disciples,  cold,  un- 
sympathetic, asleep,  chilled  His  spirit,  and  set  that  train  of 
thought  in  motion  which  suggested  the  idea  that  perhaps 
the  passing  of  that  cup  was  not  His  Father's  will.  At  all 
events,  He  goes  back  with  this  perhaps — "If  this  cup  may 
not  pass  from  me  except  I  drink  it,  Thy  will  be  done."  He 
goes  back  again,  and  the  words  become  more  strong :  "  Nev- 
theless,  not  as  I  will,  but  AS  Thou  wilt."  The  last  time  He 
comes,  all  hesitancy  is  gone.  Not  one  trace  of  the  human 
wish  remains ;  strong  in  submission,  He  goes  to  meet  His 
doom — "  Rise,  let  us  be  going :  behold,  he  is  at  hand  that 
doth  betray  me."  This,  then,  is  the  true  course  and  history 
of  prayer.  Hence  we  conclude — 

1.  That  prayer  which  does  not  succeed  in  moderating  our 
wish,  in  changing  the  passionate  desire  into  still  submission, 
the   anxious,  tumultuous  expectation  into  silent   surrender, 
is  no  true  prayer,  and  proves  that  we  have  not  the  spirit  of 
true  prayer. 

Hence,  too,  we  learn — 

2.  That  life  is  most  holy  in  which  there  is  least  of  petition 
and  desire,  and  most  of  waiting  upon  God :  that  in  which 
petition  most  often  passes  into  thanksgiving.     In  the  prayer 
taught  by  Christ  there  is  only  one  petition  for  personal  good, 
and  that  a  singularly  simple  and  modest  one,  "  Give  us  this 
day  our  daily  bread,"  and  even  that  expresses  dependence 
far  rather  than  anxiety  or  desire. 

From  this  we  understand  the  spirit  of  that  retirement  fo? 

28 


650  Prayer. 

prayer  into  lonely  tops  of  mountains  and  deep  shades  of 
night,  of  which  we  read  so  often  in  His  life.  It  was  not  st 
much  to  secure  any  definite  event  as  from  the  need  of  holj 
communion  with  His  Father — prayer  without  any  definite 
wish ;  for  we  must  distinguish  two  things  which  are  often 
confounded.  Prayer  for  specific  blessings  is  a  very  different 
thing  from  communion  with  God.  Prayer  is  one  thing, 
petition  is  quite  another.  Indeed,  hints  are  given  us  which 
make  it  seem  that  a  time  will  come  when  spirituality  shall 
be  so  complete,  and  acquiescence  in  the  will  of  God  so  en 
tire,  that  petition  shall  be  superseded.  "  In  that  day  ye 
shall  ask  me  nothing;"  "Again  I  say  not  I  will  pray  the 
Father  for  you,  for  the  Father  Himself  loveth  you."  And 
to  the  same  purpose  are  all  those  passages  in  which  He  dis- 
countenances the  heathen  idea  of  prayer,  which  consists  in 
urging,  prevailing  upon  God.  "  They  think  that  they  shall 
be  heard  for  their  much  speaking.  Be  not  ye  therefore  like 
unto  them :  for  your  Father  knoweth  what  things  ye  have 
need  of  before  ye  ask  Him." 

Practically  then,  I  say,  Pray  as  He  did,  till  prayer  makes 
you  cease  to  pray.  Pray  till  prayer  makes  you  forget  your 
own  wish,  and  leave  it  or  merge  it  in  God's  will.  The  Di- 
vine wisdom  has  given  us  prayer,  not  as  a  means  whereby 
to  obtain  the  good  things  of  earth,  but  as  a  means  whereby 
we  learn  to  do  without  them ;  not  as  a  means  whereby  we 
escape  evil,  but  as  a  means  whereby  we  become  strong  to 
meet  it.  "  There  appeared  an  angel  unto  Him  from  heaven, 
strengthening  Him."  That  was  the  true  reply  to  His 
prayer. 

And  so,  in  the  expectation  of  impending  danger,  our 
prayer  has  won  the  victory,  not  wrhen  we  have  warded  off 
the  trial,  but  when,  like  Him,  we  have  learned  to  say,  "Arise, 
let  us  go  to  meet  the  evil." 

Now,  contrast  the  moral  consequences  of  this  view  of 
prayer  with  those'  which,  as  we  saw,  arise  from  the  other 
view.  Hence  comes  that  mistrust  of  our  own  understanding 
which  will  not  suffer  us  to  dictate  to  God.  Hence,  that 
benevolence  which,  contemplating  the  good  of  the  whole 
rather  than  self-interest,  dreads  to  secure  what  is  pleasing  to 
self  at  the  possiVe  expense  of  the  general  weal.  Hence,  that 
humility  which  looks  on  ourselves  as  atoms,  links  in  a  mys- 
terious chain,  and  shrinks  from  the  dangerous  wish  to  break 
the  chain.  Hence,  lastly,  the  certainty  that  the  All-wise  is 
the  All-good,  and  that  "  all  things  work  together  for  good," 
for  the  individual  as  well  as  for  the  whole.  Then,  the  selfish 
ery  of  egotism  being  silenced,  we  obtain  Job's  sublime  spirit, 


Perversion,  as  shown  in  Balaam's  Character.  65 1 

"  Shall  we  receive  good  at  the  hand  of  God,  and  shall  we  not 
receive  evil?" 

There  is  one  objection  may  be  made  to  this.  It  may  be 
said,  If  this  be  prayer,  I  have  lost  all  I  prized.  It  is  sad  and 
depressing  to  think  that  prayer  will  alter  nothing,  and  bring 
nothing  that  I  wish.  All  that  was  precious  in  prayer  iti 
struck  away  from  me. 

But  one  word  in  reply.  You  have  lost  the  certainty  of 
getting  your  own  wish ;  you  have  got  instead  the  compen- 
sation of  knowing  that  the  best  possible,  best  for  you,  best 
for  all,  will  be  accomplished.  Is  that  nothing  ?  and  will  you 
dare  to  say  that  prayer  is  no  boon  at  all  unless  you  can  re- 
verse the  spirit  of  youi  Master's  prayer,  and  say,  "  Not  as 
Tkou  wilt,  but  as  /will?" 


IV. 

PERVERSION,  AS  SHOWN  IN  BALAAM'S 
CHARACTER. 

"And  Balaam  said  unto  the  angel  of  the  Lord,  I  have  sinned ,  for  I  knew 
not. that  thou  stoodest  in  the  way  against  me:  now  therefore,  if  it  displease 
thee,  I  will  get  me  back  again.  And  the  angel  of  the  Lord  said  unto  Balaam, 
Go  with  the  men :  but  only  the  word  that  I  shall  speak  unto  thee,  that  thou 
shalt  speak.  So  Balaam  went  with  the  princes  of  Balak. " — Num.  xxii.  34,  35. 

THE  judgment  which  we  form  on  the  character  of  Balaam 
is  one  of  unmitigated  condemnation.  We  know  and  say 
that  he  was  a  false  prophet  and  a  bad  man.  This  is  how- 
ever, doubtless,  because  we  come  to  the  consideration  of  his 
history  having  already  prejudged  his  case. 

St.  Peter,  St.  Jude,  and  St.  John  have  p  issed  sentence  upon 
him.  "  Having  eyes  full  of  adultery,  and  that  can  not  cease 
from  sin  ;  beguiling  unstable  souls  :  a  heart  they  have  exer- 
cised Avith  covetous  practices;  cursed  children:  which  have 
forsaken  the  right  way,  and  are  gone  astray,  following  the 
way  of  Balaam  the  son  of  Bosor,  who  loved  the  wages  of 
unrighteousness,  but  was  rebuked  for  his  iniquity  :  the  dumb 
ass  speaking  with  man's  voice  forbade  the  madness  of  the 
prophet ;"  "  Woe  unto  them  !  for  they  have  gone  in  the  way 
of  Cain,  and  ran  greedily  after  the  error  of  Balaam  for  re- 
ward, and  perished  in  the  gainsaying  of  Core  ;"  "  But  I  have 
a  few  things  against  thee,  because  thou  hast  there  them  that 
hold  the  doctrine  of  Balaam,  who  taught  Balak  to  cast  a 
stumbling-block  before  the  children  of  Israel,  to  eat  things 


652  Perversion,  as  shown  in  Balaam*  Character. 

sacrificed  unto  idols,  and  to  commit  fornication."  And  so  we 
read  the  history  of  Balaam  familiar  with  these  passages,  and 
coloring  all  with  them. 

But  assuredly  this  is  not  the  sentence  we  should  have  pro- 
nounced if  we  had  been  left  to  ourselves,  but  one  much  less 
severe.  Repulsive  as  Balaam's  character  is  when  it  is  seen 
at  a  distance,  when  it  is  seen  near  it  has  much  in  it  that  is 
human,  like  ourselves,  inviting  compassion — even  admira- 
tion :  there  are  traits  of  firmness,  conscientiousness,  noble- 
ness. 

For  example,  in  the  text,  he  offers  to  retrace  his  steps  as 
soon  as  he  perceives  that  he  is  doing  wrong.  He  asks  guid- 
ance of  God  before  he  will  undertake  a  journey  :  "  And  he 
said  unto  them,  Lodge  here  this  night,  and  I  will  bring  you 
word  again,  as  the  Lord  shall  speak  unto  me."  He  professes 
— and  in  earnest — "  If  Balak  would  give  me  his  house  full  of 
silver  and  gold,  I  can  not  go  beyond  the  word  of  the  Lord 
my  God,  to  do  less  or  more."  He  prays  to  "  die  the  death 
of  the  righteous,  and  that  his  last  end  may  be  like  his."  Yet 
the  inspired  judgment  of  his  character,  as  a  whole,  stands  re 
corded  as  one  of  unmeasured  severity. 

And  accordingly  one  of  the  main  lessons  in  Balaam's  his- 
tory must  ever  be,  to  trace  how  it  is  that  men,  who  to  the 
world  appear  respectable,  conscientious,  honorable,  gifted,  re- 
ligious, may  be  in  the  sight  of  God  accursed,  and  heirs  of 
perdition.  Our  subject,  then,  to-day  is  perversion : 

L  Perversion  of  great  gifts. 
II.  Perversion  of  the  conscience. 

I.  Of  great  gifts. 

The  history  tells  of  Balak  sending  to  Pethor  for  Balaam 
to  curse  the  Israelites.  This  was  a  common  occurrence  in 
ancient  history.  There  was  a  class  of  men  regularly  set 
apart  to  bless  and  curse,  to  spell-bind  the  winds  and  foretell 
events.  Balaam  was  such  an  one. 

Now  the  ordinary  account  would  be  that  such  men  were 
impostors,  or  endued  with  political  sagacity,  or  had  secret 
dealings  with  the  devil.  But  the  Bible  says  Balaam's  inspi- 
ration was  from  God. 

It  did  not  arise  from  diabolical  agency,  or  from  merely 
political  sagacity  :  that  magnificent  "ode  of  sublime  poetry, 
given  in  chapter  xxiv.,  is  from  God. 

The  Bible  refers  the  inspiration  of  the  poet,  of  the  proph- 
et, of  the  worker  in  cunning  workmanship,  to  God.  It 
makes  no  mention  of  our  modern  distinction  between  that 
inspiration  enjoyed  by  the  sacred  writers  and  that  enjoyed 


Perversion,  as  shown  in  Balaams  Character.  653 

by  ordinary  men,  except  so  far  as  the  use  is  concerned. 
God's  prophets  glorified  Him.  The  wicked  prophets  glori- 
fied themselves ;  but  their  inspiration  was  real,  and  came 
from  God,  and  these  divine  powers  were  perverted — 

1.  By  turning  them  to  purposes  of  sell-aggrandizement. 
Now,  remember  how  the  true  prophets  of  Jehovah  spoke. 

Simply,  with  no  affectation  of  mystery,  no  claims  to  mystical 
illumination.  They  delighted  to  share  their  power  with  their 
fellows  ;  they  said,  "  The  heart  of  the  Lord  was  with  them 
that  fear  Him ;"  that  the  Lord  "  dwelt  with  an  humble  and 
contrite  heart."  They  represented  themselves  as  inspired, 
not  because  greater  or  wiser  than  their  brethren,  but  be- 
cause more  weak,  more  humble,  and  dependent  upon  God. 

Contrast  Balaam's  conduct.  Every  thing  is  done  to  show 
the  difference  between  him  and  others — to  fix  men's  atten- 
tion upon  himself — the  wonderful,  mysterious  man  who  is  in 
communication  with  Heaven.  He  builds  altars,  and  uses 
enchantments.  These  were  a  priest's  manoeuvres,  not  a 
prophet's. 

He  was  the  solitary  self-seeker — alone,  isolated,  loving  to 
be  separated  from  all  other  men;  admired,  feared  and 
sought. 

Balak  struck  the  key-note  of  his  character  when  he  said, 
"Am  I  not  able  to  promote  thee  unto  honor?"  Herein, 
then,  lies  the  first  perversion  of  glorious  gifts  :  that  Balaam 
sought  not  God's  honor  but  his  own. 

2.  By  making  those  gifts  subservient  to  his  own  greed. 

It  is  evident  that  Balaam  half  suspected  his  own  failing. 
Otherwise  what  mean  those  vaunts,  "  If  Balak  would  give 
me  his  house  full  of  silver  and  gold  ?"  Brave  men  do  not 
vaunt  their  courage,  nor  honorable  men  their  honesty,  nor  do 
the  truly  noble  boast  of  high  birth.  All  who  understand 
the  human  heart  perceive  a  secret  sense  of  weakness  in  these 
loud  boasts  of  immaculate  purity.  Silver  and  gold,  these 
were  the  things  he  loved,  and  so,  not  content  with  commun- 
ion with  God,  "with  the  possession  of  sublime  gifts,  he 
thought  these  only  valuable  so  far  as  they  were  means  of 
putting  himself  in  possession  of  riches.  Thus  spiritual  pow« 
ers  were  degraded  to  make  himself  a  vulgar  man  of  wealth. 

There  are  two  opposite  motives  which  sw"ay  men.  Some, 
like  Simon  Magus,  will  give  gold  to  be  admired  and  wonder- 
ed at;  some  will  barter  honor  for  gold.  In  some  the  two 
are  blended ;  as  in  Balaam,  we  see  the  desire  for  honor  and 
wealth — wealth,  perhaps,  as  being  another  means  of  insuring 
reputation.  And  so  have  we  seen  many  begin  and  end  in 
our  own  day — begin  with  a  high-minded  courage  which  flat- 


654  Perversion,  as  shown  in  Balaam  s  Character. 

ters  none ;  speaks  truth,  even  unpalatable  truth  ;  but  when 
this  advocacy  of  truth  brings  men,  as  it  brought  to  Balaam, 
to  consult  them,  and  they  rise  in  the  world,  or  in  a  court, 
and  become  men  of  consideration,  then  by  degrees  the  plain 
truth  is  sacrificed  to  a  feverish  love  of  notoriety,  the  love  of 
truth  is  superseded,  and  passes  into  a  love  of  influence. 

Or  they  begin  with  a  generous  indifference  to  wealth- 
simple,  austere ;  by  degrees  they  find  the  society  of  the  rich 
leading  them  from  extravagance  to  extravagance,  till  at  last 
high  intellectual  and  high  spiritual  powers  become  the  serv- 
ile instruments  of  appropriating  gold.  The  world  sees  the 
sad  spectacle  of  the  man  of  science  and  the  man  of  God  wait- 
ing at  the  doors  of  princes,  or  cringing  before  the  public  for 
promotion  and  admiration. 

II.  Perversion  of  conscience. 

1.  The  first  intimation  we  have  of  the  fact  that  Balaam 
was  tampering  with  his  conscience  is  in  his  second  appeal  to 
God.  On  the  first  occasion  God  said,  "  Thou  shalt  not  go 
with  them ;  thou  shalt  not  curse  the  people ;  for  they  are 
blessed."  Then  more  honorable  messengers  were  sent  from 
Balak,  with  larger  bribes.  Balaam  asks  permission  of  God 
again.  Here  is  the  evidence  of  a  secret  hollowness  in  his 
heart,  however  fair  the  outside  seemed.  In  worldly  matters, 
"  think  twice ;"  but  in  duty,  it  has  been  well  said,  "  first 
thoughts  are  best ;"  they  are  more  fresh,  more  pure,  have 
more  of  God  in  them.  There  is  nothing  like  the  first  glance 
we  get  at  duty,  before  there  has  been  any  special  pleading 
of  our  affections  or  inclinations.  Duty  is  never  uncertain  at 
first.  It  is  only  after  we  have  got  involved  in  the  mazes  and 
sophistries  of  wishing  that  things  were  otherwise  than  they 
are  that  it  seems  indistinct.  Considering  a  duty  is  often 
only  explaining  it  away.  Deliberation  is  often  only  dishon- 
esty. God's  guidance  is  plain,  when  we  are  true. 

Let  us  understand  in  what  Balaam's  hollowness  consisted. 
He  wanted  to  please  himself  without  displeasing  God.  The 
problem  was  how  to  go  to  Balak,  and  yet  not  to  offend  God. 
He  would  have  given  worlds  to  get  rid  of  his  duty ;  and  he 
went  to  God  to  get  his  duty  altered,  not  to  learn  what  his 
duty  was.  All  this  rested  upon  an  idea  that  the  will  of  God 
makes  right,  instead  of  being  right — as  if  it  were  a  caprice 
which  can  be  altered,  instead  of  the  law  of  the  universe, 
which  can  not  alter. 

How  deeply  this  principle  is  ingrained  in  human  nature 
you  may  see  from ,  the  Roman  Catholic  practice  of  indul- 
gences. The  Romish  Church  permits  transgressions  for  a 


Perversion, as  shown  in  Balaams  Character.  655 

consideration,  and  pardons  them  for  the  same.  Such  a  doc- 
trine never  could  have  succeeded  if  the  desire  and  belief  were 
not  in  man  already.  What  Balaam  was  doing  in  this  prayer 
was  simply  purchasing  an  indulgence  to  sin. 

2.  The  second  stage  is  a  state  of  hideous  contradictions  $ 
God  permits  Balaam  to  go,  and  then  is  angry  with  him  for 

foiug.  There  is  nothing  here  which  can  not  be  interpreted 
y  bitter  experience.  We  must  not  explain  it  away  by  say- 
ing that  these  were  only  the  alternations  of  Balaam's  own 
mind.  They  were  ;  but  they  were  the  alternations  of  a  mind 
with  which  God  was  expostulating,  and  to  which  God  ap- 
peared differently  at  different  times ;  the  horrible  mazes  and 
inconsistencies  of  a  spirit  which  contradicts  itself,  and  strives 
to  disobey  the  God  whom  yet  it  feels  and  acknowledges. 
To  such  a  state  of  mind  God  becomes  a  contradiction. 
"  With  the  froward  " — oh,  how  true  ! — "  thou  wilt  show  thy- 
self fro  ward."  God  speaks  once,  and  if  that  voice  be  not 
heard,  but  is  willfully  silenced,  the  second  time  it  utters  a 
terrible  permission.  God  says,  "  Go,"  and  then  is  angry. 
Experience  will  tell  us  how  God  has  sent  us  to  reap  the  fruit 
of  our  own  willfulness. 

3.  We  notice  next  the  evidences  in  him  of  a  disordered 
diind  and  heart. 

We  come  now^to  the  most  difficult  portion  of  the  story: 
"  The  dumb  ass,  speaking  with  man's  voice,  forbade  the  mad- 
ness of  the  prophet."  One  of  the  most  profound  and  pious 
of  modern  commentators  on  this  passage  has  not  scrupled 
to  represent  the  whole  transaction  as  occurring  in  a  vis- 
ion. Others  have  thought  that  Balaam's  own  heart,  smiting 
him  for  his  cruelty,  put,  as  it  were,  words  into  the  ass's 
mouth. 

We  care  not.  Let  the  caviller  cavil  if  he  will.  There  is 
too  much  profound  truth  throughout  this  narrative  for  us 
to  care  much  about  either  the  literal  or  the  figurative  inter- 
pretation. One  thing,  however,  is  clear.  Balaam  did  only 
what  men  so  entangled  always  do.  The  real  fault  is  in 
themselves.  They  have  committed  themselves  to  a  false 
position,  and  when  obstacles  stand  in  their  way,  they  lay  the 
blame  on  circumstances.  They  smite  the  dumb  innocent  oc- 
casion of  their  perplexity  as  if  it  were  the  cause.  And  the 
passionateness— the  "madness"  of  the  act  is  but  an  indica- 
tion that  all  is  going  wrong  within.  There  was  a  canker  at 
the  heart  of  Balaam's  life  and  his  equanimity  was  gone;  his 
temper  vented  itself  on  brute  things.  Who  has  not  seen  the 
like — a  grown  man,  unreasoning  as  a  child,  furious  beyond 
the  occasion  ?  If  you  knew  the  whole,  you  would  see  that 


656  Perversion,  as  shown  in  Balaam's  Character. 

was  not  the  thing  which  had  moved  him  so  terribly ;  you 
would  see  that  all  was  wrong  inwardly. 

It  is  a  strange,  sad  picture  this.  The  first  man  in  the 
land,  gifted  beyond  most  others,  conscious  of  great  mental 
power,  going  on  to  splendid  prospects,  yet  with  hopelessness 
and  misery  working  at  his  heart.  Who  would  have  envied 
Balaam  if  he  could  have  seen  all — the  hell  that  was  working 
at  his  beart  ? 

>  Lastly,  let  us  consider  the  impossibility  under  such  circum- 
stances of  going  back.  Balaam  offers  to  go  back.  The  an- 
gel says,  "  Go  on."  There  was  yet  one  hope  for  him — to  be 
true,  to  utter  God's  words  careless  of  the  consequences ;  but 
he  who  had  been  false  so  long,  how  should  he  be  true  ?  It 
was  too  late.  In  the  ardor  of  youth  you  have  made  perhaps 
a  wrong  choice,  or  chosen  an  unfit  profession,  or  suffered 
yourself  weakly  and  passively  to  be  drifted  into  a  false  course 
of  action,  and  now,  in  spite  of  yourself,  you  feel  there  is  no 
going  back.  To  many  minds,  such  a  lot  comes  as  with  the 
mysterious  force  of  a  destiny.  They  see  themselves  driven, 
and  forget  that  they  put  themselves  in  the  way  of  the  stream 
that  drives  them.  They  excuse  their  own  acts  as  if  they 
were  coerced.  They  struggle  now  and  then  faintly,  as  Ba- 
laam did — try  to  go  back — can  not — and  at  last  sink  passive- 
ly in  the  mighty  current  that  floats  them  on  to  wrong. 

And  thenceforth  to  them  all  God's  intimations  will  come 
unnatwally.  His  voice  will  sound  as  that  of  an  angel 
against  them  in  the  way.  Spectral  lights  will  gleam,  only 
to  show  a  quagmire  from  which  there  is  no  path  of  extrica^ 
tion.  The  heavenliest  things  and  the  meanest  will  forbid 
the  madness  of  the  prophet :  and  yet  at  the  same  time  seem 
to  say  to  the  weak  and  vacillating  self-seeker,  "  You  have 
done  wrong,  and  you  must  do  more  wrong."  Then  deepens 
down  a  hideous,  unnatural,  spectral  state — the  incubus  as  of 
a  dream  of  hell,  mixed  with  bitter  reminiscences  of  heaven. 

Your  secret  faults  will  come  out  in  your  life. 
we  say  to  you — be  true. 


Selfishness,  as  shown  in  Balaam  s  Character.  657 


V. 

SELFISHNESS,  AS  SHOWN  IN  BALAAM'S 
CHARACTER. 

"Who  can  count  the  dust  of  Jacob,  and  the  number  of  the  fourth  part  ol 
Israel  ?  Let  me  die  the  death  of  the  righteous,  and  let  my  last  end  be  like 
his  !" — Num.  xxiii.  10. 

WE  acquainted  ourselves  with  the  earlier  part  of  Balaam's 
history  last  Sunday.  We  saw  how  great  gifts  in  him  were 
perverted  by  ambition  and  avarice — ambition  making  them 
subservient  to  the  admiration  of  himself;  avarice  transform- 
ing them  into  mere  instruments  for  accumulating  wealth. 
And  we  saw  how  his  conscience  was  gradually  perverted  by 
insincerity,  till  his  mind  became  the  place  of  hideous  contra- 
dictions, and  even  God  Himself  had  become  to  him  a  he ; 
with  his  heart  disordered,  until  the  bitterness  of  all  going 
wrong  within  vented  itself  on  innocent  circumstances,  and 
he  found  himself  so  entangled  in  a  false  course  that  to  go 
back  was  impossible. 

Now  we  come  to  the  second  stage.  He  has  been  with 
Balak :  he  has  built  his  altars,  offered  his  sacrifices,  and  tried 
his  enchantments,  to  ascertain  whether  Jehovah  will  permit 
him  to  curse  Israel.  And  the  Voice  in  his  heart,  through  all, 
says,  "  Israel  is  blest."  He  looks  down  from  the  hill-top,  and 
sees  the  fair  camp  of  Israel  afar  oif,  in  beautiful  array,  their 
white  tents  gleaming  ';  as  the  trees  of  lignaloes  which  the 
Lord  had  planted."  He  feels  the  solitary  grandeur  of  a  na- 
tion unlike  all  other  nations — people  which  "shall  dwell 
alone,  and  shall  not  be  reckoned  among  the  nations."  A  na- 
tion too  numberless  to  give  Balak  any  hope  of  success  in 
the  coming  war.  "  Who  can  count  the  dust  of  Jacob,  and 
the  number  of  the  fourth  part  of  Israel?"  A  nation  too 
strong  in  righteousness  for  idolaters  and  enchanters  to  cope 
with,  "Surely  there  is  no  enchantment  against  Jacob,  neither 
is  there  any  divination  against  Israel  ?"  Then  follows  a  per- 
sonal ejaculation — "  Let  me  die  the  death  of  the  righteous, 
and  let  my  last  end  be  like  his !" 

Now  to  prevent  the  possibility  of  misconception,  or  any 
supposition  that  Balaam  was  expressing  words  whose  full 
significance  he  did  not  understand  —  that  when  he  was 
speaking  of  righteousness  he  had  only  a  heathen  notion  of 

28* 


658  Selfishness,  as  shown  in  Balaam  s  Character. 

it — we  refer  to  the  sixth  chapter  of  Micah,from  the  fifth 
verse.  We  will  next  refer  to  Numbers  xxxi.  8,  and  Joshua 
xiii.  22,  from  whence  it  appears  that  he  who  desired  to  die 
the  death  of  the  righteous,  died  the  death  of  the  ungodly, 
and  fell,  not  on  the  side  of  the  Lord,  but  fighting  against  the 
Lord's  cause.  The  first  thing  we  find  in  this  history  of  Ba- 
laam is  an  attempt  to  change  the  will  of  God. 

Let  us  clearly  understand  what  was  the  meaning  of  all 
those  reiterated  sacrifices. 

1.  Balaam  wanted  to  please  himself  without  displeasing 
God.  The  problem  was  how  to  go  to  Balak,  and  yet  not 
offend  God.  He  would  have  given  worlds  to  get  rid  of  his 
duties,  and  he  sacrificed,  not  to  learn  what  his  duty  was,  but 
to  get  his  duty  altered.  Now  see  the  feeling  that  lay  at  the 
root  of  all  this — that  God  is  mutable.  Yet  of  all  men  one 
would  have  thought  that  Balaam  knew  better,  for  had  he 
not  said,  "  God  is  not  a  man,  that  He  should  lie ;  neither  the 
son  of  man  that  He  should  repent :  hath  He  said,  and  shall 
He  not  do  it?"  But  when  we  look  upon  it,  we  see  Balaam 
had  scarcely  any  feeling  higher  than  this — God  is  more  in- 
flexible than  man.  Probably  had  he  expressed  the  exact 
shade  of  feeling,  he  would  have  said,  more  obstinate.  He 
thought  that  God  had  set  his  heart  upon  Israel,  and  that  it 
was  hard,  yet  not  impossible,  to  alter  this  partiality.  Hence 
he  tries  sacrifices  to  bribe,  and  prayers  to  coax,  God. 

How  deeply  rooted  this  feeling  is  in  human  nature — this 
belief  in  God's  mutability — you  may  see  from  the  Romish 
doctrine  of  indulgences  and  atonements.  The  Romish  Church 
permits  crime  for  certain  considerations.  For  certain  con- 
siderations it  teaches  that  God  will  forgive  crimes.  Atone- 
ments after,  and  indulgences  before  sin,  are  the  same.  But 
this  Romish  doctrine  never  could  have  succeeded,  if  the  be- 
lief in  God's  mutability  and  the  desire  that  He  should  be 
mutable,  were  not  in  man  already. 

What  Balaam  was  doing  in  these  parables,  and  enchant- 
ments, and  sacrifices,  was  simply  purchasing  an  indulgence 
to  sin ;  in  other  words,  it  was  an  attempt  to  make  the  Eter- 
nal Mind  change.  What  was  wanting  for  Balaam  to  feeJ 
was  this — God  can  not  change.  What  he  did  feel  was  this 
- — God  will  not  change.  There  are  many  writers  who  teach 
that  this  and  that  is  right  because  God  has  willed  it.  All 
discussion  is  cut  short  by  the  reply,  God  has  determined  it, 
therefore  it  is  right.  Now  there  is  exceeding  danger  in  this 
mode  of  thought,  for  a  thing  is  not  right  because  God  has 
willed  it,  but  God  wills  it  because  it  is  right.  It  is  in  this 
tone  the  Bible  always  speaks.  Never,  except  in  one  obscure 


Selfishness,  as  shown  in  Balaam's  Character.  659 

passage,  does  the  Bible  seem  to  refer  right  and  wrong  to  the 
sovereignty  of  God,  and  declare  it  a  matter  of  will ;  never 
does  it  imply  that  if  He  so  chose,  He  could  reverse  evil  and 
good.  It  says, "  Is  not  my  way  equal  ?  are  not  your  ways 
unequal  ?"  "  Shall  not  the  Judge  of  all  the  earth  do  right  ?" 
was  Abraham's  exclamation  in  a  kind  of  hideous  doubt 
whether  the  Creator  might  not  be  on  the  eve  of  doing  injus- 
tice. So  the  Bible  justifies  the  ways  of  God  to  man.  But  it 
could  not  do  so  unless  it  admitted  eternal  laws,  with  which 
no  will  can  interfere.  Nay  more,  see  what  ensues  from  this 
mode  of  thought.  If  right  is  right  because  God  wills  it,  then, 
if  God  chose,  He  could  make  injustice,  and  cruelty,  and  lying 
to  be  right.  This  is  exactly  what  Balaam  thought.  If  God 
could  but  be  prevailed  on  to  hate  Israel,  then  for  him  to 
curse  them  would  be  right.  And  again  :  if  power  and  sov- 
ereignty make  right,  then,  supposing  the  Ruler  were  a  demon, 
devilish  hatred  would  be  as  right  as  now  it  is  wrong.  There 
is  great  danger  in  some  of  our  present  modes  of  thinking.  It 
is  a  common  thought  that  might  makes  right,  but  for  us  there 
is  no  rest,  no  rock,  no  sure  footing,  so  long  as  we  feel  right 
and  wrong  are  mere  matters  of  will  and  decree.  There  is  no 
safety,  then,  from  these  hankering  feelings  and  wishes  to  alter 
God's  decree.  You  are  unsafe  until  you  feel,  "Heaven  and 
earth  may  pass  away,  but  God's  word  can  not  pass  away." 

2.  We  notice,  secondly,  an  attempt  to  blind  himself.  One 
of  the  strangest  leaves  in  the  book  of  the  human  heart  is 
here  turned.  We  observe  here  perfect  veracity  with  utter 
want  of  truth.  Balaam  was  veracious.  He  will  not  deceive 
Balak.  Nothing  was  easier  than  to  get  the  reward  by  mut- 
tering a  spell,  knowing  all  the  while  that  it  would  not  work. 
Many  a  European  has  sold  incantations  to  rich  savages  for 
jewels  and  curiosities,  thus  enriching  himself  by  deceit. 
Now  Balaam  was  not  supernaturally  withheld.  That  is  a 
baseless  assumption.  Nothing  withheld  him  but  his  con- 
science. No  bribe  on  earth  could  induce  Balaam  to  say  a 
falsehood — to  pretend  a  curse  which  was  powerless — to  get 
gold,  dearly  as  he  loved  it,  by  a  pretense.  "  If  Balak  would 
give  me  his  house  full  of  silver  and  gold,  I  can  not  go  beyond 
the  word  of  the  Lord  my  God,  to  do  less  or  more,"  was  no 
mere  fine  saying,  but  the  very  truth.  You  might  as  soon 
have  turned  the  sun  from  his  course  as  induced  Balaam  to 
utter  falsehood. 

Aud  yet,  with  all  this,  there  was  utter  truthlessness  of 
heart.  Balaam  will  not  utter  what  is  not  true ;  but  he  will 
blind  himself  so  that  he  may  not  see  the  truth,  and  so  speafc 
a  lie,  believing  it  to  be  the  truth. 


660  Selfishness,  as  shown  in  Balaam  s  Character. 

He  will  only  speak  the  thing  he  feels ;  but  he  is  not  careful 
to  feel  all  that  is  true.  He  goes  to  another  place,  where  the 
whole  truth  may  not  force  itself  upon  his  mind — to  a  hill 
where  he  shall  not  see  the  whole  of  Israel:  from  hill  to  hill 
for  the  chance  of  getting  to  a  place  where  the  truth  may  dis- 
appear. But  there  stands  the  stubborn  fact — Israel  is  bless- 
ed; and  he  will  look  at  the  fact  in  every  way,  to  see  if  he 
can  not  get  it  into  a  position  where  it  shall  be  seen  no  long- 
er. Ostrich-like ! 

Such  a  character  is  not  so  uncommon  as,  perhaps,  we  think. 
There  is  many  a  lucrative  business  which  involves  misery 
and  wrong  to  those  who  are  employed  in  it.  The  man  would 
be  too  benevolent  to  put  the  gold  in  his  purse  if  he  knew  of 
the  misery.  But  he  takes  care  not  to  know.  There  is  many 
a  dishonorable  thing  done  at  an  election,  and  the  principal 
takes  care  not  to  inquire.  Many  an  oppression  is  exercised 
on  a  tenantry,  and  the  landlord  receives  his  rent  and  asks  no 
questions.  Or  there  is  some  situation  which  depends  upon 
the  holding  of  certain  religious  opinions,  and  the  candidate 
has  a  suspicion  that  if  he  were  to  examine,  he  could  not  con- 
scientiously profess  these  opinions,  and  perchance  he  takes 
care  not  to  examine. 

3.  Failing  in  all  these  evil  designs  against  Israel,  Balaam 
tries  his  last  expedient  to  ruin  them,  and  that  partially  suc- 
ceeds. 

He  recommends  Balak  to  use  the  fascination  of  the  daugh- 
ters of  Moab  to  entice  the  Israelites  into  idolatry.  (Num. 
xxxi.  15, 16.  Rev.  ii.  14).  He  has  tried  enchantments  and 
sacrifices  in  vain  to  reverse  God's  will.  He  has  tried  in 
vain  to  think  that  will  is  reversed.  It  will  not  do.  He  feels 
at  last  that  God  has  not  beheld  iniquity  in  Jacob,  neither 
hath  He  seen  perverseness  in  Israel.  Now  therefore,  he 
tries  to  reverse  the  character  of  these  favorites,  and  so  to  re- 
verse God's  will.  God  will  not  curse  the  good ;  therefore 
Balaam  tries  to  make  them  wicked ;  he  tries  to  make  the 
good  curse  themselves,  and  so  exasperate  God. 

A  more  diabolical  wickedness  we  can  scarcely  conceive. 
Yet  Balaam  was  an  honorable  man  and  a  veracious  man ; 
nay,  a  man  of  delicate  conscientiousness  and  unconquer- 
able scruples — a  man  of  lofty  religious  professions,  highly 
respectable  and  respected.  The  Lord  of  heaven  and  earth 
has  said  there  is  such  a  thing  as  "  straining  out  a  gnat,  and 
swallowing  a  camel." 

There  are  men  who  would  not  play  false,  and  yet  would 
wrongly  win.  There  are  men  who  would  not  lie,  and  yet 
who  would  bribe  a  poor  man  to  support  a  cause  which  he 


Selfishness,  as  shown  in  Balaam  s  Character.  66 1 

believes  in  his  soul  to  be  false.  There  are  men  who  would 
resent  at  the  sword's  point  the  charge  of  dishonor,  who 
would  yet  for  selfish  gratification  entice  the  weak  into  sin, 
and  damn  body  and  soul  in  hell.  There  are  men  who  would 
be  shocked  at  being  called  traitors,  who  in  time  of  war  will 
yet  make  a  fortune  by  selling  arms  to  their  country's  foes. 
There  are  men  respectable  and  respected,  who  give  liberally 
and  support  religious  societies,  and  go  to  church,  and  would 
not  take  God's  name  in  vain,  who  have  made  wealth,  in  some 
trade  of  opium  or  spirits,  out  of  the  wreck  of  innumerable 
human  lives.  Balaam  is  one  of  the  accursed  spirits  now, 
but  he  did  no  more  than  these  are  doing. 

Now  see  what  lay  at  the  root  of  all  this  hollowness :  self- 
ishness. 

From  first  to  last  one  thing  appears  uppermost  in  this  his- 
tory— Balaam's  self; — the  honor  of  Balaam  as  a  true  proph- 
et— therefore  he  will  not  lie ;  the  wealth  of  Balaam — there* 
fore  the  Israelites  must  be  sacrificed.  Nay  more,  even  in 
his  sublimest  visions  his  egotism  breaks  out.  In  the  sight 
of  God's  Israel  he  cries,  "  Let  me  die  the  death  of  the  right- 
eous :"  in  anticipation  of  the  glories  of  the  eternal  advent, 
"I  shall  behold  Him,  but  not  nigh."  He  sees  the  vision  of  a 
kingdom,  a  Church,  a  chosen  people,  a  triumph  of  righteous- 
ness. In  such  anticipations,  the  nobler  prophets  broke  out 
into  strains  in  which  their  own  personality  was  forgotten. 
Moses,  when  he  thought  that  God  would  destroy  His  people, 
prays  in  agony — "  Yet  now,  if  Thou  wilt,  forgive  their  sins ; 
— and  if  not,  blot  me,  I  pray  Thee,  out  of  Thy  book."  Paul 
speaks  in  impassioned  words — "I  have  continual  sorrow  in 
my  heart.  For  I  could  wish  that  myself  were  accursed  from 
Christ  for  my  brethren,  my  kinsmen  according  to  the  flesh, 
who  are  Israelites."  But  Balaam's  chief  feeling  seems  to  be, 
"How  will  all  this  advance  me?"  And  the  magnificence  of 
the  prophecy  is  thus  marred  by  a  chord  of  melancholy  and 
diseased  egotism.  Not  for  one  moment — even  in  those  mo- 
ments when  uninspired  men  gladly  forget  themselves;  men 
who  have  devoted  themselves  to  a  monarchy  or  dreamed  of 
a  republic  in  sublime  self-abnegation — can  Balaam  forget 
himself  in  God's  cause. 

Observe,  then  :  desire  for  personal  salvation  is  not  religion. 
It  may  go  with  it,  but  it  is  not  religion.  Anxiety  for  the 
state  of  one's  own  soul  is  not  the  healthiest  or  best  symp- 
tom. Of  course  every  one  wishes,  "  Let  me  die  the  death  of 
the  righteous."  But  it  is  one  thing  to  wish  to  be  saved,  an- 
other to  wish  God's  right  to  triumph;  one  thing  to  wish  to 
die  safe,  another  to  wish  to  live  holily.  Nay,  not  only  18 


662   Selfishness,  as  shewn  in  Balaam 's  Character 

this  desire  for  personal  salvation  not  religion,  but  if  soured, 
it  passes  into  hatred  of  the  good.  Balaam's  leeling  became 
spite  against  the  people  who  are  to  be  blessed  when  he  is 
not  blessed.  He  indulges  a  wish  that  good  may  not  pros- 
per, because  personal  interests  are  mixed  up  with  the  failure 
cf  good. 

We  see  anxiety  about  human  opinion  is  uppermost. 
Throughout  we  find  in  Balaam's  character  semblances,  not 
realities.  He  would  not  transgress  a  rule,  but  he  would  vio- 
late a  principle.  He  would  not  say  white  was  black,  but  he 
would  sully  it  till  it  looked  black. 

Now  consider  the  whole. 

A  bad  man  prophesies  under  the  fear  of  God,  restrained 
by  conscience,  full  of  poetry  and  sublime  feelings,  with  a  full 
clear  view  of  death  as  dwarfing  life,  and  the  blessedness  of 
righteousness  as  compared  with  wealth.  And  yet  we  find 
him  striving  to  disobey  God,  hollow  and  unsound  at  heart ; 
using  for  the  devil  wisdom  and  gifts  bestowed  by  God ; 
sacrificing  all  with  a  gambler's  desperation,  for  name  and 
wealth  :  tempting  a  nation  to  sin,  and  crime,  and  ruin  ;  sepa- 
rated in  selfish  isolation  from  all  mankind ;  superior  to  Balak, 
and  yet  feeling  that  Balak  knew  him  to  be  a  man  that  had 
his  price ;  with  the  bitter  anguish  of  being  despised  by  the 
men  who  were  inferior  to  himself;  forced  to  conceive  of  a 
grandeur  in  which  he  had  no  share,  and  a  righteousness  in 
which  he  had  no  part.  Can  you  not  conceive  the  end  of  one 
with  a  mind  so  torn  and  distracted? — the  death  in  battle; 
the  insane  frenzy  with  which  he  would  rush  into  the  field, 
and  finding  all  go  against  him,  and  that  lost  for  which  he 
'aad  bartered  heaven,  after  having  died  a  thousand  worse 
than  deaths,  find  death  at  last  upon  the  spears  of  the  Israel- 
ites ? 

In  application,  we  remark:  1st.  The  danger  of  great  pow- 
ers. It  is  an  awful  thing,  this  conscious  power  to  see  more, 
to  feel  more,  to  know  more  than  our  fellows. 

2d.  But  let  us  mark  well  the  difference  between  feeling 
and  doing. 

It  is  possible  to  have  sublime  feelings,  great  passions,  even 
great  sympathies  with  the  race,  and  yet  not  to  love  man. 
To  feel  mightily,  is  one  thing,  to  live  truly  and  charitably, 
another.  Sin  may  be  felt  at  the  core,  and  yet  not  be  cast 
out.  Brethren,  beware.  See  how  a  man  may  be  going  on 
uttering  fine  words,  orthodox  truths,  and  yet  be  rotten  at 
the  heart. 


The  Transitoriness  of  Life.  663 


VI. 
THE  TRANSITORINESS  OF  LIFE. 

"So  teach  us  to  number  our  days,  that  we  may  apply  our  hearts  unco 
wisdom." — Psalm  xc.  12. 

THIS  is  the  key-note  of  the  90th  Psalm.  It  numbers  sadly 
the  days  and  vicissitudes  of  human  life ;  but  it  does  this,  not 
for  the  sake  of  mere  sentiment,  but  rather  for  practical  pur- 
poses, that  it  may  furnish  a  motive  for  a  wiser  life  of  the 
heart.  We  know  nothing  of  the  Psalm  except  that  it  was 
the  composition  of  "Moses,  the  man  of  God."  It  was  writ- 
ten evidently  in  the  wilderness,  after  years  of  apparently 
fruitless  wandering :  its  tone  is  that  of  deep  sadness — re- 
trospective ;  its  images  are  borrowed  from  the  circumstances 
of  the  pilgrimage — the  mountain-flood,  the  grass,  the  night- 
watch  of  an  army  on  the  march. 

See  here,  again,  what  is  meant  by  inspiration.  Observe 
the  peculiarly  human  character  of  this  Psalm.  Moses,  "the 
man  of  God,"  is  commissioned  not  to  tell  truths  superhuman, 
but  truths  emphatically  human.  The  utterances  of  this 
Psalm  are  true  to  nature.  Moses  felt  as  we  feel,  only  God 
gave  him  a  voice  to  interpret,  and  he  felt  more  deeply  than 
all,  what  all  in  their  measure  feel.  His  inspiration  lay  not 
in  this,  that  he  was  gifted  with  legislative  wisdom  ;  but 
rather  in  this,  that  his  bosom  vibrated  truly  and  healthfully 
to  every  note  of  the  still  sad  music  of  humanity.  We  will 
consider — 

I.  The  feelings  suggested  by  a  retrospect  of  the  past. 
II.  The  right  direction  of  those  feelings. 

1.  The  analogies  of  nature  which  correspond  with  human 
life.  All  the  images  in  this  Psalm  are  suggested  by  the  cir- 
cumstances of  their  forty  years'  pilgrimage.  Human  life  felt 
to  be  like  a  flood — the  withering  grass — a  sleep  broken — the 
pain — the  start — death — the  awakening — a  night-watch — a 
tale  told,  whose  progress  we  watched  with  interest,  but  of 
which  when  done  the  impression  alone  remains,  the  words 
are  gone  forever.  These  are  not  artificial  images,  but  natu- 
ral. They  are  not  similes  forced  by  the  writer  into  his  serv- 
ice because  of  their  prettiness,  but  similes  which  forced 
themselves  on  him  by  their  truthfulness.  Now  this  is  God's 


664  The  Transitoriness  of  Life. 

arrangement.  All  things  here  are  double.  The  world  with, 
out  corresponds  with  the  world  within.  No  man  could  look 
on  a  stream  when  alone  by  himself,  and  all  noisy  companion- 
ship overpowering  good  thoughts  was  away,  without  the 
thought  that  just  so  his  own  particular  current  of  life  will 
fall  at  last  into  the  "  unfathomable  gulf  where  all  is  still." 

No  man  can  look  upon  a  field  of  corn,  in  its  yellow  ripe- 
ness, which  he  has  passed  weeks  before  when  it  was  green, 
or  a  convolvulus  withering  as  soon  as  plucked,  without  ex- 
periencing a  chastened  feeling  of  the  fleetingness  of  all  earth- 
ly things. 

No  man  ever  went  through  a  night-watch  in  the  bivouac, 
when  the  distant  hum  of  men  and  the  random  shot  fired  told 
of  possible  death  on  the  morrow ;  or  watched  in  a  sick-room, 
when  time  was  measured  by  the  sufferer's  breathing  or  the 
intolerable  ticking  of  the  clock,  without  a  firmer  grasp  on 
the  realities  of  life  and  time. 

So  God  walks  His  appointed  rounds  through  the  year :  and 
every  season  and  every  sound  has  a  special  voice  for  the  va- 
rying phases  of  our  manifold  existence.  Spring  comes,  when 
earth  unbosoms  her  mighty  heart  to  God,  and  anthems  of 
gratitude  seem  to  ascend  from  every  created  thing.  It  is 
something  deeper  than  an  arbitrary  connection  which  com- 
pels us  to  liken  this  to  the  thought  of  human  youth. 

And  then  comes  summer,  with  its  full  stationariness,  its 
noontide  heat,  its  dust,  and  toil,  an  emblem  of  ripe  manhood. 
The  interests  of  youth  are  gone  by.  The  interest  of  a  near 
grave  has  not  jet  come.  Its  duty  is  work.  And  afterwards 
autumn,  with  its  mournfulness,  its  pleasant  melancholy,  tells 
us  of  coming  rest  and  quiet  calm. 

And  now  has  come  winter  again.  This  is  the  last  Sunday 
in  the  year. 

It  is  not  a  mere  preacher's  voice  performing  an  allotted 
task.  The  call  and  correspondence  are  real.  The  young 
have  felt  the  melancholy  of  the  last  two  months.  With  a 
transient  feeling — even  amounting  to  a  luxury — the  prophet- 
ic soul  within  us  anticipates  with  sentiment  the  real  gloom 
of  later  life,  and  enables  us  to  sympathize  with  what  we  have 
not  yet  experienced.  The  old  have  felt  it  as  no  mere  ro- 
mance— an  awful  fact — a  correspondence  between  the  world 
without  and  the  world  within.  We  have  all  felt  it  in  the 
damp  mist,  in  the  slanting  shadows,  the  dimmer  skies,  the 
pale,  watery  glow  of  the  red  setting  sun,  shorn  of  half  its 
lustre.  In  the  dripping  of  the  woodland,  in  the  limp  leaves 
trodden  by  heaps  into  clay,  in  the  depressing  north  wind,  in 
the  sepulchral  cough  of  the  aged  man  at  the  corner  of  the 


The  Transitoriness  of  Life.  665 

street  under  the  inclement  sky,  God  has  said  to  us,  as  He 
said  to  Moses,  "  Pause,  and  number  thy  days,  for  they  are 
numbered." 

2.  There  is  also  a  sense  of  loss.     Every  sentence  tells  us 
that  this  Psalm  was  written  after  a  long  period  was  past. 
It    was   retrospective,   not   prospective.     Moses   is   looking 
back,  and  his  feeling   is  loss.     How  much  was  lost  ?     Into 
that  flood  of  time  how  much  had  fallen  ?     Many  a  one  con- 
sumed, like   Korah,  Dathan,  and  Abiram,  by  the  wrath  of 
God.     Many  a  Hebrew  warrior  stricken  in  battle,  and  over 
him  a  sand-heap.     And  those  who  remembered  these  things 
were  old  men — " consuming"  his  strong  expression,  "  their 
strength  in  labor  and  sorrow." 

Such  is  life  !  At  first,  all  seems  given.  We  are  acquiring 
associations,  sensations,  new  startling  feelings ;  then  comes 
the  time  when  all  give  pleasure  or  pain  by  association — by 
touching  some  old  chord  which  vibrates  again.  And  after 
that,  all  is  loss — something  gone,  and  more  is  going.  Every 
day,  every  year — this  year,  like  all  others.  Into  that  flood 
have  fallen  treasures  that  will  not  be  recovered.  Intimacies 
have  been  dissolved  that  will  not  be  reunited.  Affections 
cooled,  we  can  not  say  why.  Many  a  ship  foundered,  and 
the  brave  hearts  in  her  will  be  seen  no  more  till  the  sea  shall 
give  up  her  dead.  Many  a  British  soldier  fallen  before 
Asiatic  pestilence,  or  beneath  the  Kaffir  assegai,  above  him 
the  bush  or  jungle  is  waving  green,  but  he  himself  is  now 
where  the  rifle's  ring  is  heard,  and  the  sabre's  glitter  is  seen, 
no  more.  Many  a  pew  before  me  is  full,  which  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  year  was  filled  by  others.  Many  a  hearth-stone 
is  cold,  and  many  a  chair  is  empty  that  will  not  be  filled 
again.  We  stand  upon  the  shore  of  that  illimitable  sea 
which  never  restores  what  has  once  fallen  into  it ;  we  hear 
only  the  boom  of  the  waves  that  throb  over  all — forever. 

3.  There  is,  too,  an  apparent  non-attainment. 

A  deeper  feeling  pervades  this  Psalm  than  that  of  mere 
transitoriness :  it  is  that  of  the  impotency  of  human  effort. 
"  We  are  consumed  " — perish  aimlessly  like  the  grass.  No 
man  was  more  likely  to  feel  this  than  Moses.  After  forty 
years,  the  slaves  he  had  emancipated  were  in  heart  slaves 
still — idolaters.  He  called  them  rebels,  and  shattered  the 
stone  tables  of  the  law,  in  sad  and  bitter  disappointment. 
After  forty  years  the  promised  land  was  not  reached.  He 
himself  never  entered  it. 

No  wonder  if  life  appeared  to  him  like  a  stream,  not  mere- 
ly transitory,  but  monotonous.  Generation  after  generation, 
and  no  change;  much  lost,  apparently  nothing  was  won.  N0 


666  The  Transitoriness  of  Life. 

prospect  of  better  time  had  been.  "  The  thing  that  hath 
been,  it  is  that  which  shall  be."  Here,  too,  is  one  of  the  great 
trials  of  all  retrospect — the  great  trial  of  all  earthly  life. 

The  cycles  of  God's  providences  are  so  large  that  our  nar- 
row lives  scarcely  measure  a  visible  portion  of  them.  So 
large  that  we  ask,  What  can  we  effect  ?  Yet  there  is  an  al- 
most irrepressible  wish  in  our  hearts  to  see  success  attend  our 
labors,  to  enter  the  promised  land  in  our  own  life.  It  is  a 
hard  lesson  :  to  toil  in  faith  and  to  die  in  the  wilderness,  not 
having  attained  the  promises,  but  only  seeing  them  afar  off. 

So  in  the  past  year,  personally  and  publicly.  Personally 
we  dare  not  say  that  we  are  better  than  we  were  at  the  be- 
ginning. Can  we  say  that  we  are  purer?  more  earnest? 
Has  the  lesson  of  the  cross  been  cut  sharply  into  our  hearts  ? 
Have  we  only  learned  self-denial,  to  say  nothing  of  self-sacri- 
fice ?  And  stagnation  thus  being  apparently  the  case,  or  at 
most  but  very  slow  progress,  the  thought  comes,  Can  such 
beings  be  destined  for  immortality  ? 

On  a  larger  scale,  the  young  cries  of  freedom  which  caused 
all  generous  hearts  to  throb  with  sympathy  have  been  stifled ; 
itself  trodden  down  beneath  the  iron  heel  of  despotism  all 
over  Europe  and  rendered  frantic  and  ferocious.  Can  we 
wish  for  its  success  ?  Are  the  better  times  coming  at  all  ? 
So  does  the  heart  sicken  over  the  past.  Every  closing  year 
seems  to  say,  Shall  we  begin  the  old  useless  struggle  over 
again  ?  Shall  we  tell  again  the  oft-told  tale  ?  Are  not  these 
hopes,  so  high,  a  mockery  to  a  moth  like  man  ?  Is  all  but  a 
mere  illusion,  a  mirage  in  the  desert?  Are  the  waters  of 
life  and  home  ever  near,  yet  never  reached,  and  the  dry  hot 
desert  sand  his  only  attainment  ? 

Let  us  consider — 

H.  The  right  use  of  these  sad  suggestions.  "  So  teach  us 
to  number  our  days." 

"  So,"  because  the  days  may  be  numbered,  as  in  this  Psalm, 
and  the  heart  not  applied  to  wisdom.  There  are  two  ways 
in  which  days  may  be  numbered  to  no  purpose. 

1.  That  of  the  Epicurean — "Let  us  eat  and  drink;  for  to- 
morrow we  die."  There  is  a  strong  tendency  to  reckless  en- 
joyment when  the  time  is  felt  to  be  short,  and  religion  does 
not  exist  to  restrain. 

[For  example.  In  times  of  plague — Athens — Milan — Lon- 
don— danger  only  stimulates  men  to  seize  to-day  the  enjoy- 
ments which  may  not  be  theirs  to-morrow.  Again,  at  the 
close  of  the  last  century,  when  the  prisons  of  Paris  resounded 
with  merriment,  dance,  and  acting,  a  light  and  trivial  people, 


The  Transitoriness  of  Life.  667 

atheists  at  heart,  could  extract  from  an  hourly  impending 
death  no  deeper  lesson  than  this,  "  Let  us  eat  and  drink  ;  for 
to-morrow  we  die."] 

2.  That  of  the  sentimentalist. 

It  is  no  part  of  our  Christian  duty  to  think  of  decay  in  an 
abject  spirit.  That  which  the  demoniac  in  the  Gospels  did, 
having  his  dwelling  among  the  tombs,  has  sometimes  been 
reckoned  the  perfection  of  Christian  unworldliness.  Men 
have  looked  on  every  joy  as  a  temptation  ;  on  every  earnest 
pursuit  as  a  snare — the  skull  and  the  hour-glass  their  com- 
panions, curtaining  life  with  melancholy,  haunting  it  with 
visions  and  emblems  of  mortality.  This  is  not  Christianity. 

Rather  it  is  so  to  dwell  on  the  thoughts  of  death  "  that  we 
may  apply  our  hearts  unto  wisdom."  If  the  history  of  these 
solemn  truths  does  not  stimulate  us  to  duty  and  action,  it 
were  no  duty  to  remind  ourselves  of  them.  Rather  the  re- 
verse. Better  shut  out  such  gloomy  and  useless  thoughts. 
But  there  is  a  way  of  dwelling  amidst  these  facts  which  sol- 
emnizes life  instead  of  paralyzing  it.  He  is  best  prepared  to 
meet  change  who  sees  it  at  a  distance  and  contemplates  it 
calmly.  Affections  are  never  deepened  and  refined  until  the 
possibility  of  loss  is  felt.  Duty  is  done  with  all  energy,  then 
only,  when  we  feel,  "  The  night  cometh,  when  no  man  can 
work,"  in  all  its  force. 

Two  thoughts  are  presented  to  make  this  easier. 

1.  The  eternity  of  God.  "Before  the  mountains  were 
brought  forth,  even  from  everlasting  to  everlasting,  Thou  art 
God."  With  God  there  is  no  Time — it  is  one  eternal  Now. 
This  is  made  conceivable  to  us  by  a  recent  writer,  who  has  re- 
minded us  that  there  are  spots  in  the  universe  which  have 
not  yet  been  reached  by  the  beams  of  light  which  shone  from 
this  earth  at  its  creation.  If,  therefore,  we  are  able  on  an 
angel's  wings  to  reach  that  spot  in  a  second  or  two  of  time, 
the  sight  of  this  globe  would  be  just  becoming  visible  as  it 
was  when  chaos  passed  into  beauty.  A  few  myriads  of  miles 
nearer,  we  should  be  met  by  the  picture  of  the  world  in  the 
state  of  deluge.  And  so  in  turn  would  present  themselves 
the  spectacles  of  patriarchal  life  ;  of  Assyrian,  Grecian,  Per- 
sian, Roman  civilization ;  and,  at  a  short  distance  from  the 
earth,  the  scenes  of  yesterday.  Thus  a  mere  transposition  in 
space  would  make  the  past  present.  And  thus,  all  that  we 
need  is  the  annihilation  of  space  to  annihilate  time.  So  that 
if  we  conceive  a  Being  present  everywhere  in  space,  to  Him 
all  past  events  would  be  present.  At  the  remotest  extremi- 
ty of  the  angel's  journey,  he  would  see  the  world's  creation ; 


668  The  Transitoriness  of  Life. 

at  this  extremity,  the  events  that  pass  before  our  eyes  U, 
day.  Omnipresence  in  space  is  thus  equivalent  to  ubiquity 
in  time.  And  to  such  a  being,  demonstrably,  there  would  be 
no  Time.  All  would  be  One  vast  eternal  Now. 

Apply  this  to  practical  wisdom.  And  this  comes  in  to 
correct  our  despondency.  For  with  God,  "  a  thousand  years 
are  as  one  day."  In  the  mighty  cycles  in  which  God  works, 
our  years  and  ages  are  moments.  It  took  fifteen  hundred 
years  to  educate  the  Jewish  nation.  We  wonder  that  Moses 
saw  nothing  in  forty  years.  But  the  thought  of  the  eternity 
of  God  was  his  consolation.  And  so,  shall  we  give  up  our 
hopes  of  heaven  and  progress,  because  it  is  so  slow,  when  we 
remember  that  God  has  innumerable  ages  before  Him  ?  Or 
our  hopes  for  our  personal  improvement,  when  we  recollect 
our  immortality  in  Him  who  has  been  our  refuge  "  from 
generation  to  generation  ?"  Or  for  our  schemes  and  plans 
which  seem  to  fail,  when  we  remember  that  they  will  grow 
after  us,  like  the  grass  above  our  graves  ? 

IL  Next,  consider  the  permanence  of  results.  Read  the 
conclusion  of  the  Psalm,  "  Prosper  Thou  the  work  of  our 
hands  upon  us,  oh  prosper  Thou  our  handiwork."  It  is  a 
bright  conclusion  for  a  Psalm  so  dark  and  solemn.  To  cor- 
rect the  gloom  that  comes  from  brooding  on  decay,  it  is 
good  to  remember  that  there  is  a  sense  in  which  nothing 
perishes. 

1.  The  permanence  of  our  past  seasons.     Spring,  summer, 
autumn,  are  gone,  but  the  harvest  is  gathered  in.     Youth  and 
manhood  are  passed,  but  their  lessons  have  been  learnt.     The 
past  is  ours  only  when  it  is  gone.     We  do  not  understand  the 
meaning  of  our  youth,  our  joys,  our  sorrows,  till  we  look  at 
them  from  a  distance.     We  lose  them  to  get  them  back  again 
in  a  deeper  way.     The  past  is  our  true  inheritance,  which 
nothing  can  take  from  us.     Its  sacred  lessons,  its  pure  affec- 
tions, are  ours  forever.     Nothing  but  the  annihilation  of  our 
being  could  rob  us  of  them. 

2.  The  permanence  of  lost  affections.     Over  the  departed 
ones  Moses  mourned.     But  take  his   own  illustration — "A 
tale  that  is  told."     The  sound  and  words  are  gone,  but  the 
tale  is  indelibly  impressed  on  the  heart.     So  the  lost  are  not 
really  lost.     Perhaps   they  are  ours   only  truly  when  lost. 
Their  patience,  love,  wisdom,  are  sacred  now,  and  live  in  us. 
The  apostles  and  prophets  are  more  ours  than  they  were  the 
property  of  the  generation  who  saw  their  daily  life — "  He 
oeing  dead,  yet  speaketh." 

3.  The  permanence  of  our  own  selves — "  The  beauty  of 


The  Transitoriness  of  Life.  669 

the  Lord  our  God  be  upon  us."  Very  striking  this.  We 
survive.  We  are  what  the  past  has  made  us.  The  results 
of  the  past  are  ourselves.  The  perishable  emotions,  and 
the  momentary  acts  of  bygone  years,  are  the  scaffolding  on 
which  we  build  up  the  being  that  we  are.  As  the  tree  is 
fertilized  by  its  own  broken  branches  and  fallen  leaves,  and 
grows  out  by  its  own  decay,  so  is  the  soul  of  man  ripened 
out  of  broken  hopes  and  blighted  affections.  The  law  of  our 
humanity  is  the  common  law  of  the  universe — life  out  of 
death,  beauty  out  of  decay.  Not  till  those  fierce  young 
passions,  over  the  decay  of  which  the  old  man  grieves,  have 
been  stilled  into  silence ;  not  until  the  eye  has  lost  its  fire, 
and  the  cheek  its  hot  flush,  can  "  the  beauty  of  the  Lord  our 
God  be  upon  us" — the  beauty  of  a  spirit  subdued,  chastened, 
and  purified  by  loss. 

4.  Let  us  correct  these  sad  thoughts  by  the  thought  of  the 
permanence  of  work.  "  Prosper  thou  the  work  of  our  hands." 
Feelings  pass,  thoughts  and  imaginations  pass :  dreams  pass : 
work  remains.  Through  eternity,  what  you  have  done,  that 
you  are.  They  tell  us  that  not  a  sound  has  ever  ceased  to 
vibrate  through  space ;  that  not  a  ripple  has  ever  been  lost 
upon  the  ocean.  Much  more  is  it  true  that,  not  a  true 
thought,  nor  a  pure  resolve,  nor  a  loving  act,  has  ever  gone 
forth  in  vain. 

So  then  we  will  end  our  year. 

Amidst  the  solemn  lessons  taught  to  the  giddy  traveller 
as  he  journeys  on  by  a  Nature  hastening  with  gigantic  foot- 
steps down  to  a  winter  grave,  and  by  the  solemn  tolling  of 
the  bell  of  Time,  which  tells  us  that  another,  and  another, 
and  another,  is  gone  before  us,  we  will  learn,  not  the  lesson 
of  the  sensualist — enjoy  while  you  can :  not  that  of  the  feeble 
sentimentalist — mourn,  for  nothing  lasts:  but  that  of  the 
Christian — work  cheerfully. 

"  The  beauty  of  the  Lord  our  God  be  upon  ua." 

^  Oh,  prosper  Thou  our  handiwork." 


67O  Views  of  Death. 


VII 
VIEWS  OF  DEATH. 

"Then  said  I  in  my  heart,  As  it  happeneth  to  the  fool,  so  it  happenetb 
even  to  me;  and  why  was  I  then  more  wise?  Then  I  said  in  my  heart, 
that  this  also  is  vanity.  For  there  is  no  remembrance  of  the  wise  more  than 
of  the  fool  forever ;  seeing  that  which  now  is  in  the  days  to  come  shall  all  be 
forgotten.  And  how  dieth  the  wise  man?  as  the  fool." — Eccles.  ii.  15,  16. 

THIS  is  the  inspired  record  of  a  peculiar  view  of  life, 
Paul,  with  his  hopefulness  of  disposition,  could  not  have 
•written  it,  neither  could  John,  with  his  loving,  trustful  spirit. 
We  involuntarily  ask  who  wrote  this  ?  Was  it  written  by  a 
voluptuary — a  skeptic — or  a  philosopher?  What  sort  of 
man  was  it  ? 

We  detect  the  sated  voluptuary  in  the  expressions  of  the 
first  eleven  verses  of  this  chapter.  We  see  the  skeptic  in 
those  of  the  19th  to  the  22d  verses  of  the  third  chapter. 
And  the  philosopher,  who  in  avoidance  of  all  extremes  seeks 
the  golden  medium,  is  manifested  in  such  a  maxim  as  "  Be 
not  righteous  overmuch ;  neither  make  thyself  overwise : 
why  shouldest  thou  destroy  thyself?  Be  not  overmuch 
wicked,  neither  be  thou  foolish:  why  shouldest  thou  die 
before  thy  time  ?"  Or  was  it  written  by  a  man  deeply  arfd 
permanently  inspired  ? 

I  believe  it  to  have  been  written  by  none  of  these,  or 
rather  by  all  four.  It  records  different  experiences  of  the 
same  mind — different  moods  in  which  he  viewed  life  in 
different  ways.  It  is  difficult  to  interpret,  or  to  separate 
them  ;  for  he  says  nothing  by  which  they  can  be  marked  off 
and  made  distinct  from  each  other.  Nowhere  does  Solomon 
say,  "  I  thought  so  then,  but  that  was  only  a  mood,  a  phase 
of  feeling  that  I  have  since  seen  was  false,  and  is  now  cor- 
rected by  the  experience  and  expressions  of  the  present." 
!Here  is,  at  first  sight,  nothing  but  inextricable  confusion  and 
false  conclusions. 

The  clue  to  the  whole  is  to  be  found  in  the  interpreter's 
own  heart.  It  is  necessary  to  make  these  few  preliminary 
remarks,  as  there  is  a  tone  of  disappointment  which  runs 
through  all  this  book,  which  is  not  the  tone  of  the  Bible 
in  general.  Two  lines  of  thought  are  suggested  by  the 
text. 


Views  of  Death.  071 

I.  The  mysterious  aspect  presented  by  death. 
II.  That   state   of  heart   in    which   it    is    mysterious    no 
longer. 

I.  To  Solomon,  in  his  mood  of  darkness,  "  there  is  no  re- 
membrance of  the  wise  more  than  of  the  fool  forever."  But 
it  is  not  only  in  moods  of  dark  perplexity,  it  is  always  a 
startling  thing  to  see  the  rapidity  with  which  the  wisest  and 
the  best  are  forgotten.  We  plough  our  lives  in  water,  leav- 
ing no  furrow  ;  two  little  waves  break  upon  the  shore,  but  no 
further  vestige  of  our  existence  is  left. 

[An  accident  happens  to  one  of  England's  greatest  sons ; 
an  announcement  is  made  which  stagnates  the  blood  in  a 
country's  veins  for  a  moment,  and  then  all  returns  to  its 
former  channel. — (Tennyson.  "  In  Memoriam."  "  Let  them 
rave,"  he  sleeps  well.) 

Country  church-yard — yew-tree — upheaving  roots  clasping 
round  bones — a  striking  fact  that  vegetable  life  outlives  and 
outlasts  animal  life.] 

There  is  something  exquisitely  painful  in  the  thought  that 
we  die  out  and  are  forgotten ;  therefore  it  is,  that  in  the 
higher  walks  of  life  people  solace  themselves  with  the  hope 
of  posthumous  reputation ;  they  think,  perhaps,  that  then 
only  their  true  worth  will  be  known.  That  posthumous 
reputation !  when  the  eye  is  forever  closed,  and  the  heart 
forever  chilled  here — what  matters  it  to  him,  whether  storms 
rage  over  his  grave  or  men  cherish  his  memory  ?  he  sleeps 
well.  The  commentators  on  this  book  have  disagreed  among 
themselves  about  Solomon's  character  —  some  have  even 
doubted  whether  he  was  finally  saved  or  no.  What  matters 
it  to  him  now  what  is  said  of  him  ?  what  does  it  signify  to 
him  what  posterity  thinks  of  him  ?  And  so  with  us  all :  to 
the  ear  that  is  turned  into  dust  the  voice  of  praise  or  of  cen- 
sure is  indifferent.  One  thing  is  certain.  God  says,  "  Time 
is  short,  eternity  is  long."  The  solemn  tolling  of  the  bell 
seems  to  cry,  There  is  something  to  be  done ;  there  is  much 
to  be  done  ;  do  it !  and  that  quickly  ! 

Then  again  there  are  some  who  say,  "  What  use  is  there 
in  doing  any  thing  in  this  world  ?  It  scarcely  seems  worth 
while,  in  this  brief  span  of  life,  to  try  do  any  thing."  A 
man  is  placed  in  a  high  situation,  receives  an  expensive  ed- 
ucation at  school  and  college,  and  a  still  more  expensive  one 
of  time  and  experience.  And  then,  just  when  we  think  all 
this  ripe  wisdom,  garnered  up  from  so  many  fields,  shall  find 
its  fullest  use,  we  hear  that  all  is  over,  he  has  passed  from 


672  Views  of  Death. 

among  us,  and  then  the  question,  hideous  in  its  suggostive- 
ness,  arises,  "  Why  was  he  then  more  wise  ?" 

Asked  from  this  world's  stand-point — if  there  is  no  life 
beyond  the  grave,  if  there  is  no  immortality,  if  all  spiritual 
calculation  is  to  end  here,  why,  then  the  mighty  work  of 
God  is  all  to  end  in  nothingness:  but  if  this  is  only  a  state 
of  infancy,  only  the  education  for  eternity,  in  which  the  sou! 
is  to  gain  its  wisdom  and  experience  for  higher  work,  then 
to  ask  why  such  a  mind  is  taken  from  us  is  just  as  absurd  as 
to  question  why  the  tree  of  the  forest  has  its  first  training  in 
the  nursery  garden.  This  is  but  the  nursery  ground,  from 
whence  we  are  to  be  transplanted  into  the  great  forest  of 
God's  eternal  universe.  There  is  an  absence  of  all  distinc- 
tion between  the  death  of  one  man  and  another.  The  wise 
man  dies  as  the  fool  with  respect  to  circumstances. 

In  our  short-sightedness  we  think  there  ought  to  be  a  cer- 
tain correspondence  between  the  man  and  the  mode  of  the 
man's  death.  We  fancy  the  warrior  should  die  upon  the 
battle-plain,  the  statesman  at  his  post,  the  mean  man  should 
die  in  ignorance  :  but  it  is  not  so  ordered  in  God's  world,  for 
the  wise  man  dies  as  the  fool,  the  profligate  man  dies  as  the 
hero.  Sometimes  for  the  great  and  wise  is  reserved  a  con- 
temptuous death,  a  mere  accident ;  then,  he  who  is  not  sat- 
isfied unless  the  external  reality  corresponds  with  the  in- 
ward hopey  imagines  that  circumstances  such  as  these  can 
not  be  ordained  by  Eternal  Love,  but  rather  by  the  spirit 
of  a  mocking  demon. 

There  is  always  a  disappointment  of  our  expectations. 
Xo  man  ever  lived  whose  acts  were  not  smaller  than  him- 
self. We  often  look  forward  to  the  hour  of  death  in  which  a 
man  shall  give  vent  to  his  greater  and  nobler  emotions. 
The  hour  comes,  and  the  wise  man  dies  as  the  fool.  In  the 
first  place,  in  the  case  of  holiness  and  humbleness,  thoughts 
of  deep  despondency  and  dark  doubt  often  gather  round  the 
heart  of  the  Christian  in  his  last  hour,  and  the  narrow-minded 
man  interprets  that  into  God's  forgetfulness ;  or  else  deliri- 
um shrouds  all  in  silence ;  or  else  there  are  only  common- 
place words,  words  tender,  touching,  and  gentle,  but  in 
themselves  nothing.  Often  there  is  nothing  that  marks  the 
great  man  from  the  small  m&n.  This  is  the  mystery  of 
death. 

II.  It  depends  on  causes  within  us  and  not  without  us. 
Three  things  are  said  by  the  man  of  pleasure  : — 1.  That  all 
things  happen  by  chance.  2.  That  there  is  nothing  new. 
3,  That  all  is  vanity,  and  nothing  is  stable. 


Views  of  Death.  673 

There  is  a  strange  special  penalty  which  God  annexes  to 
a  life  of  pleasure :  Every  thing  appears  to  the  worldly 
man  as  a  tangled  web — a  maze  to  which  there  is  no  clue. 
Another  man  say3,  "  There  is  nothing  new  under  the  sun." 
This  is  the  state  of  the  man  who  lives  merely  for  excitement 
and  pleasure — his  heart  becomes  so  jaded  by  excitement  that 
the  world  contains  nothing  for  him  which  can  awraken  fresh 
or  new  emotions.  Then,  again,  a  third  says,  "All  is  vanity." 
This  is  the  state  of  him  who  is  afloat  on  the  vast  ocean  of  ex- 
citement, and  who  feels  that  life  is  nothing  but  a  fluctua^ 
ting,  changeful,  heartless  scene. 

Some  who  read  the  Book  of  Ecclesiastes  think  that  there 
is  a  sadness  and  uneasiness  in  its  tone  inconsistent  with  the 
idea  of  inspiration — that  it  is  nothing  but  a  mere  kaleido' 
scope,  with  endlessly  shifting  moods.  Therein  lies  the  proof 
of  its  inspiration.  Its  value  lies  as  much  in  the  way  of  warn- 
ing as  of  precept.  Live  for  yourself  here — live  the  mere  life 
of-  pleasure,  and  then  all  is  confusion  and  bewilderment  of 
mind ;  then  the  view  which  the  mighty  mind  of  Solomon 
took,  inspired  by  God,  will  be  yours  :  life  will  seem  as  noth- 
ing, and  death  a  mere  mockery.  Be  in  harmony  with  the 
mind  of  Christ,  have  the  idea  He  had,  be  one  with  Him,  and 
you  shall  understand  the  machinery  of  this  world.  "  The 
secret  of  the  Lord  is  with  them  that  fear  Him."  To  the 
humble  pious  heart  there  is  no  mystery.  Tfoe  world  is  intel- 
ligible only  to  a  mind  in  harmony  with  the  Mind  that  made 
it.  Else  all  is  confusion,  unless  you  are  in  possession  of  His 
idea,  moved  by  His  Spirit. 

Hence  it  lies  in  a  pure  heart  much  more  than  in  a  clear 
intellect,  to  understand  the  mystery  of  life  and  death.  Solo* 
mon's  wisdom  has  left  us  only  a  confused  idea. 

Turn  we  now  from  the  views  of  Solomon  to  the  life  of  the 
Son  of  Man.  Men  asked,  "How  knoweth  this  man  letters, 
having  never  learned  ?"  He  gave  a  different  explanation  of 
His  wisdom.  "My  judgment  is  just;  because  I  seek  not 
mine  own  will,  but  the  will  of  the  Father  which  hath  sent 
me." 

He  gives  directions  to  us  how  to  gain  the  same  discern- 
ment.    "If  any  man  will  do  His  will,  he  shall  know." 
******** 

[One  has  just  been  taken  from  us  to  whom  all  eyes  turned 
~-Sii'  Robert  Peel.] 

29 


674,  Waiting  for  the  Second  Advent* 


vm. 
WAITING  FOR  THE  SECOND  ADVENT. 

"  And  the  Lord  direct  your  hearts  into  the  love  of  God,  and  into  the  p* 
tient  waiting  for  Christ."— 2  Thess.  iii.  5. 

THE  two  Epistles  to  the  Thessalonians  contain,  more  ex- 
pressly  than  any  other,  St.  Paul's  views  respecting  the  sec- 
ond Advent  of  Christ.  The  first  epistle  was  written  to  cor- 
rect certain  enthusiastic  views  respecting  that  coming.  But 
the  second  epistle  tells  us  that  the  effort  had  failed.  For  in 
the  mean  while,  another  epistle  had  been  forged  in  St.  Paul's 
name,  asserting  that  the  day  was  near,  and  so  opening  the 
floodgates  of  fanaticism.  To  counteract  this,  he  tells  them 
not  to  be  shaken  in  mind  by  any  word  or  letter  as  from  him, 
as  that  the  day  of  Christ  was  at  hand.  And,  contrary  to  his 
usual  practice,  he  writes  the  salutation  at  the  close  with  his 
own  hand,  making  it  a  test  hereafter  of  the  genuineness  of 
his  epistles. 

Let  us  try  to  paint  a  picture  of  the  state  of  the  Thessalo- 
nian  Church.  Such  phenomena  had  appeared  as  might  have 
been  expected  to  arise  from  a  belief  that  the  end  of  the 
world  was  near.  Men  forsook  their  stated  employments ; 
the  poor  would  not  work,  but  expected  to  be  maintained  by 
their  richer  brethren.  Men,  being  idle,  spent  their  time  in 
useless  discussions,  neglected  their  own  affairs,  gossipped, 
and  indulged  a  prying  curiosity,  into  the  affairs  of  others. 
Hence  arose  the  necessity  for  the  admonition — "  Study  to  be 
quiet,  and  to  do  your  own  business,  and  to  work  with  your 
hands,  as  we  commanded  you  ;"  and  so  the  apostle  had 
said,  "Now  we  command  you,  brethren,  in  the  name  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  that  ye  withdraw  yourselves  from  every 
brother  that  walketh  disorderly,  and  not  after  the  tradition 
which  he  received  of  us.  For  yourselves  know  how  ye 
ought  to  follow  us  :  for  wre  behaved  not  ourselves  disorderly 
among  you ;  neither  did  we  eat  any  man's  bread  for  nought; 
but  wrought  with  labor  and  travail  night  and  day,  that  we 
might  not  be  chargeable  to  any  of  you." 

Moreover,  two  opposite  lines  of  conduct  were  adopted  by 
persons  of  different  temperament.  Some  greedily  received 
every  wTild  tale  and  mysterious  prediction  of  the  Advent, 
and  listened  eagerly  to  every  fanatic  who  could  work  upon 


Waiting  for  the  Second  Advent.  075 

the  vulgar  credulity.  Others,  perceiving  that  there  was  so 
much  imposture,  concluded  that  it  was  safest  to  believe  notl> 
:ng ;  and  accordingly  were  skeptical  of  every  claim  to  inspb 
ration.  In  admonition  of  the  first  class,  St.  Paul  says,  "  Prove 
all  things  ;  hold  fast  that  which  is  good."  In  admonition  of 
the  second, "  Quench  not  the  Spirit.  Despise  not  prophesy- 
ings." 

The  opposite  tendencies  of  skepticism  and  credulity  will 
be  found  very  near  together  in  all  ages.  Some  men  refusing 
to  believe  that  God  speaks  in  the  signs  of  the  times  ;  others 
running  after  every  book  on  prophecy,  seeking  after  signs, 
believing  in  miracles  and  imposture,  mesmerisms,  electro-biol- 
ogies, winking  pictures — any  thing  provided  it  be  marvellous 
— it  is  the  same  state  of  mind  exactly  ! 

To  meet  the  evil  of  this  feverish,  disturbed  state  of  the 
Thessalonian  Church,  St.  Paul  takes  two  grounds.  He  first 
points  out  the  signs  which  will  precede  the  second  Advent : 
Self-idolatry,  excluding  the  worship  of  God.  Sinful  human- 
ity, "  the  man  of  sin,"  in  the  temple  of  God.  And  this  self" 
worship  deceiving  by  a  show  of  godliness,  and  a  power  ap- 
parently miraculous  (such  as  our  present  self-laudations,  phi- 
lanthropies, marvellous  triumphs  as  with  Divine  power,  over 
the  material  world).  Besides  this,  punishment  of  falsehood 
on  the  rejection  of  the  true.  These  signs  worked  then  and 
now.  St.  Paul  discerned  the  general  law  of  Christ's  king- 
dom and  its  development  as  applicable  to  all  epochs  down 
to  the  last.  But  next,  St.  Paul  called  the  Church  away  from 
this  feverishness  to  the  real  preparation  for  the  Advent. 
The  Church  was  on  the  tiptoe  of  expectation,  and  prepared 
in  the  way  above  described.  St.  Paul  summons  them  to  a 
real  but  not  excited  preparation.  And  this  in  two  things : 
— 1.  The  love  of  God.  2.  Patience  of  the  saints.  We  con- 
sider— 

I.  Preparation  for  the  Redeemer's  coming:  the  love  of 
God. 

1.  The  love  of  God  is  the  love  of  goodness.  The  old  Sax- 
on word  God  is  identical  with  Good.  God  the  Good  One — 
personified  goodness.  There  is  in  that  derivation  not  a  mere 
play  of  words — there  is  a  deep  truth.  None  loves  God  but 
he  who  loves  good.  To  love  God  is  to  love  what  God  is. 
God  is  pure,  and  he  who  loves  purity  can  love  God.  God  is 
true.  God  is  just ;  and  he  who  loves  these  things  out  of 
God  may  love  them  in  God ;  and  God  for  them,  because  He 
is  good,  and  true,  and  pure,  and  just. 

No  other  love  is  real ;  none  else  lasts.     For  example,  love 


076  Waiting  for  the  Second  Advent. 

based  on  a  belief  of  personal  favors  will  not  endure.  Yon 
may  be  very  happy,  and  believe  that  God  has  made  you 
happy.  While  that  happiness  lasts  you  will  love  God.  But 
a  time  comes  when  happiness  goes.  You  will  not  be  always 
young  and  prosperous.  A  time  may  come  when  misfortunes 
will  accumulate  on  you  as  on  Job.  At  last,  Job  had  nothing 
left  but  life.  The  natural  feeling  would  be,"  Curse  God  and 
die."  Job  said,  "  Though  He  slay  me,  yet  will  I  trust  in 
Him."  Plainly  Job  had  some  other  reason  for  his  love  than 
personal  favors.  God,  the  all-pure,  all-just,  all-holy,  adorable, 
because  all-holy.  Or  again,  you  believe  that  Christ's  suffer- 
ings have  purchased  heaven  for  you.  Well,  you  are  grate- 
ful. But  suppose  your  evidence  of  personal  salvation  fades, 
what  then  ? 

Here,  however,  let  me  make  a  remark.  The  love  of  good- 
ness only  becomes  real  by  doing  good. .  Without  this  it  re- 
mains merely  a  sickly  sentiment.  It  gets  body  and  reality 
by  acting.  For  example,  we  have  been  prating  since  the 
Great  Duke's  death,  of  duty.  Know  we  not  that  by  merely 
talking  of  duty  our  profession  of  admiration  for  duty  will 
become  a  cant  ?  This  is  a  truth  a  minister  of  Christ  feels 
deeply.  It  is  his  business  to  be  talking  to  others  of  self-sac- 
rifice and  devotedness.  He  of  all  men  feels  how  little  these 
words  mean,  unless  they  are  acted  out.  For  an  indolent 
habit  of  admiring  goodness  is  got  easily,  and  is  utterly  with- 
out profit.  Hence  Christ  says,  "  Not  every  man  that  saith 
unto  me,  Lord,  Lord,  shall  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven ; 
but  he  that  doetli  the  will  of  my  Father  which  is  in  heaven  ;" 
and  hence,  too,  "  If  a  man  love  me,  he  will  keep  my  com- 
mandments, and  I  will  love  him;"  ""If  ye  know  these  things, 
happy  are  ye  if  ye  do  them  ;"  "  This  is  the  love  of  God,  that 
we  keep  His  commandments."  The  love  of  goodness  is  real 
and  healthy  only  when  we  do  it. 

2.  The  love  of  God  is  the  love  of  man  expanded  and  puri- 
fied. It  is  a  deep  truth  that  we  can  not  begin  with  loving 
God,  we  must  begin  writh  loving  man.  It  is  an  awful  com- 
mand, "  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart 
and  soul  and  mind."  It  is  awful  and  impossible  at  first. 
Interrogate  the  child's  conscience,  he  does  not  love  God  su- 
premely ;  he  loves  his  mother,  and  his  sister,  and  his  brother 
more.  Now  this  is  God's  plan  of  nature.  Our  special  hu- 
man affections  are  given  us  to  expand  into  a  diviner  charity. 
We  are  learning  "by  a  mortal  yearning  to  ascend."  Our 
affections  wrap  themselves  round  beings  who  are  created  in 
God's  image ;  then  they  expand,  widen  in  their  range  ;  be- 
come  less  absorbed,  more  calm,  less  passionate,  more  philan- 


Waiting  for  the  Second  Advent.  677 

thropic.  They  become  more  pure,  less  selfish.  Love  was 
given,  encouraged,  sanctioned,  chiefly  for  this  end —  .... 
that  seK'  might  be  annulled.  The  testimony  of  St.  John  is 
decisive  on  this  point.  To  him  we  appeal  as  to  the  apostle 
who  knew  best  what  love  is.  His  love  to  God  was  unearth- 
ly, pure,  spiritual ;  his  religion  had  melted  into  love.  Let  us 
listen  to  his  account.  "  No  man  hath  seen  God  at  any  time. 
If  we  love  one  another,  God  dwelleth  in  us,  and  His  love  is 
perfected  in  us ;"  u  He  that  loveth  not  his  brother  whom  he 
hath  seen,  how  can  he  love  God  whom  he  hath  not  seen  ?" 

According  to  him,  the  thought  of  the  invisible  God  is  in- 
tolerable. It  would  be  shorn  of  its  dazzling  splendor  by  be- 
ing exhibited  in  our  brethren.  So  we  can  gaze  on  the  re- 
flected sunlight  on  the  moon.  According  to  him,  it  is 
through  the  visible  that  we  appreciate  the  invisible  — 
through  the  love  of  our  brother  that  we  grow  into  the  love 
of  God. 

An  awful  day  is  coming  to  us  all — the  day  of  Christ.  A 
day  of  triumph,  but  of  judgment  too.  Terrible  language  de- 
scribes it,  "  The  sun  shall  be  turned  into  darkness  and  the 
moon  into  blood."  God  shall  be  felt  as  He  never  has  been 
yet.  How  shall  we  prepare  for  that  august  sight  ?  Not  by 
unnatural,  forced  efforts  at  loving  Him  whom  no  eye  can  see 
and  live ;  but  by  much  persistence  in  the  appointed  path  of 
our  common  affections,  our  daily  intercourse,  the  talk  man 
holds  with  man  in  the  hourly  walk  of  the  world's  inter- 
course. By  being  true  to  our  attachments.  Let  not  a  hum- 
ble Christian  be  over-anxious,  if  his  spiritual  affections  are 
not  as  keen  as  he  would  wish.  The  love  of  God  is  the  full- 
blown flower  of  which  the  love  of  man  is  the  bud.  To  love 
man  is  to  love  God.  To  do  good  to  man  will  be  recognized 
hereafter  as  doing  good  to  Christ.  These  are  the  Judge's 
words  :  "  Verily,  I  say  unto  you,  Inasmuch  as  ye  did  it  unto 
one  of  the  least  of  these  My  brethren,  ye  did  it  unto  Me." 

3.  Personal  affections. 

[Guard  what  is  now  said  from  any  appearance  of  repre- 
senting it  as  actually  attained  by  the  person  who  describes 
it.  The  love  of  God  is  a  fearful  and  a  lovely  thing ;  but 
they  who  have  reached  it  are  the  few.] 

It  is  not  merely  love  of  goodness,  but  love  of  goodness 
concentrated  on  the  Good  One.  Not  merely  the  love  of 
man,  but  the  love  of  man  expanded  into  the  love  of  Him,  of 
whom  all  that  we  have  seen  of  gentle  and  lovely,  of  true  and 
tender,  of  honorable  and  bright  in  human  character,  are  but 
the  shadows  and  the  broken,  imperfect  lights. 


678  Waiting  for  the  Second  Advent. 

It  is  here  that  the  Jewish  religion  is  the  chief  trainer  of 
the  world.  Revelation  began  with  the  personality  of  God. 
All  the  Jew's  discipline  taught  him  this :  that  the  law  of 
right  was  the  will  of  a  lawgiver.  Deliverance  from  Egyp- 
tian slavery,  or  Assyrian  invasion,  was  always  associated 
with  the  name  of  a  deliverer.  Moses  and  the  prophets  were 
His  messengers  and  mediators.  "Thus  saith  the  Lord,"  is 
ever  the  preface  of  their  message. 

Consequently,  only  from  Jews,  and  Christians  trained 
through  the  Old  Testament  to  know  God,  do  we  hear  those 
impassioned  expressions  of  personal  love,  which  give  us  a 
sublime  conception  of  the  adoration  of  which  human  hearts 
are  capable.  Let  us  hear  David — "  Whom  have  I  in  heaven 
but  Thee  ?  and  there  is  none  upon  earth  that  I  desire  in 
comparison  of  Thee ;"  "  My  soul  is  athirst  for  God,  yea, 
even  for  the  living  God."  And  that  glorious  outburst  of  St. 
Paul :  "  Let  God  be  true,  and  every  man  a  liar,"  which  can 
be  understood  only  by  those  who  feel  that  the  desertion  of 
all,  and  the  discovery  of  the  falseness  of  all,  would  be  as 
nothing  compared  with  a  single  doubt  of  the  faithfulness  of 
God. 

II.  The  other  preparation  is  the  patient  waiting. 

1.  What  is  waited  for? — an  Advent  of  Christ.  We  must 
extend  the  ordinary  meaning  of  this  expression.  There  are 
many  comings  of  Christ. 

Christ  came  in  the  flesh  as  a  Mediatorial  Presence. 

Christ  came  at  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem. 

Christ  came,  a  Spiritual  Presence,  when  the  Holy  Ghost 
was  given. 

Christ  comes  now  in  every  signal  manifestation  of  redeem- 
ing power. 

Any  great  reformation  of  morals  and  religion  is  a  coming 
of  Christ, 

A  great  revolution,  like  a  thunderstorm,  violently  sweep- 
ing the  evil  away,  to  make  way  for  the  good,  is  a  coming  of 
Christ, 

Christ  will  come  at  the  end  of  the  world,  when  the  Spirit 
of  all  these  comings  will  be  concentrated. 

Thus  we  may  understand  in  what  way  Christ  is  ever  com- 
ing and  ever  near.  Why  it  was  that  St.  James  said,  "  StaV 
lish  your  hearts :  for  the  coming  of  the  Lord  draweth  nigh  ;" 
and  "  Behold,  the  Judge  standeth  before  the  door."  And  we 
shall  also  understand  how  it  was  that  the  early  Church  was 
not  deceived  in  expecting  Christ  in  their  own  day.  He  did 
come,  though  not  in  the  way  they  expected 


Waiting  for  the  Second  Advent.  679 

2,  What  is  meant  by  "  waiting  ?" 

Now  it  is  remarkable  that  throughout  the  apostle's  writ- 
ings, the  Christian  attitude  of  soul  is  represented  as  an  atti- 
tude of  expectation — as  in  this  passage,  "  So  that  ye  come 
behind  in  no  gift ;  waiting  for  the  coming  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ ;"  and  again,  "  We  are  saved  by  hope :  but  hope  that 
is  seen  is  not  hope  :  for  what  a  man  seeth,  why  doth  he  yet 
hope  for  ?  But  if  we  hope  for  that  we  see  not,  then  do  we 
with  patience  wait  for  it."  Salvation  in  hope :  that  was 
their  teaching.  Not  a  perfection  attained,  but  a  perfection 
that  is  to  be. 

The  golden  age  lies  onward.  We  are  longing  for,  not  the 
Church  of  the  past,  but  the  Church  of  the  future.  Ours  is  not 
an  antiquated,  sentimental  yearning  for  the  imaginary  perfec- 
tion of  ages  gone  by,  not  a  conservative  stagnation  content 
with  things  as  they  are,  but  hope — for  the  individual  and  for 
the  society.  By  Him  we  have  access  by  faith,  and  rejoice  in 
hope  of  the  glory  that  shall  be  revealed.  A  better,  wiser, 
purer  age  than  that  of  childhood.  An  age  more  enlightened 
and  more  holy  than  the  world  has  yet  seen.  "  Behold,  the 
tabernacle  of  God  is  with  men,  and  He  will  dwell  with  them, 
and  they  shall  be  His  people,  and  God  Himself  shall  be  with 
them,  and  be  their  God."  It  is  this  spirit  of  expectation 
which  is  the  preparation  for  the  Advent.  Every  gift  of  no- 
ble origin  is  breathed  upon  by  hope's  perfect  breath. 

3.  Let  us  note  that  it  is  patient  waiting. 

Every  one  who  has  ardently  longed  for  any  spiritual 
blessing  knows  the  temptation  to  impatience  in  expecting  it. 
Good  men  who,  like  Elijah,  have  sickened  over  the  degener- 
acy and  luxury  of  their  times ;  fathers  who  have  watched 
the  obduracy  and  wild  career  of  a  child  whom  they  have 
striven  in  vain  to  lead  to  God  ;  such  cry  out  from  the  deeps 
of  the  heart,  "  Where  is  the  promise  of  His  coming  ?" 

Now  the  true  preparation  is,  not  having  correct  ideas  of 
how  and  when  He  shall  come,  but  being  like  Him.  "  It  is 
not  for  you  to  know  the  times  or  the  seasons  which  the  Fa- 
ther hath  put  in  His  own  power ;"  "  Every  man  that  hath 
this  hope  in  him  purifieth  himself,  even  as  He  is  pure." 

Application.     "The  Lord  direct  you"  unto  this. 

Consider  what  the  Thessalonians  must  have  felt  in  their 
perplexity.  Would  that  we  had  a  teacher  such  as  St.  Paul, 
ever  at  hand  to  tell  us  what  is  truth — to  distinguish  be- 
tween fanaticism  and  genuine  enthusiasm — between  wild 
false  teaching  and  truth  rejected  by  the  many.  "  Here," 
might  they  have  said,  "  were  we  bewildered.  How  shall 
we  hereafter  avoid  similar  bewilderments  without  an  infalli* 


68o  The  Sinless  ness  of  Christ. 

ble  guide  ?"  Instead  of  which  St.  Paul  says,  u  The  Lord  di- 
rect your  hearts  into  the  love  of  God,  and  into  the  patient 
waiting  for  Christ." 

God  has  so  decreed,  that  except  in  childhood,  our  depend' 
ence  must  be  on  our  own  souls.  "The  way  of  truth  is  slow, 
hard,  winding,  often  turning  on  itself."  Good  and  evil  grow 
up  in  the  field  of  the  world  almost  inseparably.  The  scan- 
ning of  error  is  necessary  to  the  comprehension  and  belief  of 
truth.  Therefore  it  must  be  done  solitarily.  Nay,  such  an 
infallible  guide  could  not  be  given  to  us  without  danger. 
Such  a  one  ever  near  would  prove  not  a  guide  to  us,  but  a 
hindrance  to  the  use  of  our  own  eyes  and  souls.  Reverence 
for  such  a  guide  would  soon  degenerate  into  slavishness,  pas- 
siveness,  and  prostration  of  mind. 

Hence,  St.  Paul  throws  us  upon  God. 


IX. 

THE  SINLESSNESS  OF  CHRIST. 

"Whosoever  committeth  sin  transgresseth  also  the  law:  for  sin  ig  the 
transgression  of  the  law.  And  ye  know  that  he  was  manifested  to  take 
away  our  sins ;  and  in  him  is  no  sin." — 1  John  iii.  4,  5. 

THE  heresy  with  which  the  Apostle  St.  John  had  to  con- 
tend in  his  day  was  an  error  of  a  kind  and  character  which 
it  is  hard  for  us  with  our  practical,  matter-of-fact  modes  of 
thinking,  to  comprehend.  There  were  men  so  over-refined 
and  fastidious,  that  they  could  not  endure  the  thought  of 
any  thing  spiritual  being  connected  with  materialism.  They 
could  not  believe  in  any  thing  being  pure  that  was  also 
fleshly,  for  flesh  and  sinfulness  were  to  them  synonymous 
terms.  They  could  not  believe  in  the  Divine  humanity,  for 
humanity  was  to  them  the  very  opposite  of  that  which  was 
Divine :  and  accordingly,  while  admitting  the  Divinity  of 
Jesus,  they  denied  the  reality  of  His  materialism.  They 
said  of  His  earthly  life  exactly  what  the  Roman  Catholic 
says  of  the  miracle  he  claims  to  be  performed  in  the  Supper 
of  the  Lord.  The  Roman  Catholic  maintains  that  it  is  sim- 
ply an  illusion  of  the  senses ;  there  is  the  taste  of  the  bread, 
the  look  of  the  bread,  the  smell  of  the  bread,  but  it  is  all  a 
deception  :  there  is  no  bread  really  there,  it  is  only  the  spir- 
itual body  of  the  Lord.  That  which  the  Romanist  says  now 
of  the  elements  in  the  Lord's  Supper,  did  these  ancient  here- 


The  Sinks  sues  s  of  Christ.  681 

tics  say  respecting  the  body  and  the  life  of  Jesus.  There 
was,  they  said,  the  sound  of  the  human  voice,  there  was  the 
passing  from  place  to  place,  there  were  deeds  done,  there 
were  sufferings  undergone,  but  these  were  all  an  illusion 
and  a  phantasma  —  a  thing  that  appeared,  but  did  not 
really  exist.  The  everlasting  Word  of  God  was  making  it- 
self known  to  the  minds  of  men  through  the  senses  by  an 
illusion  ;  for  to  say  that  the  Word  of  God  was  made  flesh,  to 
maintain  that  He  connected  Himself  with  sinful,  frail  hu- 
manity— this  was  degradation  to  the  Word — this  was  de- 
struction to  the  purity  of  the  Divine  Essence. 

You  will  observe  that  in  all  this  there  wras  an  attempt  to 
be  eminently  spiritual ;  and  what  seems  exceedingly  marvel- 
lous, is  the  fact  withal  that  these  men  led  a  life  of  extreme 
licentiousness.  Yet  it  is  not  marvellous,  if  we  think  accu- 
rately, for  we  find  even  now  that  over-refinement  is  but 
coarseness.  And  so,  just  in  the  same  way,  these  ultra-spirit- 
ualists, though  they  would  not  believe  that  the  Divine  Es- 
sence could  be  mingled  with  human  nature  without  degrada- 
tion, yet  they  had  no  intention  of  elevating  human  nature  by 
their  own  conduct.  They  thought  they  showed  great  re- 
spect for  Jesus  in  all  this  :  they  denied  the  reality  of  his  suf- 
ferings ;  they  would  not  admit  the  conception  that  frail,  un- 
dignffied  humanity  was  veritably  His,  but  nevertheless  they 
had  no  intention  of  living  more  spiritually  themselves. 

It  was  therefore  that  we  find  in  another  epistle,  St.  John 
gives  strict  commands  to  his  converts  not  to  admit  these 
heretics  into  their  houses :  and  the  reason  that  he  gives  is, 
that  by  so  doing  they  would  be  partakers,  not  of  their  evil 
doctrines,  but  of  their  evil  deeds.  They  were  a  licentious 
set  of  men,  and  it  is  necessary  to  keep  this  in  view  if  we 
would  understand  the  writings  of  St.  John.  It  is  for  this 
reason,  therefore,  that  he  says — "  That  which  was  from  the 
beginning,  which  we  have  heard,  which  we  have  seen  with 
cur  eyes,  which  we  have  looked  upon,  and  our  hands  have 
handled  of  the  Word  of  Life,  declare  we  unto  you."  It  is  for 
this  reason  that  he,  above  all  the  apostles,  narrates  with  scru- 
pulous accuracy  all  the  particulars  respecting  the  Redeemer's 
risen  body— that  he  joined  in  the  repast  of  the  broiled  fish 
and  the  honey-comb :  and  that  he  dwells  with  such  minute- 
ness on  the  fact  that  there  came  from  the  body  of  the  Re- 
deemer blood  and  water :  "  Not  water  only,  but  water  and 
blood ;"  and  it  is  for  this  reason  that  in  speaking  of  Anti- 
christ he  says,  "  Every  spirit  that  confesseth  not  that  Jesus 
Christ  is  come  in  the  flesh  is  not  of  God,  and  this  is  that  spir- 
it of  Antichrist  whereof  ye  have  heard  that  it  should  come." 

29* 


68  2  The  Sinks sness  of  Christ. 

So,  then,  we  learn  from  this  that  the  most  spiritual  of  all 
the  apostles  was  the  one  who  insisted  most  earnestly  on  the 
materialism  of  the  human  nature  of  our  Lord.  He  who 
alone  had  penetrated  into  that  realm  beyond,  where  the 
King  was  seen  on  His  throne  of  light,  was  the  one  who  felt 
most  strongly  that  in  humanity  there  is  nothing  degrading. 
In  the  natural  propensities  of  human  nature  there  is  nothing 
to  be  ashamed  of:  there  is  nothing  for  a  man  to  be  ashamed 
of  but  sin — there  is  nothing  more  noble  than  a  perfect  hu- 
man nature. 

My  brethren,  though  the  error  of  the  ancient  times  can  not 
be  repeated  in  this  age  in  the  same  form,  though  this  strange 
belief  commends  itself  not  to  our  minds,  yet  there  may  be 
such  an  exclusive  dwelling  upon  the  Divinity  of  Jesus  as  ab- 
solutely to  destroy  His  real  humanity ;  there  may  be  such  a 
morbid  sensitiveness  when  we  speak  of  Him  as  taking  our 
nature,  as  will  destroy  the  fact  of  His  sufferings — yes,  and 
destroy  the  reality  of  His  atonement  also.  There  is  a  way 
of  speaking  of  the  sinlessness  of  Jesus  that  would  absolutely 
make  that  scene  on  Calvary  a  mere  pageant  in  which  He  was 
acting  a  part  in  a  drama,  during  which  He  was  not  really 
suffering,  and  did  not  really  crush  the  propensities  of  His  hu- 
man nature.  It  was  for  this  reason  we  lately  dwelt  on  the 
Redeemer's  sufferings ;  now  let  us  pass  onward  to  the  fact  of 
the  sinlessness  of  His  nature. 

The  subject  divides  itself— first,  into  the  sinlessness  of  His 
nature;  and  secondly,  the  power  which  He  possessed  from 
that  sinlessness  to  take  away  the  sins  of  the  world. 

With  respect  to  the  first  branch,  we  have  given  us  a  defi- 
nition of  what  sin  is — "  Sin  is  the  transgression  of  the  law." 
It  is  to  be  observed  there  is  a  difference  between  sin  and 
transgression.  Every  sin  is  a  transgression  of  the  law,  but 
every  transgression  of  the  law  is  not  necessarily  a  sin.  Who- 
soever committeth  sin  transgresseth  also  the  law.  Now 
mark  the  difference.  It  is  possible  for  a  man  to  transgress 
the  law  of  God,  not  knowingly,  and  then  in  inspired  language 
wre  are  told  that  "  sin  is  noif  imputed  unto  him."  Yet  for  all 
that,  the  penalty  will  follow  whenever  a  man  transgresses, 
but  the  chastisement  which  belongs  to  sin,  to  known  willful 
transgression,  will  not  follow. 

Let  us  take  a  case  in  the  Old  Testament,  which  it  may  be 
as  well  to  explain,  because  sometimes  there  is  a  difficulty 
felt  in  it.  We  read  of  the  patriarchs  and  saints  in  the  Old 
Testament  as  living  in  polygamy.  There  was  no  distinct 
law  forbidding  it,  but  there  was  a  law  written  in  the  "fleshly 
tables  of  the  heart,"  against  which  it  is  impossible  to  trans 


The  Sinlessness  of  Christ.  683 

gress  without  incurring  a  penalty.  Accordingly,  though  we 
never  find  that  the  patriarchs  are  blamed  for  the  moral  fault, 
though  you  never  find  them  spoken  of  as  having  broken  the 
written  law  of  God,  yet  you  see  they  reaped  the  penalty  that 
ever  must  be  reaped — in  the  case  of  one,  degradation  :  in  the 
case  of  the  other,  slavery.  Jacob's  many  wives  brought  dis- 
sension and  misery  into  his  household,  though  he  did  it  inno- 
cently and  ignorantly,  and  he  reaped  the  penalty — quarrele 
and  wretchedness.  In  all  this  there  is  penalty,  but  there  is 
not  sin  in  all  this,  and  therefore  there  was  not  excited  that 
agony  which  comes  from  the  pangs  of  conscience  after  will- 
ful sin. 

Every  misery  that  falls  on  man  has  been  the  consequence 
of  transgression,  his  own  trespass  or  those  of  others.  It  may 
have  been  his  parents,  his  grandparents,  or  his  far-back  an- 
cestors, who  have  given  him  the  disadvantages  under  which 
he  labors.  How  shall  we  explain  the  fact  that  misery  falls 
alike  on  the  good  and  on  the  evil?  Only  by  remembering 
whether  it  comes  as  the  penalty  of  transgression  ignorantly 
done:  then  it  is  but  the  gentle  discipline  of  a  Father's  love, 
educating  His  child,  it  may  be  warning  the  child  and  giving 
him  the  knowledge  of  that  law  of  which  he  was  hitherto  ig- 
norant. This  wretchedness  of  the  patriarchs,  what  was  it 
but  the  corrective  dispensation  by  which  the  world  learnt 
that  polygamy  is  against  the  law  of  God  ?  So  the  child  who 
cuts  his  hand  with  the  sharp  blade  of  the  knife  has  learnt  a 
lesson  concerning  his  need  of  caution  for  the  future,  and  if 
well  and  bravely  borne,  he  is  the  better  for  it ;  but  if  there 
has  been  added  to  that  transgression  the  sin  of  disobedience 
to  his  parent's  command,  then  there  is  something  inflicted 
beyond  the  penalty;  there  "is  all  that  anguish  of  conscience 
and  remorse  which  comes  as  the  consequence  of  sin.  Now 
we  have  seen  what  transgression  is,  let  us  try  and  understand 
what  sin  is. 

My  Christian  brethren,  it  is  possible  for  us  to  mistake  this 
subject  by  taking  figurative  expressions  too  literally.  We 
speak  of  sin  as  if  it  were  a  thing,  as  if  we  were  endowed  with 
it,  like  memory,  or  judgment,  or  imagination,  as  a  faculty 
which  must  be  exercised.  Now  let  us  learn  the  truth  of 
what  sin  is — it  "  is  the  transgression  of  the  law."  There 
must  be  some  voluntary  act,  transgressing  some  known  law, 
or  there  is  no  sin.  There  were  those  in  the  days  of  St.  John 
who  held  that  sin  was  merely  the  infirmity  of  the  flesh ;  that 
if  a  man  committed  sin,  and  he  was  to  know  that  it  was  the 
working  merely  of  his  lower  nature,  not  of  his  own  mind— 
his  faith  would  save  him. 


684  The  Sinlessness  of  Christ. 

Another  error  was  that  of  the  Pharisees  in  the  days  of  Jf;< 
BUS  ;  and  their  error  was  precisely  opposite.  "  Yes,"  said  the 
Pharisees,  "  sin  is  the  transgression  of  the  law.  Holiness  is 
conformity  to  the  law,  and  the  lives  of  the  Pharisees  bein^ 
conformable  to  the  ceremonial  law,  we  stand  before  the  world 
as,  touching  the  righteousness  which  is  in  the  law,  blameless." 
The  Redeemer  comes,  and  He  gives  another  exposition  of 
^in.  "  Sin  is  the  transgression  of  the  law,"  but  there  is  a  law 
'written  for  the  heart,  as  well  as  for  the  outward  man.  There 
is  a  work  to  be  done  within  as  well  as  without.  A  murder 
may  be  committed  by  indulging  revenge  and  malice,  though 
the  hand  has  never  been  lifted  to  strike.  It  is  not  the  out- 
ward act  that  constitutes  alone  the  morality  of  Christ,  it  is 
the  feeling  of  the  heart,  the  acts  of  the  inner  man. 

But  then  there  is  another  error  from  which  we  have  to 
guard  ourselves.  It  is  a  sophistry  in  which  some  men  in- 
dulge themselves.  They  say,  "  Well,  if  the  thought  is  as  bad 
as  the  act,  why  should  we  not  therefore  do  the  act  ?  I  am 
as  guilty  as  if  I  had  committed  transgression  ;  why  should  I 
debar  myself  from  the  enjoyment  ?"  "it  is,  I  say,  but  sophis- 
try, for  no  man  that  has  any  conscience  can  really  so  deceive 
himself.  The  Redeemer's  doctrine  was  that  many  a  man 
whose  outward  life  was  pure  and  spotless  would  have  done 
the  transgression  if  he  had  had  the  opportunity.  It  is  one 
thing  to  say  that  he  would  have  done  it  if  he  could,  but  it  is 
quite  another  thing  to  say  that  a  man  who  has  indulged  the 
thought,  and  has  drawn  back,  is  as  guilty  as  if  he  had  actual- 
ly carried  out  the  evil  act.  The  difference  lies  in  this — the 
one  would  have  done  it  if  he  could,  and  the  other  could  and 
would  not. 

We  read  in  the  Bible  of  two  men  who  exemplify  this.  They 
both  resolved  to  commit  murder,  and  the  opportunity  wras 
given  to  each.  Saul  threw  his  javelin  with  right  good  will 
at  David's  person  ;  he  did  all  that  resolution  could  do,  it  was 
but  what  is  called  accident  that  left  the  javelin  quivering  in 
the  wall.  Opportunity  was  given  also  to  David..  He  had 
resolved  to  slay  Saul,  but  when  the  tempting  opportunity 
came,  when  he  was  bending  over  Saul,  full  of  the  thought  of 
destroying  his  enemy,  at  the  very  last  moment  he  paused — 
his  conscience  smote  him — he  refused  to  strike.  Which  of 
these  was  the  murderer  ?  Saul  was  the  murderer :  he  had 
slain  in  his  heart.  It  was  but  an  accident  that  prevented  it. 
In  the  other  case  there  had  been  the  indulgence  of  a  wrong 
thought,  but  it  was  subdued.  He  might  say,  he  might  as 
weM  have  slain  his  foe,  but  would  you  say  that  he  was  in  the 
same  position  as  a  murderer  ?  No,  Christian  brethren,  let 


The  Sinlessness  of  Christ.  685 

there  be  no  sophistry  of  this  kind  among  us.  It  is  but  a  sub- 
tle whisper  from  our  great  adversary  that  would  beguile  us. 
Generally  there  is  first  a  rising  of  an  inclination  which  is 
often  no  sin.  This  passes  on  to  a  guilty  resolve — one  step 
more,  and  the  man  has  committed  the  sin. 

Now  let  us  turn  to  the  character  of  our  blessed  Redeemer, 
and  we  shall  find  him  doubly  free  from  all  this — as  free  in  de- 
sire as  free  in  act.  The  proof  of  his  perfect  purity  is  to  be 
found  in  the  testimony  of  His  enemies,  of  His  friends,  and  of 
those  indifferent  to  Him.  We  have  first  the  evidence  of  His 
enemies.  For  three  long  years  the  Pharisees  were  watching 
their  victim.  There  was  the  Pharisee  mingling  in  every 
crowd,  hiding  behind  every  tree.  They  examined  His  disci- 
ples ;  they  cross-questioned  all  around  Him  ;  they  looked  into 
His  ministerial  life,  into  His  domestic  privacy,  into  His  hours 
of  retirement.  They  came  forward  with  the  sole  accusation 
that  they  could  muster— that  He  had  shown  disrespect  to  the 
Roman  governor.  The  Roman  judge,  who  at  least  should 
know,  had  pronounced  the  accusation  null  and  void.  There 
was  another  spy.  It  was  Judas.  If  there  had  been  one  act 
of  sin,  one  failing  in  all  the  Redeemer's  career  that  betrayed 
ambition,  that  betrayed  any  desire  to  aggrandize  Himself — 
in  his  hour  of  terrible  remorse  Judas  would  have  remembered 
it  for  his  own  comfort ;  but  the  bitterness  of  his  feelings — 
that  which  made  life  insufferable — was  that  he  had  "  betray- 
ed innocent  blood." 

Pass  we  on  to  those  who  were  indifferent.  And  first  we 
have  the  opinion  of  Pilate  himself  Contemporary  historians 
tell  us  that  Pilate  was  an  austere  and  cruel  man,  a  man  of 
firm  resolve,  and  one  who  shrank  not  from  the  destruction  of 
human  life ;  but  we  see  here  that  for  once  the  cruel  man  be- 
came merciful :  for  once  the  man  of  resolve  became  timid.  It 
was  not  merely  that  he  thought  Jesus  was  innocent ;  the  hard 
Roman  mind  wrould  have  cared  little  for  the  sacrifice  of  an 
obscure  Jew.  The  soul  of  Pilate  was  pervaded  with  the  feel- 
ing that  spotless  innocence  stood  before  him,  and  this  feel- 
ing extended  even  to  Pilate's  wife  :  for  we  find  that  she  sent 
to  him  and  said,  "  Have  thou  nothing  to  do  with  that  just 
man."  It  was  not  because  he  was  going  to  pass  an  unjust 
sentence— he  had  often  done  so  before — but  she  felt  that 
here  was  an  innocent  one  who  must  not  be  condemned. 

Now  let  us  consider  the  testimony  of  His  friends.  They 
tell  us  that  during  their  intercourse  of  three  years  His  was 
a  life  unsullied  by  a  single  spot :  and  I  pray  you  to  remem- 
ber that  tells  us  something  of  the  holiness  of  the  thirty  pre- 
vious years ;  for  no  man  springs  from  sin  into  perfect  right 


686  The  Sinlessness  of  Christ. 

eousness  at  once.  If  there  has  been  any  early  wrong-doing 
— though  a  man  may  be  changed — yet  there  is  something 
left  that  tells  of  his  early  character — a  want  of  refinement, 
of  delicacy,  of  purity;  a  tarnish  has  passed  upon  the  bright- 
ness, and  can  not  be  rubbed  off.  If  we  turn  to  the  testimo- 
ny of  John  the  Baptist,  His  contemporary,  about  the  same 
j»«;e,  one  who  knew  Him  not  at  first  as  the  Messiah :  yet 
when  the  Son  of  Man  comes  to  him  simply  as  a  man,  and 
asks  him  to  baptize  Him,  John  turns  away  in  astonishment, 
shocked  at  the  idea.  "  I  have  need  to  be  baptized  of  thee : 
and  comest  thou  to  me  ?"  In  other  words,  the  purest  and 
the  most  austere  man  that  could  be  found  on  earth  was  com- 
pelled to  acknowledge  that  in  Him  who  came  for  baptism 
there  was  neither  stain  nor  spot  that  the  water  of  Jordan 
was  needed  to  wash  away.  So  we  see  there  was  no  actual 
transgression  in  our  blessed  Lord. 

Now  let  us  see  what  the  inward  life  was;  for  it  is  very 
possible  that  there  may  be  no  outward  transgression,  and 
yet  that  the  heart  may  not  be  pure.  It  is  possible  that  out 
wardly  all  may  seem  right,  through  absence  of  temptation, 
and  yet  there  may  be  the  want  of  inward  perfection.  Of 
the  perfection  of  Jesus  we  can  have  but  one  testimony ;  it 
can  not  be  that  of  the  apostles,  for  the  lesser  can  not  judge 
the  greater,  and  therefore  we  turn  to  Himself.  He  said, 
"  Which  of  you  can  charge  me  with  sin  ?"  "  I  and  my  Fa- 
ther are  one."  Now  we  must  remember  that  just  in  pro- 
portion as  a  man  becomes  more  holy  does  he  feel  and  ac- 
knowledge the  evil  that  is  in  him.  Thus  it  was  with  the 
Apostle  Paul;  he  declared,  "I  am  the  chief  of  sinners." 
But  here  is  One  who  attained  the  highest  point  of  human 
excellence,  who  was  acknowledged  even  by  His  enemies  to 
be  blameless,  who  declares  Himself  to  be  sinless. 

If,  then,  the  Son  of  Man  were  not  the  promised  Redeemer, 
He,  the  humblest  of  mankind,  might  justly  be  accused  of 
pride ;  the  purest  of  mankind  would  be  deemed  to  be  un- 
conscious of  the  evil  that  was  in  Him.  He  who  looked  so 
deeply  into  the  hearts  of  others  is  ignorant  of  His  own;  the 
truest  of  mankind  is  guilty  of  the  worst  of  falsehoods  ;  the 
noblest  of  mankind  guilty  of  the  sin  of  sins — the  belief  that 
He  had  no  sin.  Let  but  the  infidel  grant  us  that  human  na- 
ture has  never  attained  to  what  it  attained  in  the  character 
of  Jesus,  then  we  carry  him  still  farther,  that  even  He  whom 
he  acknowledges  to  be  the  purest  of  men  declared  Himself 
to  be  spotless,  which,  if  it  were  false,  would  at  once  do  away 
with  all  the  purity  which  he  grants  was  His.  It  was  not 
only  the  outward  acts,  but  the  inner  life  of  Jesus  which  was 


The  Sinlessness  of  Christ.  687 

so  pure.  His  mind  regulates  every  other  mind  ;  it  moves  in 
perfect  harmony  with  the  mind  of  God.  In  all  the  just  men 
that  ever  lived  you  will  find  some  peculiarity  carried  into 
excess.  We  note  this  in  the  zeal  of  St.  John,  in  the  courage 
of  St.  Peter,  in  the  truth-seeking  of  St.  Thomas.  It  was  not 
so  with  Jesus :  no  one  department  of  His  human  nature  ever 
superseded  another  :  all  was  harmony  there.  The  one  sound 
which  has  corne  down  from  God  in  perfect  melody,  is  His  life, 
the  entire  unbroken  music  of  humanity. 

We  pass  on  to  our  second  subject — the  power  there  is  in 
the  manifested  sinlessness  of  Jesus  to  take  away  the  sins  of 
the  world.  There  are  two  aspects  in  which  we  are  to  con- 
sider this:  first  in  reference  to  man,  and  secondly  in  reference 
to  God.  Our  subject  to-day  will  confine  itself  to  the  first ; 
on  the  other,  we  simply  say  this  :  there  is,  in  the  eternal  con- 
stitution of  the  heavenly  government,  that  which  makes  the 
life  and  death  of  Jesus  the  atonement  for  the  world's  sins. 
Human  nature,  which  fell  in  Adam,  rose  again  in  Christ ;  in 
Him  it  became  a  different  thing  altogether  in  God's  sight — 
redeemed  now,  hereafter  to  be  perfected. 

But  we  leave  this  for  the  present,  and  consider  how  the 
world  was  purified  by  the  change  of  its  own  nature.  "  If  I 
be  lifted  up  I  will  draw  all  men  unto  me."  There  are  three 
ways  by  which  this  may  be  done — by  faith,  by  hope,  and  by 
love.  It  is  done  by  faith,  for  the  most  degrading  thing  in 
the  heart  of  man  is  the  disbelief  in  the  goodness  of  human 
nature.  We  live  in  evil,  and  surrounded  by  evil,  until  we 
have  almost  ceased  to  believe  in  greatness  of  mind  or  char- 
acter. The  more  a  man  increases  in  knowledge  of  the  world, 
the  more  does  he  suspect  human  nature ;  a  knowing  man, 
according  to  worldly  phraseology,  is  one  that  will  trust  no 
one.  .  He  knows  that  he  himself  has  his  price,  and  he  beiieves 
that  he  can  buy  any  one  else :  and  this  may  be  called  the 
second  fall  of  man — that  moment  when  all  our  boyish  belief 
in  goodness  passes  away;  when  such  degradation  and  an- 
guish of  soul  comes  on,  that  we  cease  to  believe  in  woman's 
purity  or  in  man's  integrity ;  when  a  man  has  fallen  so  low 
there  is  nothing  in  this  world  that  can  raise  him,  except 
faith  in  the  perfect  innocence  of  Jesus.  Then  it  is  that  there 
bursts  upon  the  world — that  of  which  the  world  never 
dreamed — entire  and  perfect  purity,  spotless  integrity — no 
mere  dreaming  of  philosophers  and  sages — though  the  dream 
were  a  blessed  thing  to  have;  the  tangible  living  Being  be 
fore  us,  whom  we  can  see,  and  touch,  and  hear,  so  that  a  man 
is  able  to  come  to  his  brother  with  trust  in  elevated  humanity 
and  to  say,  u  This  is  He  of  whom  the  prophets  did  write."  ' 


688  The  Sinks sness  of  Christ. 

But  secondly,  trust  in  Divine  humanity  elevates  the 
by  hope.  You  must  have  observed  the  hopefulness  of  the 
character  of  Jesus — his  hopefulness  for  human  nature.  If 
ever  there  were  one  who  might  have  despaired,  it  was  He. 
Full  of  love  Himself,  He  was  met  with  every  sort  of  unkind- 
ness,  every  kind  of  derision.  There  was  treachery  in  one  of 
His  disciples,  dissension  amongst  them  all.  He  was  engaged 
in  the  hardest  work  that  man  ever  tried.  He  was  met  by 
the  hatred  of  the  whole  world,  by  torture  and  the  cross  ;  and 
yet  never  did  the  hope  of  human  nature  forsake  the  Redeem- 
er's soul.  He  would  not  break  the  bruised  reed  nor  quench 
the  smoking  flax.  There  was  a  spark  mingling  even  in  the 
lowest  humanity,  which  He  would  fain  have  fanned  into  a 
blaze.  The  lowest  publican  Jesus  could  call  to  Him  and 
touch  his  heart ;  the  lowest  profligate  that  was  ever  trodden 
under  foot  by  the  world  was  one  for  whom  He  could  hope 
still.  If  He  met  with  penitents,  He  would  welcome  them ; 
if  they  were  not  penitents,  but  yet  felt  the  pangs  of  detected 
guilt,  still  with  hopefulness  He  pointed  to  forgiven  human- 
ity :  this  was  His  word,  even  to  the  woman  brought  to  Him 
by  her  accusers,  "  Go,  and  sin  no  more  ;"  in  His  last  moments 
on  the  cross,  to  one  who  was  dying  by  His  side,  He  prom- 
ised a  place  in  Paradise :  and  the  last  words  that  broke  from 
the  Redeemer's  lips — what  were  they  but  hope  for  our  hu- 
manity, while  the  curses  were  ringing  in  His  ears  ? — "  Fa- 
ther, forgive  them,  for  they  know  not  what  they  do." 

Now  it  is  this  hopefulness  that  raises  hope  in  us.  Chris- 
tian brethren,  we  dare  to  hope  for  that  nature  which  Jesus 
loved,  we  dare  to  forgive  that  nature  which  Jesus  conde- 
scended to  wear.  This  frail,  evil,  weak  humanity  of  ours, 
these  hearts  that  yield  to  almost  every  gust  of  temptation, 
the  Son  of  Man  hoped  for  v/nem. 

And  thirdly,  it  is  done  also  by  love;  hate  narrows  the 
heart,  love  expands  the  heart.  To  hate  is  to  be  miserable ; 
to  love  is  to  be  happy.  To  love  is  to  have  almost  the  power 
of  throwing  aside  sin.  See  the  power  of  love  in  the  hearts 
of  those  around  Him.  He  comes  to  a  desponding  man, 
nourishing  dark  thoughts  of  the  world  ;  He  speaks  encourag- 
ingly, and  the  language  of  that  man  is,  "  Lord,  I  will  follow 
thee  whithersoever  thou  goest."  He  goes  to  a  man  who  had 
loved  money  all  his  life.  He  treats  him  as  a  man,  and  the 
man's  heart  is  conquered:  "Behold,  Lord,  the  half  of  my 
goods  I  give  to  the  poor."  He  conies  to  the  coward,  who 
had  denied  Him,  and  asks  him  simply,  "Lovest  thou  Me:" 
and  the  coward  becomes  a  martyr,  and  dares  to  ask  to  be 
crucified.  He  comes  to  a  sinful  woman,  who  had  spent 


The  Sinlessness  of  Christ.  689 

sums  on  the  adornment  of  her  person,  and  the  ointment 
which  was  intended  for  herself  was  poured  in  love  upon  His 
feet,  mingling  with  her  tears.  "  She  loved  much,"  and  much 
was  forgiven. 

And  it  was  not  during  the  Redeemer's  life  alone  that  the 
power  of  His  love  extended.  It  was  manifested  also  after 
His  death.  There  was  the  healing  act  done  on  the  man  who 
asked  for  alms.  For  this  the  apostles  were  carried  before 
the  Sadducees,  and  the  man  on  whom  this  miracle  was  done 
stood  by  them,  full  of  strength  and  courage.  The  day  be- 
fore he  had  been  a  miserable,  cringing  suppliant,  beseeching 
pity  from  the  passers-by.  But  all  the  wailing  tone  is  gone ; 
the  attitude  of  the  suppliant  has  passed  away,  and  the  reno- 
vated cripple  fronts  the  supreme  judicature  of  Israel  with  a 
lion  heart.  Ask  you  what  has  inspired  and  dignified  that 
man,  and  raised  him  higher  in  the  scale  of  humanity  ?  It 
was  the  power  of  love.  It  is  not  so  much  the  manifestation 
of  this  doctrine  or  that  doctrine,  that  can  separate  the  soul 
from  sin.  It  is  not  the  law.  It  is  not  by  pressing  on  the 
lower  nature  to  restrain  it,  that  this  can  be  done,  but  it  is  by 
elevating  it.  He  speaks  not  to  the  degraded  of  the  sinful- 
ness  of  sin,  but  He  dwells  upon  the  love  of  the  Father,  upon 
His  tender  mercies ;  and  if  a  man  would  separate  himself 
from  the  bondage  of  guilt,  there  is  no  other  way  than  this. 
My  Christian  brethren,  forget  that  miserable  past  life  of 
yours,  and  look  up  to  the  streams  of  mercy  ever  flowing 
from  the  right  hand  of  God. 

My  brethren,  it  is  on  this  principle  that  we  desire  to 
preach  to  the  heathen.  We  would  preach  neither  high 
Church  nor  low  Church  doctrine.  We  desire  to  give*  Jesus 
Christ  to  the  world ;  and  in  pleading  for  this  Society*  I  will 
not  endeavor  to  excite  your  sympathies  by  drawing  a  pic- 
ture of  the  heathen  world  suspended  over  unutterable  mis- 
ery, and  dropping  minute  by  minute  into  everlasting  wretch- 
edness. It  is  easy  to  do  this ;  and  then  to  go  away  calmly 
and  quietly  to  our  comfortable  meals  and  our  handsome 
habitations,  satisfied  with  having  demonstrated  so  tremen- 
dous a  fact.  But  this  we  say,  if  we  would  separate  the  world 
from  sin,  and  from,  the  penalty  of  sin,  and  the  inward  misery 
of  the  heart  attendant  on  sin  in  this  world  and  the  world  to 
come,  it  is  written  in  Scripture,  "There  is  none  other  name 
under  heaven  given  among  men,  whereby  we  must  be 
saved,"  than  the  name  of  Jesus. 

*  Church  Missionary  Society. 


690         Christ's  Way  of  Dealing  with  Sin. 


X. 
CHRIST'S  WAY  OF  DEALING  WITH  SIN. 

"And  immediately,  when  Jesus  perceived  in  his  spirit  that  they  so  rea- 
soned within  themselves,  he  said  unto  them,  Why  reason  ye  these  things  in 
your  hearts  ?  Whether  is  it  easier  to  say  to  the  sick  of  the  palsy,  Thy  sins  be 
forgiven  thee ;  or  to  say,  Arise,  and  take  up  thy  bed,  and  walk  ?  But  that 
ye  may  know  that  the  Son  of  man  hath  power  on  earth  to  forgive  sins  (he 
saith  to  the  sick  of  the  palsy),  I  say  unto  thee,  Arise,  and  take  up  thy  bed, 
and  go  thy  way  into  thine  house." — Mark  ii.  8-11. 

THIS  anecdote  is  doubtless  a  familiar  one  to  ns  all. 

The  Son  of  God  was  teaching  in  a  house  full  of  listeners, 
round  which  crowds  were  pressing.  The  friends  of  a  poor 
palsied  man  desired  His  aid.  It  was  scarcely  possible  for 
one  person  to  edge  his  way  through  the  press,  where  all 
longed  to  hear,  and  none  of  the  crowd  were  likely  to  give 
place;  but,  for  the  cumbrous  apparatus  of  a  pallet  borne  by 
four,  it  was  impossible.  Therefore  they  ascended  by  the 
outside  staircase,  which,  in  Oriental  countries  leads  to  the 
flat  roof,  which  they  broke  up,  and  let  their  friend  down  in 
the  midst,  before  Jesus.  No  doubt  this  must  have  struck 
every  one.  But  the  impression  produced  on  the  spectators 
would  probably  have  been  very  different  from  that  produced 
on  Christ.  They  that  saw  the  bed  descending  from  the  roof 
over  the  heads  of  all,  and  who  had  before  seen  the  fruitless 
efforts  that  had  been  made  to  get  in,  and  now  remembered 
that  he  who  had  been  farthest  from  Christ  was  unexpect- 
edly in  a  few  minutes  nearest  to  Him,  could  not  have  with- 
held that  applause  which  follows  a  successful  piece  of  dex- 
terity. They  would  have  admired  the  perseverance,  or  the 
ingenuity,  or  the  inventiveness. 

On  none  of  these  qualities  did  Christ  fix  as  an  explanation 
of  the  fact.  He  went  deeper.  He  traced  it  to  the  deepest 
source  of  power  that  exists  in  the  mind  of  man.  "When 
Jesus  saw  their/<r^YA."  For  as  love  is  deepest  in  the  being 
of  God,  so  faith  is  the  mightiest  principle  in  the  soul  of  man. 
Let  us  distinguish  their  several  essences.  Love  is  the  es- 
sence of  the  Deity — that  which  makes  it  Deity.  Faith  is 
the  essence  of  humanity,  which  constitutes  it  what  it  is. 
And,  as  here,  it  is  the  warring  principle  of  this  world  which 
wins  in  life's  battle.  No  wonder  that  it  is  written  in  Scrip 


Christ's  Way  of  Dealing  with  Sm.         69.1 

ture — "  This  is  the  victory  that  overcometh  the  world,  even 
our  faith."  No  wonder  it  is  said,  "  All  things  are  possible 
to  him  that  believeth."  It  is  that  which  wrestles  with  diffi- 
culty, remo\7es  mountains,  tramples  upon  impossibilities.  It 
is  this  spirit  which  in  the  common  affairs  of  life,  known  as  a 
"  sanguine  temperament,"  never  says  "  impossible  "  and  nev- 
er believes  in  failure,  leads  the  men  of  the  world  to  their 
most  signal  successes,  making  them  believe  a  thing  possible 
because  they  hope  it ;  and  giving  substantial  reality  to  that 
which  before  was  a  shadow  and  a  dream. 

It  was  this  "  substance  of  things  hoped  for  "  that  gave 
America  to  Columbus,  when  billows,  miles  deep,  rose  be- 
tween him  and  the  land,  and  the  men  he  commanded  well- 
nigh  rose  in  rebellion  against  the  obstinacy  which  believed 
in  "  things  not  yet  seen."  It  was  this  that  crowned  the 
Mohammedan  arms  for  seven  centuries  with  victory :  so 
long  as  they  believed  themselves  the  champions  of  the  One 
God  with  a  mission  from  Him,  they  were  invincible.  And 
it  is  this  which  so  often  obtains  for  some  new  system  of 
medicine  the  honor  of  a  cure,  when  the  real  cause  of  cure  is 
only  the  patient's  trust  in  the  remedies. 

So  it  is  in  religion.  For  faith  is  not  something  heard  of 
in  theology  alone,  created  by  Christianity,  but  it  is  one  of 
the  commonest  principles  of  life.  He  that  believes  a  bless- 
ing is  to  be  got,  that  "  God  is  a  rewarder  of  them  that  dili- 
gently seek  Him,"  will  venture  much,  and  will  likewise  win 
much.  For,  as  with  this  palsied  man,  faith  is  inventive,  ever 
fertile  in  expedients — like  our  own  English  character,  never 
knowing  when  it  has  been  foiled ;  and  then  nearest  victory 
at  the  very  moment  when  the  last  chance  has  seemed  -to  fail. 
We  divide  our  subject  into — 

I.  The  malady  presented  to  Christ. 
II.  His  treatment  of  it. 

I.  The  malady,  apparently,  was  nothing  more  than  palsy. 
But  not  as  such  did  Jesus  treat  it.  The  by-standers  might 
have  been  surprised  at  the  first  accost  of  Jesus  to  the  para- 
lytic man.  It  was  not,  "  Take  up  thy  bed  and  walk  ;"  but 
"Thy  sins  be  forgiven  thee."  As  with  their  faith,  so  it  was 
here.  He  went  deeper  than  perseverance  or  ingenuity.  He 
goes  deeper  than  the  outward  evil  ;  down  to  the  evil,  the 
root  of  all  evil,  properly  the  only  evil — sin.  He  read  in  that 
sufferer's  heart  a  deeper  wish  than  appeared  in  the  outward 
act,  the  consequences  of  a  burden  worse  than  palsy,  the 
longing  for  a  rest  more  profound  than  release  from  pain — 
the  desire  to  be  healed  of  guilt.  It  was  in  reply  to  this  tacit 


692         Christ's  Way  of  Dealing  with  Sin, 

application   that  the   words  "Thy  sins   be  forgiven  thee* 
were  spoken. 

Now,  sin  has  a  twofold  set  of  consequences.  1.  The  natu- 
ral consequences.  2.  The  moral  consequences. 

1.  By  the  natural,  we  mean  those  results  which  come  in- 
evitably in  the  train  of  wrong-doing,  by  what  we  call  the 
laws  of  nature  visiting  themselves  on  the  outward  condition 
of  a  sinner,  by  which  sin  and  suffering  are  linked  together. 
As  for  example,  when  an  intemperate  man  ruins  his  health, 
or  an  extravagant  man  leaves  himself  broken  in  fortune  ;  or 
when  tyrannical  laws  bring  an  uprising  of  a  people  against 
a  tyrant :   these  are  respectively*  the  natural  penalties  of 
wrong-doing. 

Here,  apparently,  palsy  had  been  the  natural  result  of  sin  ; 
for  otherwise  the  address  of  Christ  was  out  of  place  and 
meaningless.  And  what  we  are  concerned  to  remark  is, 
that  these  natural  consequences  of  sin  are  often  invisible  as 
well  as  inevitable.  Probably  not  one  of  the  four  friends 
who  bore  him  suspected  such  a  connection.  Possibly  not 
even  his  physician.  But  there  were  two  at  least  to  whom 
the  connection  was  certain — the  conscience  of  the  palsied 
man  himself,  whose  awakened  memory  traced  back  the  trem- 
bling of  those  limbs  to  the  acts  of  a  youth  long  past ;  and  to 
the  all-seeing  eye  of  Him  to  whom  past,  present,  and  future 
are  but  one. 

And  such  experience,  brethren,  is  true,  doubtless,  much 
oftener  than  we  imagine.  The  irritable  temperament,  the 
lost  memory  which  men  bewail,  the  over-sensitive  brain,  as 
if  causeless — who  can  tell  how  they  stand  connected  with 
sins  done  long  ago?  For  nothing  here  stands  alone  and 
causeless.  Every  man,  with  his  strength  and  his  weaknesses, 
stunted  in  body  or  dwarfed  in  heart,  palsied  in  nerve  or 
deadened  in  sensibility,  is  the  exact  result  and  aggregate  of 
all  the  past — all  that  has  been  done  by  himself,  and  all  that 
has  been  done  by  his  ancestors,  remote  or  near.  The  Saviour 
saw  in  this  palsied  man  the  miserable  wreck  of  an  ill-spent 
life. 

2.  Now  quite   distinct  from  these   are  the  moral   conse- 
quences of  guilt :   by  which  I  mean  those  which  tell  upon 
che  character  and  inward  being  of  the  man  who  sins.     In 
one  sense,  no  doubt,  Jt  is  a  natural  result,  inasmuch  as  it  is 
oy  a  law,  regular  and   unalterable,  a  man  becomes  by  sin 
deteriorated  in  character,  or  miserable.     Now  these  are  two- 
fold, negative  and   positive — the   loss  of  some  blessing,  or 
the  accruing  of  some  evil  to  the  heart.     Loss — as  when  by 
sinning  we  lose  the  capacity  for  all  higher  enjoyments ;  for 


Christ's  Way  of  Dealing  with  Sin.         693 

none  can  sin  without  blunting  his  sensibilities.  He  has  lost 
the  zest  of  a  pure  life,  the  freshness  and  the  flood  of  happi 
ness  which  come  to  every  soul  when  it  is  delicate,  and  pure, 
and  natural.  This  is  no  light  loss.  If  any  one  here  con- 
gratulates himself  that  sin  has  brought  to  him  no  positive 
misery,  my  brother,  I  pray  you  to  remember  that  God's 
worst  curse  was  pronounced  upon  the  serpent  tempter.  Ap- 
parently it  was  far  less  than  that  pronounced  on  the  woman,  • 
but  really  it  was  far  more  terrible.  Not  pain,  not  shame — 
no,  these  are  remedial,  and  may  bring  penitence  at  last — but 
to  sink  the  angel  in  the  animal,  the  spirit  in  the  flesh  ;  to  be 
a  reptile,  and  to  eat  the  dust  of  degradation  as  if  it  were 
natural  food.  Eternity  has  no  damnation  deeper  than 
that. 

Then,  again,  a  positive  result — the  dark  and  dreadful  lone- 
liness that  comes  from  doing  wrong  —  a  conscious  unrest 
which  plunges  into  business,  or  pleasure,  or  society,  not  for 
the  love  of  these  things,  but  to  hide  itself  from  itself  as 
Adam  did  in  the  trees  of  the  garden,  because  it  dare  not 
hear  the  voice  of  God}  nor  believe  in  His  Presence.  Do  we 
not  know  something  of  a  self-reproach  and  self-contempt, 
which,  alternating  at  times  with  pride,  almost  tear  the  soul 
asunder  ?  And  such  was  the  state  of  this  man.  His  pains 
were  but  the  counterpart  and  reflection  of  a  deeper  sorrow. 
Pain  had  laid  him  on  a  bed,  and  said  to  him,  "  Lie  there  face 
to  face  with  God — and  think!"  We  pass  on  now  to  con- 
sider— 

II.  Christ's  treatment  of  that  malady. 

By  the  declaration  of  God's  forgiveness.  Brethren,  if  the 
•Gospel  of  our  Master  mean  any  thing  it  means  this — the 
blotting  out  of  sin :  "  To  declare  His  righteousness  in  the 
remission  of  sins  that  are  past."  It  is  the  declaration  of  the 
highest  name  of  God— love.  Let  us  understand  what  for- 
giveness is.  The  forgiveness  of  God  acts  upon  the  moral 
consequences  of  sin  directly  and  immediately ;  on  the  nat- 
ural, mediately  and  indirectly. 

Upon  the  moral  consequences  directly.  Remorse  passes 
into  penitence  and.love.  There  is  no  more  loneliness,  for 
God  has  taken  up  His  abode  there.  No  more  self-contempt, 
for  he  whom  God  has  forgiven  learns  to  forgive  himself. 
There  is  no  more  unrest,  for  "  being  justified  by  faith,  we 
have  peace  with  God."  Then  the  fountains  of  the  great 
deep  are  broken  up,  and  unwonted  Eappy  tears  can  come — 
as  with  the  woman  in  the  Gospels.  I  pray  you  to  observe 
that  this  comes  directly,  with  no  interval — "  Being  justified 


694         Christ  V  Way  of  Dealing  with  Sin. 

by  faith."  For  God's  love  is  not  an  offer  but  a  gift ;  not 
clogged  with  conditions,  but  free  as  the  air  we  breathe. 

Upon  the  natural  consequences,  not  directly,  but  indirectly 
and  mediately.  The  forgiveness  of  Christ  did  riot  remove 
the  palsy ;  that  was  the  result  of  a  separate,  distinct  act  of 
Christ.  It  is  quite  conceivable  that  it  might  never  have 
been  removed  at  all — that  he  might  have  been  forgiven,  and 
the  palsy  suffered  to  remain.  God  might  have  dealt  with 
him  as  He  did  in  David's  case :  on  his  repentance  there  came 
to  him  the  declaration  of  God's  pardon,  his  person  was  ac- 
cepted, the  moral  consequences  were  removed,  but  the  nat- 
ural consequences  remained.  "  The  Lord  hath  put  away  thy 
sin,  nevertheless  the  child  which  is  born  to  thee  shall  die." 

Consider,  too,  that  without  a  miracle  they  must  have  re- 
mained in  this  man's  case.  It  is  so  in  everyday  life.  If  the 
intemperate  man  repents  he  will  receive  forgiveness,  but  will 
that  penitence  give  him  back  the  steady  hand  of  youth? 
Or  if  the  suicide  between  the  moment  of  draining  the  poison- 
ed cup  and  that  of  death  repent  of  his  deed,  will  that  arrest 
the  operation  of  the  poison  ?  A  strong  constitution  or  the 
physician  may  possibly  save  life ;  but  penitence  has  nothing 
to  do  with  it.  Say  that  the  natural  penal  consequence  of 
crime  is  the  scaffold  :  Did  the  pardon  given  to  the  dying 
thief  unnail  his  hands?  Did  Christ's  forgiveness  interfere 
with  the  natural  consequences  of  his  guilt  ? 

And  thus,  we  are  brought  to  a  very  solemn  and  awful  con- 
sideration, awful  because  of  its  truth  and  simplicity.  The 
consequences  of  past  deeds  remain.  They  have  become  part 
of  the  chain  of  the  universe — effects  which  now  are  causes, 
and  will  work  and  interweave  themselves  with  the  history 
of  the  world  forever.  You  can  not  undo  your  acts.  If  you 
have  depraved  another's  will,  and  injured  another's  soul,  it 
may  be  in  the  grace  of  God  that  hereafter  you  will  be  per- 
sonally accepted  and  the  consequences,  of  your  guilt  inward- 
ly done  away,  but  your  penitence  can  not  undo  the  evil  you 
have  done,  and  God's  worst  punishment  may  be  that  you 
may  have  to  gaze  half  frantic  on  the  ruin  you  have  caused,  on 
the  evil  you  have  done,  which  you  might  have  left  undone, 
but  which  being  done  is  now  beyond  y.our  power  forever. 
This  is  the  eternity  of  human  acts.  The  forgiveness  of  God 
— the  blood  of  Christ  itself — does  not  undo  the  past. 

And  yet  even  here  the  grace  of  God's  forgiveness  is  not  in 
vain.  It  can  not  undo  the  natural  consequences  of  sin,  but  it 
may  by  His  mercy  transform  them  into  blessings.  For  ex- 
ample, suppose  this  man's  palsy  to  have  been  left  still  with 
him,  himself  accepted,  his  soul  at  peace.  Well,  he  is  thence 


Christ's  Way  of  Dealing  with  Sin.        695 

forth  a  crippled  man.  But  crippling,  pain — are  these  neces- 
sarily evils?  Do  we  not  say  continually  that  sorrow  and 
pain  are  God's  loving  discipline  given  to  His  legitimate  chil- 
dren, to  be  exempt^from  which  were  no  blessing,  proving 
them  to  be  "  bastards  and  not  sons?"  And  why  should  not 
that  palsy  be  such  to  him,  though  it  was  the  result  of  his 
own  fault?  Once,  when  it  seemed  in  the  light  of  the  guilty 
conscience  only  the  foretaste  of  coming  doom — the  outward  a 
type  of  the  inward,  every  pang  sending  him  farther  from 
God,  it  was  a  curse.^  Now,  when  penitence  and  love  had 
come,  and  that  palsy  was  received  with  patience,  meekness, 
why  may  it  not  be  a  blessing  ?  What  makes  the  outward 
events  of  life  blessings  or  the  reverse  ?  Is  it  not  all  from 
ourselves  ?  Did  not  dissolution  become  quite  another  thing 
by  the  Fall — changed  into  death;  assuming  thereby  an  en- 
tirely altered  character :  no  longer  felt  as  a  natural  blessed 
herald,  becoming  the  messenger  of  God,  summoning  to  high- 
er life,  but  now  obtaining  that  strange  name — the  "  king  of 
terrors  ?"  And  in  Christ,  death  becomes  our  minister  again : 
"  Ours,"  as  St.  Paul  says,  "  with  all  other  things."  The  cross 
of  Christ  has  restored  to  death  something  more  blessed  than 
its  original  peacefulness.  A  sleep  now:  not  death  at  all. 
And  will  not  a  changed  heart  change  all  things  around  us,  and 
make  the  worst  consequence  of  .our  own  misdoing  minister 
to  our  eternal  welfare  ?  So  that  God's  forgiveness,  assured 
to  us  in  the  cross  of  Christ,  is  a  complete  remedy  for  sin,  act- 
ing on  its  natural  consequences  by  transformation  indirectly ; 
on  its  moral  results  directly,  by  removing  them. 

Lastly,  let  us  learn  from  this  the  true  aim  and  meaning  of 
miracles.  Let  us  attend  to  the  account  our  Master  gives  us 
of  the  reason  why  He  performed  this  miracle.  Read  verses 
9, 10.  To  say,  "Thy  sins  be  forgiven  thee,"  was  easy,  for  no 
visible  result  could  test  the  saying.  To  say,  "  Take  up  thy 
bed  and  walk,"  was  not  apparently  so  easy,  for  failure  would 
cover  with  confusion.  He  said  the  last,  leaving  the  infer- 
ence— If  I  can  do  the  most  difficult,  then  of  course,  I  can  do 
the  easier.  Here  we  have  the  true  character  of  a  miracle :  it 
is  the  outward  manifestation  of  the  power  of  God,  in  order 
that  we  may  believe  in  the  power  of  God  in  things  that  are 
invisible. 

Now  contrast  this  with  the  popular  view.  Miracles  arc. 
commonly  reckoned  as  proofs  of  Christ's  mission,  accrediting 
His  other  truths,  and  making  them,  which  would  be  other- 
wise incredible,  evidently  from  God.  I  hesitate  not  to  say 
that  nowhere  in  the  New  Testament  are  they  spoken  of  in 
this  way.  When  the  Pharisees  asked  for  evidences  and 


696         Christ's  Way  of  Dealing  with  Sm. 

signs,  His  reply  was,  "  There  shall  no  sign  be  given  you.* 
So  said  St.  Paul  in  his  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians — not  si«-ns. 
but  "  Christ  crucified."  He  had  no  conception  of  our  modern 
notion  of  miracles — things  chiefly  valuable  because  they  can 
be  collected  into  a  portable  volume  of  evidences  to  prov? 
that  God  is  love  :  that  we  should  love  one  another:  that  He 
is  the  Father  of  ail  men.  These  need  no  proofs,  they  arc 
like  the  sun  shining  by  his  own  light. 

Christ's  glorious  miracles  were  not  to  prove  these,  but 
that  through  the  seen  the  unseen  might^be  known  ;  to  show, 
as  it  were  by  specimens,  the  living  Power  which  works  in 
ordinary  as  well  as  extraordinary  cases.  For  instance  here, 
to  show  that  the  One  who  is  seen  to  say  with  power,  "Take 
up  thy  bed  and  walk,"  arresting  the  natural  consequences  of 
sin,  is  actually,  though  unseen,  arresting  its  moral  conse- 
quences. Or  again,  that  He  who  bade  the  waves  "  Be  still " 
in  Galilee,  is  holding  now,  at  this  moment,  the  winds  in  the 
hollow  of  His  hand.  That  He  who  healed  the  sick  and  raised 
the  dead,  holds  now  and  ever  in  His  hand  the  issues  of  life 
and  death.  For  the  marvellous  is  to  show  the  source  of  the 
common.  Miracles  were  no  concession  to  that  infidel  spirit 
which  taints  our  modern  Christianity,  and  which  can  not  be- 
lieve in  God's  presence,  except  it  can  see  Him  in  the  super- 
natural. Rather,  they  were  to  make  us  feel  that  all  is  mar- 
vellous, all  wonderful,  all  pervaded  with  a  Divine  presence, 
and  that  the  simplest  occurrences  of  life  are  miracles. 

In  conclusion.  Let  me  address  those  who,  like  this  suffer- 
er, are  in  any  degree  conscious  either  of  the  natural  or  moral 
results  of  sin,  working  in  them.  It  is  apparently  a  proud  and 
&  vain  thing  for  a  minister  of  Christ,  himself  tainted  with 
sin,  feeling  himself,  perhaps  more  than  any  one  else  can  feel, 
the  misery  of  a  palsied  heart,  for  such  a  one  to  give  advice 
to  his  brother-men;  but  it  must  be  done,  for  he  is  but  the 
mouthpiece  of  truths  greater  than  himself,  truths  which  are 
facts,  whether  he  can  feel  them  all  or  not. 

Therefore,  if  there  be  one  among  us  who  in  the  central 
depths  of  his  soul  is  conscious  of  a  Voice  pronouncing  the 
past  accursed,  the  present  awful,  and  the  future  terrible — I 
say  to  him,  Lose  no  time  in  disputing,  as  these  Scribes  did, 
some  Church  question,  "  whether  the  Son  of  Man  hath  power 
on  earth  to  forgive  sins ;"  nor  whether  ecclesiastical  etiquette 
permits  you  to  approach  God  in  this  way  or  in  that  way — a 
question  as  impertinent  as  it  would  have  been  for  the  palsied 
man  to  debate  whether  social  propriety  permitted  him  to  ap- 
proach the  Saviour  as  he  did,  instead  of  through  the  door. 
.  My  Christian  brethren,  if  the  crowd  of  difficulties  which 


Regeneration.  697 

stand  between  your  soul  and  God  succeed  in  keeping  you 
away,  all  is  lost.  Right  into  the  Presence  you  must  force 
your  way,  with  no  concealment,  baring  the  soul  with  all  ita 
ailments  before  Him,  asking,  not  the  arrest  of  the  conse- 
quences of  sin,  but  the  "  cleansing  of  the  conscience  from 
dead  works  to  serve  the  living  God  ;"  so  that  if  you  must 
suffer  you  shall  suffer  as  a  forgiven  man. 

This  is  the  time !  Wait  not  for  another  opportunity  nor 
for  different  means.  For  the  saying  of  our  Lord  is  ever  ful- 
filled, "  The  kingdom  of  heaven  suffereth  violence,  and  the 
violent  take  it  by  force." 


XI. 
REGENERATION. 

"Jesus  answered,  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  thee,  Except  a  man  be  born 
of  water  and  of  the  Spirit,  he  can  not  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God.  That 
which  is  born  of  the  flesh  is  flesh ;  and  that  which  is  born  of  the  Spirit  is 
spirit.  Marvel  not  that  I  said  unto  thee,  Ye  must  be  born  again." — John 
iii.  5-7. 

THE  Church  of  England  has  apparently  selected  this  pas- 
sage for  the  Gospel  of  Trinity  Sunday,  because  the  influences 
of  the  entire  Godhead  are  named  in  different  verses — the  re- 
generating influence  of  the  Spirit,  the  limitations  of  the  Son 
of  Man,  and  the  illimitable  nature  of  the  Father. 

It  is  a  threefold  way  in  which  God  has  revealed  Himself 
to  man — as  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Spirit.  First,  as  a  Father 
in  opposition  to  that  doctrine  which  taught  that  the  whole 
universe  is  God,  and  every  part  of  the  universe  is  a  portion 
of  God.  He  is  the  Father  who  hath  made  this  universe — 
God  distinct  from  us  :  outside  of  us  :  the  Creator  distin- 
guished from  the  creation. 

Secondly,  God  has  revealed  Himself  as  a  Son,  as  manifest- 
ed in  humanity,  chiefly  in  Christ.  Throughout  the  ages  past 
there  has  been  a  mediatorial  humanity.  Man  is  in  a  way 
the  reflection  of  God's  nature— the  father  to  the  child.  Th'e 
prophets,  the  lawgivers,  and  especially  Moses,  are  called  me- 
diators, through  whom  God's  name  was  known.  The  media- 
torial system  culminated  in  Christ,  attained  the  acme  of  per- 
fection in  One — the  man  Christ  Jesus — the  express  image  of 
His  Father.  The  Son  is  the  human  side  of  the  mind  ofGod. 

Thirdly,  God  has  revealed  himself  as  the  Holy  Spirit:  not 
as  a  Father  external  to  us,  nor  as  reflected  in  humanity  still 

30 


698  Regeneration. 

outside  us,  but  as  God  within  us  mingling  with  our  being. 
The  body  of  man  is  His  temple.  "  In  Him  we  live  and 
move,  and  have  our  being."  This  is  the  dispensation  of  the 
Spirit:  He  has  told  us  that  every  holy  aspiration,  every 
thought  and  act,  that  has  been  on  the  side  of  right  against 
wrong,  is  a  part  of  His  holy  essence,  of  His  Spirit  in  us. 

This  is  the  threefold  manifestation  made  of  Himself  to  us 
by  God.  But  this  is  not  all,  for  this  alone  would  not  be  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  It  is  quite  conceivable  that  there 
might  be  one  living  force  manifested  in  three  different  ways, 
without  its  being  a  trinity.  Let  us  try  and  understand  this 
by  an  illustration. 

Conceive  a  circular  thin  plate  of  metal :  above  it  you 
would  see  it  such  ;  at  gome  yards'  distance,  as  an  oval,  side- 
ways, edgeways,  a  line.  This  might  be  the  account  of  God's 
different  aspects :  in  one  relationship  to  us  seen  as  the  Fa- 
ther, in  another  as  the  Son,  in  another  as  the  Spirit ;  but  this 
is  not  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  it  is  a  heresy,  known  in 
old  times  by  the  name  of  Sabellianism  or  modal  Trinity,  de- 
pending on  our  position  in  reference  to  Him. 

Further.  This  is  not  merely  the  same  part  of  His  nature, 
seen  in  different  aspects,  but  diverse  parts  of  His  complex 
being — persons:  three  causes  of  this  manifestation.  Just 
as  our  reason,  our  memory,  our  imagination,  are  not  the 
same,  but  really  ourselves. 

Let  us  take  another  illustration.  A  single  white  ray  of 
light,  falling  on  a  certain  object,  appeal's  red ;  on  another, 
blue  ;  on  another,  yellow.  That  is,  the  red  alone  in  one  case 
is  thrown  out,  the  blue  or  yellow  in  another.  So  the  differ- 
ent parts  of  the  one  ray  by  turns  become  visible  ;  each  is  a 
complete  ray,  yet  the  original  white  ray  is  but  one. 

So  we  believe  that  in  that  Unity  of  Essence  there  are 
three  living  Powers  which  we  call  Persons,  distinct  from 
each  other.  It  is  in  virtue  of  His  own  incommunicable  Es- 
sence that  God  is  the  Father.  It  is  the  human  side  of  His 
nature  by  which  He  is  revealed  as  the  Son,  so  that  it  was 
not,  so  to  speak,  a  matter  of  choice  whether  the  Son  or  the 
Father  should  redeem  the  world.  We  believe  that  from  all 
eternity  there  was  that  in  the  mind  of  God  which  I  have 
called  its  human  side,  which  made  it  possible  for  Him  to  be 
imaged  in  humanity ;  and  that  again  named  the  Spirit,  by 
which  He  could  mix  and  mingle  Himself  with  us. 

This  is  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  explained  now,  not  to 
point  the  damnatory  clause  of  the  Athanasian  creed,  but 
only  in  order  to  seize  joyfully  the  annual  opportunity  of  pro- 
fessing  a  firm  belief  in  the  dogmatic  truth  of  the  Trinity. 


Regeneration.  699 

We  now  pass  on  to  notice  more  particularly  the  revela- 
tion to  us  of  one  mode  in  which  that  blessed  Trinity  works. 
"This  will  divide  itself  into  two  subjects.  First,  we  shall  en- 
deavor to  understand  what  is  meant  by  the  kingdom  of 
God ;  and  secondly,  we  shall  consider  the  entrance  into  that 
kingdom  by  regeneration. 

Our  blessed  Lord  says,  "  Except  a  man  be  born  again,  he 
can  not  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God."  Now  that  expres- 
sion— the  kingdom  of  God — is  a  Jewish  one.  Nicodemus 
was  a  Jew  ;  and  we  must  therefore  endeavor  to  comprehend 
how  he  would  understand  it. 

By  the  kingdom  of  God,  a  Jew  understood  human  society 
perfected — that  domain  on  earth  where  God  was  visible  and 
God  ruled.  The  whole  Jewish  dispensation  had  trained  Nic- 
odemus to  realize  this.  The  Jewish  kingdom  was  a  theocra- 
cy, distinguished  from  an  aristocracy  and  a  democracy.  There 
were  two  main  things  observable  in  this.  First,  it  was  a 
kingdom  in  which  God's  power  was  manifestly  visible,  by 
miracles,  marvels,  the  cloud  and  fire  pillars,  and  by  appear- 
ances direct  from  the  King  of  kings.  The  second  matter  of 
importance  in  this  conception  of  the  Divine  kingdom  was 
that  it  was  a  society  in  which  a  person  ruled.  God  was  the 
ruler  of  this  society  ;  her  laws  all  dated  from  God's  will,  and 
were  right  because  the  will  of  the  Ruler  was  right.  "Thus 
saith  the  Lord,"  was  the  preface  to  personal  messages  from 
their  King. 

Bear  in  mind,  then,  that  this  was  Nicodemus's  conception 
of  the  kingdom,  and  we  shall  understand  the  conversation. 
He  had  seen  in  the  works  of  Christ  the  assertion  of  a  living 
Will  ruling  over  the  laws  of  nature.  He  had  seen  wonders 
and  signs.  Therefore  he  said,  "  We  know  that  Thou  art  a 
teacher  come  from  God  :"  he  saw  that  Christ  in  these  two 
senses  fulfilled  the  two  requisites  of  a  Divine  mission.  He 
had  seen  a  society  growing  up  in  acknowledgment  of  the 
rule  of  a  person :  'but  Christ  told  him  that  something  more 
was  needful  than  this:  it  was  necessary  that  the  subject 
should  be  prepared  for  the  kingdom.  It  was  not  enough 
that  God  should  draw  nigh  to  man;  but  that  man  must 
draw  near  to  God.  There  must  be  an  alteration  in  the  man. 
"  Except  a  man  be  born  again  he  can  not  enter  the  kingdom 
of  God." 

In  other  words,  he  distinguished  between  a  kingdom  that 
is  visible  and  a  kingdom  that  is  invisible.  He  distinguished 
between  that  presence  of  God  which  man  can  see,  and  that 
which  man  can  only  feel.  This  will  explain  apparent  con- 
tradictions  in  Christ's  language. 


700  .  Regeneration. 

To  the  Pharisee,  on  one  occasion,  He  said,  "  If  I  by  the 
finger  of  God  cast  out  devils,  no  doubt  the  kingdom  of  God 
is  come  unto  you."  But  again  He  said,  "  It  is  not  lo  here, 
nor  lo  there.  For  the  kingdom  of  God  is  within  you." 
There  is  a  kingdom,  therefore,  in  which  the  Eternal  Spirit 
moves,  whereof  the  senses  take  cognizance.  Nicodemus  saw 
that  kingdom  when  he  gazed  on  the  miracles  and  outward 
signs,  and  felt  that  they  w^ere  evidences,  and  from  these  and 
from  the  gathering  society  around  the  Lord,  drew  the  con- 
clusion that  no  man  could  do  these  things  except  God  were 
-with  him. 

There  wras  the  outward  manifestation.  But  there  is 
another  kingdom  which  is  the  peculiar  domain  of  the  Spirit, 
which  "  eye  hath  not  seen,  nor  ear  heard,  nor  hath  it  entered 
into  the  heart  of  man  to  conceive,"  into  which  flesh  and 
blood  can  not  enter.  Of  this  kingdom  Jesus  said  to  Peter, 
"  Blessed  art  thou,  Simon  Barjona,  for  flesh  and  blood  hath 
not  -revealed  it."  And  of  this  St.  Paul  said,  "  Now  this  I 
say,  brethren,  that  flesh  and  blood  can  not  inherit  the  king- 
dom of  God." 

Unless  an  inward  change  takes  place,  though  surrounded 
by  God's  kingdom,  we  can  not  enter  into  it.  The  eye,  the 
ear,  can  take  no  cognizance  of  this;  it  must  be  revealed  by 
the  Spirit  to  the  spirit. 

Pass  we  on,  secondly,  to  consider  the  entrance  into  this 
kingdom  by  regeneration.  As  there  is  a  twofold  kingdom, 
so  is  there  a  twofold  entrance. 

1.  By  the  baptism  of  water.  2.  By  the  baptism  of  the 
Spirit.  Now  respecting  the  first  of  these,  commentators 
have  been  greatly  at  variance.  A  large  number  of  Prot- 
estant commentators  have  endeavored  to  explain  this  pas- 
sage away,  as  if  it  did  not  apply  to  baptism  at  all.  But  by 
all  the  laws  of  correct  interpretation,  we  are  compelled  to 
admit  that  "born  of  water"  has  here  a  reference  to  baptism. 

Into  God's  universe  or  kingdom  \ve  penetrate  by  a  double 
nature — by  our  senses  and  by  our  spirit.  To  this  double 
nature  God  has  made  a  twofold  revelation.  God's  witness 
to  our  senses  is  baptism ;  God's  witness  to  our  spirit  is  His 
Spirit.  "He  that  believeth  hath  the  witness  in  himself." 
Now  let  us  observe  the  strength  of  that  expression  of  Christ, 
"  Except  a  man  be  born  of  water  and  of  the  Spirit  he  can 
not  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God."  A  very  strong  expres- 
sion, but  not  more  so  than  the  baptismal  service  of  the  Church 
of  England.  "Born  of  water"  is  equivalent  to  regenera- 
tion by  baptism. 

There  are  those  who  object  to  this  formulary  of  our  Church, 


Regeneration.  701 

because  it  seems  to  them  to  tell  of  a  magical  or  miraculous 
power  in  the  hands  of  the  priest.  In  answer  to  them,  we 
point  to  this  passage  of  the  inspired  Word  of  God :  let  us 
try  and  understand  in  what  sense  it  is  true  that  a  man  is 
born  of  water.  Now  we  hold  baptism  to  be  the  sign,  or 
proof,  or  evidence,  of  a  spiritual  fact.  It  is  riot  the  fact,  but 
it  substantiates  the  fact. 

The  spiritual  fact  is  God's  covenant.  Let  us  take  an  il 
lustration.  The  right  of  a  man  to  his  property  is  in  right  ot 
his  ancestor's  will ;  it  is  in  virtue  of  that  will  or  intention 
that  the  man  inherits  that  property.  But  because  that  will 
is  invisible,  it  is  necessary  that  it  should  be  made  manifest 
in  visible  symbols ;  and  therefore  there  is  a  piece  of  parch- 
ment by  which  it  is  made  tangible,  and  that,  though  only 
the  manifestation  of  the  will,  is  called  "  the  will "  itself. 
Nay,  so  strongly  is  this  word  writh  its  associations  rooted  in 
our  language,  that  it  may  never  have  occurred  to  us  that  it 
is  but  a  figurative  expression  ;  and  the  law  might,  if  it  had 
been  so  chosen,  have  demanded  another  expression  of  the 
will. 

There  have  been  cases  in  which  a  high-minded  heir-at-law 
has  accepted  the  verbal  testimony  of  another  to  the  inten- 
tions of  his  ancestor,  where  there  has  been  no  outward 
manifestation  whatever,  and  so  has  given  away  the  property 
because  the  inward  will  of  his  ancestor  was  to  him  all  in 
all. 

Similarly,  baptism  is  the  revealed  will  of  God  :  that  is,  it 
is  the  instrument  that  declares  God's  will.  God's  will  is  a 
thing  invisible ;  verbally,  the  will  runs  thus — "  Fear  not,  lit- 
tle flock,  it  is  your  Father's  good  pleasure  to  give  you  the 
kingdom." 

And  just  as  the  instrument  which  declares  a  will  is  called 
by  a  figure  of  speech  "  the  will "  itself,  although  it  is  but  the 
manifestation  of  it,  so  the  ecclesiastical  instrument  which  de- 
clares regeneration  is  called  regeneration  in  the  Bible  and  in 
our  Church  service.  Baptism  is  "  regeneration  "  as  a  parch- 
ment is  a  "  will ;"  and,  therefore  it  is  that  we  read  in  this 
passage,  "  Born  of  water ;"  and  therefore  it  is  that  St.  Peter 
says,  "  Baptism  saves  us  ;"  and  St.  Paul  says, "  Buried  with 
Christ  in  baptism." 

Lastly,  we  pass  on  to  consider  the  entrance  into  this  king- 
dom by  a  spiritual  change. 

The  ground  on  which  Christ  states  it  is  our  human  nature, 
We  have  a  twofold  nature — the  nature  of  the  animal  and  the 
nature  of  God,  and  in  the  order  of  God's  providence  we  begin 
with  the  animal.  "  Howbeit,"  says  St.  Paul.  "  that  is  not  first 


702  Regeneration. 

which  is  spiritual,  but  that  which  is  natural."  Now  the  mo- 
ment when  these  natures  are  exchanged  is  the  moment  of 
spiritual  regeneration. 

A  man  is  to  be  born  of  water,  but  far  rather  of  the  Spirit. 
Of  this  expression  there  are  several  interpretations :  first, 
the  fanatical  one.  Men  of  enthusiastic  temperaments,  chiefly 
men  whose  lives  have  been  irregular,  whose  religion  has 
come  to  them  suddenly,  interpreting  all  cases  by  their  own 
experiences,  have  said  that  the  exercise  of  God's  Spirit  is  ever 
sudden  and  supernatural,  and  it  has  seemed  to  them  that  to 
try  and  bring  up  a  child  for  God,  in  the  way  of  education,  is 
to  bid  defiance  to  that  Spirit  which  is  like  the  wind,  blowing 
"  where  it  listeth  ;"  and  if  a  man  can  not  tell  the  day  or  hour 
when  he  was  converted,  to  those  persons  he  does  not  seem  to 
be  a  Christian  at  all.  He  may  be  holy,  humble,  loving,  but 
unless  there  is  that  visible  manifestation  of  how  and  when 
he  wras  changed,  he  must  be  still  ranked  as  unregenerate. 

Another  class  of  persons,  of  cold,  calm  temperament,  to 
whom  fanaticism  is  a  crime  and  enthusiasm  a  thing  to  be 
avoided,  are  perpetually  rationalizing  with  Scripture,  and 
explaining  away  in  some  low  and  commonplace  way  the 
highest  manifestation  of  the  Spirit  of  God.  Thus  Paley  tells 
us  that  this  passage  belongs  to  the  Jews,  who  had  forgotten 
the  Messiah's  kingdom ;  but  to  speak  of  a  spiritual,  regen- 
erative change  as  necessary  for  a  man  brought  up  in  the 
Church  of  England,  is  to  open  the  door  to  all  fanaticism. 

There  is  a  third  class,  who  confound  the  regeneration  of 
baptism  with  that  of  the  Spirit,  who  identify,  in  point  of 
time,  the  being  born  of  water  and  of  the  Spirit.  And  it 
seems  to  them  that  regeneration  after  that  is  a  word  without 
meaning.  Of  this  class  there  are  two  divisions :  those  who 
hold  it  openly  in  the  Church  of  Rome,  and  those  who  do  not 
go  to  the  full  extent  of  Romish  doctrine  on  this  subject. 
These  will  not  say  that  a  miracle  has  taken  place,  but  they 
say  that  a  seed  of  grace  has  thus  been  planted.  Whichever 
of  these  views  be  taken,  for  all  practical  purposes  the  result 
must  be  the  same.  If  this  inward  spiritual  change  has  taken 
place  at  baptism,  then  to  talk  of  regeneration  after  that  must 
be  an  impertinence.  But,  brethren,  looking  at  this  passages 
we  can  not  be  persuaded  that  it  belongs  to  the  Jew  alone, 
nor  can  we  believe  that  the  strength  of  that  expression  is 
mere  baptism  by  water.  Here  is  recorded  that  which  is 
true  not  for  the  Jew  or  heathen  only,  but  for  all  the  human 
race,  without  exception.  "  Except  a  man  be  born  of  water 
and  of  the  Spirit,  he  can  not  enter  the  kingdom  of  God." 

In  our  life  there  is  a  time  in  which  our  spirit  has  gained 


Regeneration.  703 

the  mastery  over  the  flesh  ;  it  is  not  important  t6  know 
when,  but  whether  it  has  taken  place. 

The  first  years  of  our  existence  are  simply  animal ;  then 
the  life  of  a  young  man  is  not  that  of  mere  instinct,  it  is  a 
life  of  passion,  with  mighty  indignations,  strong  aversions. 
And  then  passing  on  through  life  we  sometimes  see  a  person 
in  whom  these  things  are  merged ;  the  instincts  are  there 
only  for  the  support  of  existence ;  the  passions  are  so  ruled 
that  they  have  become  gentleness,  and  meekness,  and  love. 
Between  these  two  extremes  there  must  have  been  a  middle 
point,  when  the  life  of  sense,  appetite,  and  passion,  which  had 
ruled,  ceased  to  rule,  and  was  ruled  over  by  the  life  of  the 
spirit :  that  moment,  whether  it  be  long  or  short,  whether  it 
be  done  suddenly  or  gradually,  whether  it  come  like  the 
rushing  mighty  wind,  or  as  the  slow,  gentle  zephyr  of  the 
spring — whenever  that  moment  was,  then  was  the  moment 
of  spiritual  regeneration.  There  are  cases  in  which  this 
never  takes  place  at  all ;  there  are  grown  men  and  old  men 
merely  children  still— -still  having  the  animal  appetites,  and 
living  in  the  base,  and  conscious,  and  vicious  indulgence  of 
those  appetites  which  in  the  child  were  harmless.  These  are 
they  who  have  not  yet  been  born  again.  Born  of  water  they 
may  have  been,  born  of  God's  eternal  Spirit  they  have  not 
been  ;  before  such  men  can  enter  into  the  eternal  kingdom  of 
their  Father,  that  word  is  as  true  to  them  as  to  Nicodemus 
of  old, "  Marvel  not  that  I  said  unto  you,  Ye  must  be  born 
again."  Oh !  it  is  an  awful  thing  to  see  a  spectacle  such  as 
that ;  an  awful  thing  to  see  the  blossom  still  upon  the  tree 
when  the  autumn  is  passed  and  the  winter  is  at  hand.  An 
awful  thing  to  see  a  man,  who  ought  to  be  clothed  in  Christ, 
still  living  the  life  of  the  flesh  and" of  passion  :  the  summer  is 
past,  the  harvest  is  ended,  and  he  is  not  saved. 

Now  let  us  briefly  apply  what  has  been  said. 

1.  Do  not  attempt  to  date  too  accurately  the  transition 
moment. 

******** 

2.  Understand  that  the  "  flesh,"  or  natural  state,  is  wrong 
only  when  out  of  place.     In  its  place  it  is  imperfection,  not 
evil.     There  is  no  harm  in  leaves  or  blossoms  in  spring — but 
in  autumn  !     There  is  no  harm  in  the  appetites  of  childhood, 
or  the  passions  of  youth,  but  great  harm  when  these  are  still 
unsubdued  in  age.     Observe,  therefore,  the  flesh  is  not  to  be 
exercised,  but   the   spirit   strengthened.     This   I   say   then, 
"  Walk  in  the  spirit,  and  ye  shall  not  fulfill  the  lusts  of  the 
flesh." 

3.  Do  not  mistake  the  figurative  for  the  literal. 


704  An  Election  Sermon. 

Baptism  is  regeneration  figuratively  :    "  The  like  figure 
whereunto  even  baptism  doth  also  now  save  us  (not  the  put- 
ting away  of  the  filth  of  the  flesh,  but  the  answer  of  a  good 
conscience  toward  God),  by  the  resurrection  of -Jesus  Christ" 
******** 

The  things  to  be  anxious  about  are  not  baptism,  not 
confirmation ;  but  the  spiritual  facts  for  which  baptism  and 
confirmation  stand. 


XII. 
AN  ELECTION  SERMON. 

A    FRAGMENT. 

"And  they  appointed  two,  Joseph  called  Barsabas,  who  was  snrnamed 
Justus,  and  Matthias.  And  they  prayed,  and  said,  Thou,  Lord,  which  know- 
est  the  hearts  of  all  men,  show  whether  of  these  two  thou  hast  chosen,  that 
he  may  take  part  of  this  ministry  and  apostleship,  from  which  Judas  by 
transgression  fell,  that  he  might  go  to  his  own  place.  And  they  gave  forth 
their  lots ;  and  the  lot  fell  upon  Matthias ;  and  he  was  numbered  with  the 
eleven  apostles." — Acts  i.  23-26. 

THIS  is  the  account  of  the  earliest  appointment  of  an  apos- 
tle or  bishop  over  the  Church  of  Christ. 

It  stands  remarkably  distinguished  from  the  episcopal 
elections  of  after  ages.  Every  one  acquainted  with  Church 
history  knows  that  the  election  of  a  bishop  in  the  first 
centuries,  and  indeed  for  many  ages,  was  one  of  the  bitterest 

and  fiercest  questions  which  shook  the  Church  of  Christ. 
******** 

[Appointment  by  the  people — Presbyters — Various  cus- 
toms. Anecdote  of  Ambrose  of  Milan.  Appointment  by 
the  Emperor  or  Bishop  of  Rome.  Quarrel  of  ages  between 
the  Emperor  and  the  Pope.] 

Contradistinguished  from  this  in  spirit  was  the  first  ap- 
pointment which  ended  in  the  selection  of  Matthias.  Holy, 
calm,  wise — presided  over  by  an  apostolic  and  Christian 
spirit. 

It  will  be  obvious  at  once  why  this  subject  has  been 
selected.  During  the  course  of  this  week,  England  will  be 
shaken  to  her  centre  with  the  selection  of  representatives 
who  shall  legislate  for  her  hereafter,  either  in  accordance 
with,  or  in  defiance  of,  the  principles  of  her  constitution.  In 
some  places,  as  fiercely  as  the  battle  was  formerly  carried  on 


An  Election  Sermon.  705 

between  Guelph  and  Ghibelline,  or  between  faction  and 
faction  in  the  choice  of  bishops,  so  fiercely  will  the  contest 
rage  in  the  choice  of  representatives. 

Delicate  and  difficult  as  the  introduction  of  such  a  sub- 
ject from  the  pulpit  must  be,  yet  it  seems  to  me  the  im- 
perative duty  of  a  minister  of  Christ — from  which  he  can 
not,  except  in  cowardice,  shrink — to  endeavor  to  make  clear 
the  great  Christian  landmarks  which  belong  to  such  an  oc- 
currence. But  let  me  be'understood.  His  duty  is  not  to  in- 
troduce politics  in  the  common  sense  of  the  word,  meaning 
thereby  the  views  of  some  particular  party.  The  pulpit  is 
not  to  be  degraded  into  the  engine  of  a  faction.  Far,  far 
above  such  questions,  it  ought  to  preserve  the  calm  dignity 
of  a  voice  which  speaks  for  eternity,  and  not  for  time.  If 
possible,  not  one  word  should  drop  by  which  a  minister's 
own  political  leanings  can  be  discovered. 

Yet  there  must  be  broad  principles  of  right  and  wrong  in 
such  a  transaction,  as  in  any  other.  And,  in  discharge  of 
my  duty,  I  desire  to  place  those  before  you.  We  shall  con- 
sider— 

I.  The  object  of  the  election  spoken  of  in  my  text. 
II.  The  mode  of  the  election. 
III.  The  spirit  in  which  it  was  conducted. 

I.  The  object  of  the  election.  To  elect  a  bishop  of  the 
universal  Church. 

It  might  be  that  in  process  of  time  the  apostle  so  chosen 
should  be  appointed  to  a  particular  city — as  St.  James  was 
to  Jerusalem.  But  it  is  plain  his  duty  as  an  apostle  was 
owed  to  the  general  assembly  and  Church  of  Christ,  and  not 
to  that  particular  city;  and  if  he  had  allowed  local  partiali- 
ties or  local  interests  to  stand  before  the  interests  of  the 
whole,  he  would  have  neglected  the  duty  of  his  high  office. 

Also,  that  if  those  who  appointed  him  considered  the  in- 
terest of  Jerusalem  in  the  first  instance,  instead  of  his  quali- 
fications as  a  bishop  of  the  Church  universal,  they  would  have 
failed  in  their  duty. 

In  the  third  century,  a  bishop  of  Carthage,  Cyprian,  in  a 
celebrated  sentence  has  clearly  and  beautifully  stated  this 
principle — "Episcopatus  unus  est,  cw/ws,"  etc.  The  episco- 
pate, one  and  indivisible,  held  in  its  entirety  by  each  bishop, 
every  part  standing  for  the  whole.  That  is,  if  he  were  a 
bishop  of  Carthage  or  Antioch,  he  was  to  remember  that  it 
was  not  the  interests  of  Carthage  over  which  he  had  to 
watch,  but  those  of  the  Church  of  Christ;  Carthage  being 
his  special  allotment  out  of  the  whole.  And  in  a^  council 

20* 


706  An  Election  Sermon. 

he  was  to  give  his  voice  not  for  that  which  might  be  good 
for  the  men  of  Carthage,  but  for  the  Church  of  Christ. 

The  application  is  plain. 

The  nation  is  one — its  life  is  a  sacred  life.  The  nation 
is  the  Christian  people,  for  whom  Christ  shed  His  blood- 
its  life  is  unity — its  death  is  division.  The  curse  of  a  Chris- 
tian^  is  sectarianism — the  curse  of  a  nation  is  faction.  Each 
legislator  legislates  for  the  country,  not  for  a  county  or 
town.  Each  elector  holds  his  franchise  as  a  sacred  trust, 
to  be  exercised  not  for  his  town,  or  for  a  faction  of  his  town, 
not  for  himself,  or  his  friends,  but  for  the  general  weal  of  the 
people  of  England. 

Let  me  expose  a  common  fallacy. 

We  are  not  to  be  biased  by  asking  what  charity  does  a 
candidate  support,  nor  what  view  does  he  take  of  some 
local  question,  nor  whether  he  subscribe  to  tractarian  or  to 
evangelical  societies.  We  are,  in  our  high  responsibility, 
selecting,  not  a  president  for  a  religious  society,  nor  a  patron 
of  a  town,  nor  a  subscriber  to  a  hospital,  but  a  legislator  for 
England. 

II.  The  mode  of  the  election. 

It  was  partly  human,  partly  Divine.  The  human  element 
is  plain  enough  in  that  it  was  popular.  The  choice  lay  not 
with  the  apostles,  but  with  the  whole  Church.  One  hundred 
and  twenty  met  in  that  upper  chamber  :  all  gave  in  their  lots 
or  votes.  The  Divine  element  lay  in  this,  that  it  was  over- 
ruled by  God. 

Here  is  the  main  point  observable.  They  at  least  took 
for  granted  that  the  popular  element  was  quite  separate  from 
the  Divine.  The  selected  one  might  be  the  chosen  of  the 
people,  yet  not  the  chosen  of  God.  Hence  they  prayed, 
"  Thou,  Lord,  which  knowest  the  hearts  of  all  men,  show 
whether  of  these  two  Thou  hast  chosen." 

The  common  notion  is,  vox  populi  vox  Dei.  In  other 
words,  whatever  the  general  voice  wills  is  right.  A  law  is 
right  because  it  is  a  people's  will.  I  do  not  say  that  we 
have  got  the  full  length  of  this  idea  in  England.  On  the 
Continent  it  has  long  been  prevalent.  Possibly  it  is  the  ex- 
pression of  that  Antichrist  "  who  showeth  himself  that  he  is 
God;"  self-will  setting  itself  up  paramount  to  the  will  of 
God. 

The  vox  populi  is  sometimes  vox  Dei,  sometimes  not. 
The  voice  of  the  people  was  the  voice  of  God  when  the  chil- 
dren of  Israel  rescued  Jonathan  from  his  father's  unjust  sen- 
tence ;  and  when  the  contest  between  Elijah  and  the  proph- 


An  Election  Sermon.  707 

ets  of  Baal  having  been  settled,  they  cried,  "  The  Lord  He  is 
God." 

Was  the  voice  of  the  people  the  voice  of  God  when,  in 
Moses's  absence,  they  required  Aaron  to  make  them  a  gold- 
en  calf  for  a  god  ?  Or  when,  led  on  by  the  demagogue 
Demetrius,  they  shouted, "  Great  is  Diana  of  the  Ephesians  ?" 
Or  when,  at  the  instigation  of  the  priests,  led  blindfold  by 
them  they  cried,  "  Crucify  Him  ?" 

The  politicians  of  this  world  eagerly  debate  the  question, 
how  best  to  secure  a  fair  representation  of  the  people's  voice, 
whether  by  individuals  or  by  interests  fairly  balanced  ? — a 
question,  doubtless,  not  to  be  put  aside.  But  the  Christian 
sees  a  question  deeper  far  than  the^s — not  how  to  obtain 
most  fairly  an  expression  of  the  people's  will,  but  how  that 
will  shall  truly  represent  the  will  of  God.  There  is  no  other 
question  at  last  than  this. 

And  we  shall  attain  this,  not  by  nicely  balancing  interest 
against  interest,  much  less  by  mano3uvring  or  by  cunningly 
devised  expedient,  to  defeat  the  cause  which  we  believe  the 
wrong  one ;  but  by  each  doing  all  that  in  him  lies  to  rouse 
himself  and  others  to  a  high  sense  of  responsibility. 

It  is  a  noble  thought,  that  of  every  elector  going  to  vote, 
as  these  men  did,  for  the  Church,  for  the  people,  for  God, 
and  for  the  right,  earnestly  anxious  that  he  and  others  should 
do  right. 

Else — to  speak  humanly — this  was  an  appeal  to  chance 
and  not  to  God  ;  and  every  election,  by  ballot  or  by  suf- 
frage, is  else  an  appeal  to  chance. 

All,  therefore,  depends  upon  the  spirit  in  which  the  election 
is  conducted. 

What  constitutes  the  difference  between  an  appeal  to  God 
and  an  appeal  to  chance  ? 

III.  The  Spirit. 

1.  A  religious  spirit.  "They  prayed  and  said,  Thou,  Lord, 
which  knowest  the  hearts  of  all  men,  show  whether  of  these 
two  Thou  hast  chosen."  Now,  we  shall  be  met  here  at  once 
by  an  objection.  This  was  a  religious  work — the  selection 
of  an  apostle;  but  the  choice  of  a  representative  is  not  a  re- 
ligious work,  only  a  secular  one. 

Here  we  come,  therefore,  to  the  very  pith  and  marrow  of 
the  whole  question.  The  distinction  between  religious  and 
secular  is  true  in  a  sense,  but  as  we  make  it,  it  is  false.  It  is 
not  the  occupation,  but  the  spirit  which  makes  the  difference. 
The  election  of  a  bishop  may  be  a  most  secular  thing.  The 
election  of  a  representative  may  be  a  religious  thing  St, 


708  An  Election  Sermon. 

Paul  taught  that  nothing  is  profane.  Sanctified  by  the 
Word  of  God  and  prayer,  St.  Peter  learned  that  nothing  is 
common  or  unclean. 

*  ******* 

[Many  relics  remain  to  us  from  our  religious  forefathers 
indicative  of  this  truth  :  Grace  before  meals ;  Dei  gratia  on 
coins  of  the  realms  ;  "  In  the  name  of  God,"  at  the  commence 
ment  of  wills,  oaths  in  court  of  justice  ;  prayers  in  universi* 
ties  before  election  of  scholar's :  all  proclaim  that  the  sim» 
plest  acts  of  our  domestic  and  political  life  are  sacred  or 
profane  according  to  the  spirit  in  which  they  are  performed ; 
not  in  the  question  whether  they  are  done  for  the  State  or 
the  Church,  but  whether  with  God  or  without  God.] 

Observe  :  it  is  not  the  preluding  such  an  election  with 
public  prayer  that  would  make  it  a  religious  act.  It  is  re- 
ligious so  far  as  each  man  discharges  his  part  as  a  duty  and 
solemn  responsibility. 

If  looked  on  in  this  spirit  by  the  higher  classes,  would  the 
debauchery  and  the  drunkenness  which  are  fostered  by  rich 
men  of  all  parties  among  the  poor  for  their  own  purposes,  be 
possible?  Would  they,  for  the  sake  of  one  vote,  or  a  hun- 
dred votes,  brutalize  their  fellow-creatures  ? 

2.  It  is  implied  in  this,  that  it  must  be  done  conscien- 
tiously. 

Each  Christian  found  himself  in  possession  of  a  new  right 
—that  of  giving  a  vote  or  casting  a  lot. 

Like  all  rights,  it  was  a  duty.  He  had  not  a  right  to  do 
what  he  liked.  His  right  was  only  the  duty  of  doing  right. 
And  if  any  one  had  swayed  him  to  support  the  cause  of 
Barnabas  or  that  of  Matthias  on  any  motives  except  this 
one — "You  ought " — he  had  so  far  injured  his  conscience. 

The  conscience  of  man  is  a  holy,  sacred  thing.  The  worst 
of  crimes  is  to  injure  a  human  conscience.  Better  kill  ths 
body.  Remember  how  strongly  St.  Paul  speaks,  "  When  ye 
sin  so  against  the  brethren,  and  wound  their  weak  conscience.; 
ye  sin  against  Christ."  And  that  sin,  remember,  consisted  in 
leading  them  to  do  a  thing  which,  though  right  in  itself,  they 
thought  wrong. 

Now  there  is  an  offense  against  the  laws  of  the  State  which 
all  men  agree  in  treating  with  a  smile. 

My  brethren,  bribery  is  a  sin — a  sin  against  God.  Not 
because  a  particular  law  has  been  made  against  it,  but  be- 
cause it  lowers  the  sense  of  personal  responsibility,  blunts 
the  conscience,  dethrones  the  God  within  the  man's  soul,  and 
erects  selfishness,  and  greed,  and  interest,  in  His  stead.  ATM! 


An  Election  Sermon,  709 

whether  you  do  it  directly  or  indirectly — directly  by  giving, 
indirectly  by  withdrawing,  assistance  or  patronage — vou  sin 
against  Christ. 

3.  It  was  not  done  from  personal  interest. 

There  were  two 'candidates,  Barnabas  and  Matthias.  Now 
if  the  supporters  of  these  two  had  been  influenced  chiefly  by 
such  considerations  as  blood-relationship,  or  the  chance  of 
favor  and  promotion,  manifestly  a  high  function  would  have 
been  degraded. 

In  secular  matters,  however,  we  do  not  judge  so.  A  man 
generally  decides  according  to  his  professional  or  his  person- 
al interests.  You  know  almost  to  a  certainty  beforehand 
which  way  a  man  will  vote,  if  you  know  his  profession.  If  a 
man  be  a  fanner,  or  a  clergyman,  or  a  merchant,  you  can 
pretty  surely  guess  on  which  side  he  will  range  himself. 

Partly,  no  doubt,  this  is  involuntary — the  result  of  those 
prejudices  which  attach  to  us  all  from  association.  But  it  is 
partly  voluntary.  We  know  that  we  are  thinking  not  of 
the  general  good,  but  of  our  own  interests.  And  thus  a 
farmer  would  think  himself  justified  in  looking  at  a  question 
simply  as  it  affected  his  class,  and  a  noble  as  it  affected  his 
caste,  and  a  working-man  as  it  bore  upon  the  working- 
classes. 

Brethren,  we  are  Christians.  Something  of  a  principle 
higher  than  this  ought  to  be  ours.  What  is  the  law  of  the 
cross  of  Christ  ?  The  sacrifice  of  the  One  for  the  whole,  the 
cheerful  surrender  of  the  few  for  the  many.  Else,  what  do 
we  more  than  others  ? 

These  are  fine  words — patriotism,  public  principle,  purity. 

Be  sure  these  words  are  but  sentimental  expressions,  ex- 
cept as  they  spring  out  of  the  cross  of  Christ. 

******** 

Application. 

I  have  endeavored  to  keep  entirely  unseen  my  own  politi- 
cal views.  I  may  have  failed,  but  not  voluntarily. 

Remember,  in  conclusion,  the  matter  of  paramount  import- 
ance to  be  decided  this  week  is,  not  whether  a  preponderance 
shall  be  insured  for  one  of  the  great  parties  which  divide  the 
country  or  the  other.  That  is  important,  but  it  is  second- 
ary. The  important  thing  to  be  devoutly  wished  is,  that 
each  man  shall  give  his  vote  as  these  men  did — conscientious- 
ly, religiously,  unselfishly,  lovingly. 

Better  that  he  should  support  the  wrong  cause  conscien- 
tiously than  the  right  one  insincerely.  Better  be  a  true 
man  on  the  side  of  wrong,  than  a  false  man  on  the  side  of 
riijht. 


7io  haze  Blessing  kis  Sons. 


XIII. 
ISAAC  BLESSING  HIS  SONS. 

"  And  it  came  to  pass,  that  when  Isaac  was  old,  and  his  eyes  were  dim, 
so  that  he  could  not  see,  he  called  Esau  his  eldest  son,  and  said  unto  him, 
My  son :  and  he  said  unto  him,  Behold,  Jiere  am  I.  And  he  said,  Behold 
now,  I  am  old,  I  know  not  the  day  of  my  death  :  now  therefore  take,  I  pray 
thee,  thy  weapons,  thy  quiver  and  thy  bow,  and  go  out  to  the  field,  and  take 
me  some  venison  ;  and  make  me  savory  meat,  such  as  I  love,  and  bring  it  to 
me,  that  I  may  eat ;  that  my  soul  may  bless  thee  before  I  die. " — Gen.  xxvii.  1-4, 

Ix  chapter  xxv.  we  find  Abraham  preparing  for  death  by 
a  last  will :  making  Isaac  his  heir,  and  providing  for  his 
other  children  by  giving  them  gifts  while  he  yet  lived,  and 
so  sending  them  out  into  the  world.  In  this  chapter,  the 
heir  himself  is  preparing  to  die.  The  rapidity  with  which 
these  chapters  epitomize  life,  bringing  its  few  salient  points 
together,  is  valuable  as  illustrative  of  what  human  existence 
is.  It  is  a  series  of  circles  intersecting  each  other,  but  going 
on  in  a  line.  A  few  facts  comprise  man's  life.  A  birth — a 
marriage — another  birth — a  baptism — a  will — and  then  a 
funeral :  and  the  old  circle  begins  again. 

Isaac  is  about  to  declare  his  last  will.  It  is  a  solemn  act, 
in  whatever  light  we  view  it,  if  it  were  only  for  the  thought 
that  we  are  writing  words  which  will  not  be  read  till  we  are 
gone.  But  it  is  solemn,  too,  because  it  is  one  of  those  acts 
which  tell  of  the  immortal.  First,  in  the  way  of  prophetic 
prescience.  Is  it  not  affecting  to  think  of  a  human  being,  not 
sick,  nor  in  pain,  with  his  natural  force  unabated,  calmly  sit- 
ting down  to  make  arrangements  for  what  shall  be  when  he 
is  in  his  last  long  sleep  ?  But  the  act  of  an  immortal  is  visi- 
ble also  in  that  a  dead  man  rules  the  world,  as  it  were,  long 
after  his  decease.  Being  dead,  in  a  sense  he  yet  speaketh. 
He  is  yet  present  with  the  living.  His  existence  is  protracted 
beyond  its  natural  span.  His  will  is  law.  This  is  a  kind  of 
evidence  of  his  immortality :  for  the  obedience  of  men  to  what 
he  has  willed  is  a  sort  of  recognition  of  his  present  being. 

Isaac  was  not  left  without  warnings  of  his  coming  end. 
These  warnings  came  in  the  shape  of  dimness  of  eyes  and 
failing  of  sight.  You  can  conceive  a  state  in  which  man 
should  have  no  warnings :  and  instead  of  gradual  decay, 
should  drop  suddenly,  without  any  intimation,  into  eternity. 
Such  an  arrangement  might  have  been.  But  God  has  in 


Isaac  Blessing  his  Sons.  7 1 1 

mercy  provided  reminders.  For  we  sleep  in  this  life  of  ours 
a  charmed  sleep,  which  it  is  hard  to  break.  And  if  the  road 
were  of  unbroken  smoothness,  with  no  jolt  or  shock,  or  un- 
evenness  in  the  journey,  we  should  move  swiftly  on,  nothing 
breaking  the  dead  slumber  till  we  awake  suddenly,  like  the 
rich  man  in  the  parable,  lifting  up  our  eyes  in  heaven  or  in 
hell.  Therefore  God  has  given  these  reminders.  Some  of 
them  regular — such  as  failing  of  sight,  falling  out  of  hair,  de- 
cay of  strength,  loss  of  memory — which  are  as  stations  in 
the  journey,  telling  us  how  far  we  have  travelled  :  others 
irregular — such  as  come  in  the  form  of  sickness,  bereave- 
ment, pain — like  sudden  shocks  which  jolt,  arouse,  and  awaken. 
Then  the  man  considers,  and  like  Isaac,  says,  "  Behold,  I  am 
old,  I  know  not  the  day  of  my  death."  We  will  consider — 

I.  Isaac's  preparation  for  death. 
II.  The  united  treachery  of  Jacob  and  Rebekah. 

1.  Isaac's  preparation  for  death.     First,  he  longed  fof  the 
performance  of  Esau's  filial  kindness  as  for  a  last  time.     Esau 
was  his  favorite  son :  not  on  account  of  any  similarity  be- 
tween them,  but  just  because  they  were  dissimilar.     The  re- 
pose, and  contemplativeness,  and -inactivity  of  Isaac  found  a 
contrast  in  which  it  rested,  in  the  energy  and  even  the  reck- 
lessness of  his  first-born.     It  wras  natural  to  yearn  for  the 
feast  of  his  son's  affection  for  the   last  time.     For  there  is 
something  peculiarly  impressive  in  whatever  is  done  for  the 
last  time.     Then  the  simplest  acts  contract  a  kind  of  sacred- 
ness.     The  last  walk  in  the  country  we  are  leaving.     The 
last  time  a  dying  man  sees  the  sun  set.     The  last  words  of 
those  from  whom  we  have  parted,  which  we  treasure  up  as 
more  than  accidental,  almost  prophetic.     The  winding  up  of 
a  watch,  as  the  last  act  at  night.     The  signature  of  a  will. 
In  the  life  of  Him  in  whom  we  find  every  feeling  which  be- 
longs to  unperverted  humanity,  the  same  desire  is  found  :  a 
trait,  therefore,  of  the  heart  which  is  universal,  natural,  and 
right.     "  With  desire  I  have  desired  to  eat  this  passover  with 
you  before  I  suifer.     For  I  say  unto   you,  I   will  not  drink 
henceforth  of  the  fruit  of  the'vine  until  that  day  when  I 
drink  it  new  with  you  in  my  Father's  kingdom."     It  was  the 
jLast  Supper. 

2.  By  making  his  last  testamentary  dispositions.     Appar 
ently  they  were  premature, but  he  did. not  defer  them:  part- 
iy  because  of  the  frailty  of  life,  and  the  uncertainty  whether 
there  may  be  any  to-morrow  for  that  which  is  put  off  to-day : 
partly,  perhaps,  because  he  desired  to  have  all  earthly  thoughts 
done  with  and  put  away.     Isaac  lived  thirty  or  forty  years 


7 1 2  Isaac  Blessing  his  Sons. 

after  this:  but  he  was  a  man  set  apart:  like  one  who  in 
Roman  Catholic  language  had  received  extreme  unction,  and 
had  done  with  this  world ;  and  when  he  came  to  die,  there 
Tvould  be  no  anxieties  about  the  disposition  of  property  to 
harass  him.  It  is  good  to  have  all  such  things  done  with 
before  that  hour  comes:  there  is 'something  incongruous  in 
the  presence  of  a  lawyer  in  the  death-room,  agitating  the  last 
hours.  The  first  portion  of  our  lives  is  spent  in  learning  the 
use  of  our  senses  and  faculties  :  ascertaining  where  we  are  and 
what.  The  second,  in  using  those  powers,  and  acting  in  the 
given  sphere  :  the  motto  being,  "  Work,  the  night  eometh." 
A  third  portion,  between  active  life  and  the  grave,  like  the 
twilight  between  day  and  night,  not  light  enough  for  work- 
ing, nor  yet  quite  dark,  which  nature  seems  to  accord  for  un- 
worldliness  and  meditation.  It  is  striking,  doubtless,  to  see 
an  old  man  hale  and  vigorous  to  the  last,  dying  at  his  work 
like  a  warrior  in  armor.  But  natural  feeling  makes  us  wish, 
perhaps,  that  an  interval  might  be  given :  a  season  for  the 
statesman,  such  as  that  which  Samuel  had,  on  laying  aside 
the  cares  of  office,  in  the  schools  of  the  prophets ;  such  as 
Simeon  had,  and  Anna,  for  a  life  of  devotion  in  the  temple ; 
such  as  the  laborer  has  when,  his  long  day's  work  done,  he 
finds  an  asylum  in  the  almshouse ;  such  as  our  Church  de- 
sires, where  she  prays  a&rainst  sudden  death  :  a  season  of  in- 
terval in  which  to  watch.  And  meditate,  and  wait. 

II.  The  united  treachery  of  Jacob  and  Rebekah.  It  was 
treachery  in  both ;  in  one  sense  it  was  the  same  treachery. 
Each  deceived  Isaac  and  overreached  Esau.  But  it  would 
be  a  rough  estimate  to  treat  the  two  sins  as  identical.  This 
is  the  coarse,  common  way  of  judging.  We  label  sins  as  by 
a  catalogue.  We  judge  of  men  by  their  acts ;  but  it  is  far 
truer  to  say  that  we  can  only  judge  the  acts  by  the  man. 
You  must  understand  the  man  before  you  can  appreciate  his 
deed.  The  same  deed  done  by  two  different  persons  ceases 
to  be  the  same.  Abraham  and  Sarah  both  laughed  when  in- 
formed that  they  should  have  a  son  in  their  old  age.  But 
Sarah's  was  the  laugh  of  skepticism ;  the  other,  the  result  of 
that  reaction  in  our  nature  by  which  the  most  solemn 
thoughts  are  balanced  by  a  sense  of  strangeness  or  even 
ludicrousness.  The  Pharisees  asked  a  sign  in  unbelief : 
many  of  the  Old  Te&tament  saints  did  the  same  in  faith. 
Fine  discrimination  is  therefore  necessary  to  understand  the 
simplest  deed.  A  very  delicate  analysis  of  character  is  nec- 
essary to  comprehend  such  acts  as  these,  and  rightly  to  ap 
portion  their  turpitude  and  their  palliations. 


Isaac  Blessing  his  Sons.  7 1 3 

In  Rebekah's  case  the  root  of  the  treachery  was  ambition ; 
but  here  we  find  a  trait  of  female  character.  It  is  a  woman's 
ambition,  not  a  man's.  Rebekah  desired  nothing  for  herself, 
but  every  thing  for  Jacob  :  for  him  spiritual  blessing — at  all 
events,  temporal  distinction.  She  did  wrong,  not  for  her 
own  advantage,  but  for  the  sake  of  one  she  loved.  Here  is  a 
touch  of  womanhood.  The  same  is  observable  in  the  reck- 
lessness of  personal  consequences.  So  as  only  he  might  gain, 
she  did  not  care.  "  Upon  me  be  the  curse,  my  son."  And  it 
is  this  which  forces  us,  even  while  we  must  condemn,  to  com- 
passionate. Throughout  the  whole  of  this  revolting  scene  of 
deceit  and  fraud,  we  can  never  forget  that  Rebekah  was  a 
mother.  And  hence  a  certain  interest  and  sympathy  are  sus- 
tained. Another  feminine  trait  is  seen  in  the  conduct  of  Re- 
bekah. It  was  devotion  to  a  person  rather  than  to  a  principle. 
A  man's  idolatry  is  for  an  idea,  a  woman's  is  for  a  person.  A 
man  suffers  for  a  monarchy,  a  woman  for  a  king.  A  man's  mar- 
tyrdom differs  from  a  woman's.  Nay,  even  in  their  religion, 
personality  marks  the  one,  attachment  to  an  idea  or  principle 
the  other.  Woman  adores  God  in  His  personality,  man  adores 
Him  in  His  attributes.  At  least  that  is,  on  the  whole,  the 
characteristic  difference. 

Now  here  you  see  the  idolatry  of  the  woman  :  sacrificing 
her  husband,  her  elder  son,  high  principle,  her  own  soul,  for 
an  idolized  person.  Remark  that  this  was,  properly  speaking, 
idolatry.  For  in  nothing  is  a  greater  mistake  made  than  in 
the  conception  attached  to  that  word  in  reference  to  the 
affections.  A  mother's  affection  is  called,  by  many  religious 
people,  idolatry,  because  it  is  intense.  Do  not  mistake.  No 
one  ever  loved  child,  brother,  sister,  too  much.  It  is  not  the 
intensity  of  affection,  but  its  interference  with  truth  and  duty, 
that  makes  it  idolatry.  Rebekah  loved  her  son  more  than 
truth,  i.  e.,more  than  God.  This  was  to  idolize.  And  hence 
Christ  says, "  If  any  man  love  father  or  mother  moro  than  me, 
he  is  not  worthy  of  me."  You  can  only  test  that  when  a 
principle  comes  in  the  way.  There  are  persons  who  would 
romantically  admire  this  devotion  of  Rebekah,  and  call  it 
beautiful.  To  sacrifice  all,  even  principle,  for  another — what 
higher  proof  of  affection  can  there  be  ?  Oh,  miserable  sophis- 
try !  The  only  true  affection  is  that  which  is  subordinate  to 
a  higher.  It  has  been  truly  said,  that  in  those  who  love  lit- 
tle, love  is  a  primary  affection  ;  a  secondary  one  in  those  who 
love  much.  Be  sure  he  can  not  love  another  much  who  loves 
not  honor  more.  For  that  higher  affection  sustains  and  ele- 
vates the  lower  human  one,  casting  round  it  a  glory  which 
mere  personal  feeling  could  never  give. 


7 14  Isaac  Blessing  his  Sons. 

Compare,  for  instance,  Rebekah's  love  for  Jacob  with  thnt 
of  Abraham  for  his  son  Isaac.  Abraham  was  ready  to  sacri- 
fice his  son  to  duty.  Rebekah  sacrificed  truth  ami  duty  to 
her  son.  Which  loved  a  son  most  ? — which  was  the  .noblei 
love  ?  Even  as  a  question  of  permanence,  which  would  last 
the  longer?  For  consider  what  respect  this  guilty  son  and 
guilty  mother  could  retain  for  each  other  after  this :  would 
not  love  turn  into  shame  and  lose  itself  in  recriminations? 
For  affection  will  not  long  survive  respect,  however  it  may 
protract  its  life  by  effort. 

Observe,  again :  monsters  do  not  exist.  When  you  hear 
of  great  criminality,  you  think  of  natures  originally  mon- 
strous, not  like  others.  But  none  are  liars  for  the  sake  of 
lying.  None  are  cruel  for  cruelty's  sake.  It  is  simply 
want  of  principle  that  makes  glaring  sins.  The  best  affec- 
tions perverted — that  is  the  history  of  great  crimes.  See 
here  :  there  is  no  touch  of  compunction  from  first  to  last. 
The  woman  seems  all  unsexed.  She  has  no  thought  of  her 
defrauded  eldest  son :  none  of  her  deceived  husband. 
There  is  an  inflexible  pursuit  of  her  object,  that  is  all.  It 
is  wonderful  how  ambition  and  passion  dazzle  to  all  but  the' 
end  desired.  It  is  wonderful  how  the  true  can  become 
false,  and  the  tender-hearted  hard  and  cruel  for  an  end. 
Nor  is  this  lesson  obsolete.  Are  there  no  women  who 
would  do  the  same  now  ?  Are  there  none  who  would 
sacrifice  a  son's  principles  or  a  daughter's  happiness  to  a 
diseased  appetite  for  distinction  ?  Are  there  none  who 
would  conceal  a  son's  extravagance,  foster  it,  furnish  it 
means  unknown,  or  in  an  underhand  way,  in  what  is  called 
the  manoeuvring  of  fashionable  life ;  and  do  that  for  family 
advancement  from  which  the  strong  sense  and  principle  of 
a  father  would  recoil  and  revolt  ?  And  all  this,  not  because 
they  are  monsters,  but  because  their  passion  for  distinction 
is  inflamed,  and  their  affections  unregulated. 

Now  look  at  Jacob's  sin.  He  was  not  without  ambition ; 
but  he  had  not  that  unscrupulous,  inflexible  will  which 
generally  accompanies  ambition  and  makes  it  irresistible. 
A  bad  man  naturally  he  was  not :  nor  a  false  man :  but 
simply  a  pliable  and  weak  man.  Hence  he  became  the 
tool  of  another — the  agent  in  a  plan  of  villainy  which  he 
had  not  the  contrivance  to  originate.  He  was  one  of  those 
who,  if  they  could,  would  have  what  they  wish  innocently. 
He  would  not  play  false,  yet  he  would  unjustly  have.  He 
was  rather  afraid  of  doing  the  deceit  than  anxious  that  the 
deceit  should  not  be  done.  Here  was  the  guilt  in  its  germ. 
He  had  indulged  and  pampered  the  fancy;  and  be  sure  he  who 


Isaac  Blessing  his  Sons.  715 

wishes  a  temporal  end  for  itself,  does,  or  will  soon,  will  the 
means.  All  temptations  and  all  occasions  of  sin  are  power- 
less, except  as  far  as  they  fall  in  with  previous  meditations 
upon  the  guilt.  An  act  of  sin  is  only  a  train  long  laid,  fired 
by  a  spark  at  last.  Jacob  pondered  over  the  desire  of  the 
blessing,  dallied  with  it,  and  then  fell.  Now  observe  the 
rapidity  and  the  extent  of  the  inward  deterioration.  See 
how  this  plain,  simple  man,  Jacob,  becomes  by  degrees  an 
accomplished  deceiver ;  how  he  shrinks  at  nothing ;  how, 
at  first  unable  to  conceive  the  plan  devised  by  another,  he 
becomes  at  last  inventive.  At  first  the  acted  falsehood — a 
semblance ;  then  the  lie  in  so  many  words ;  then  the 
impious  use  of  the  name,  "The  Lord  thy  God  brought  it 
me."  How  he  was  forced  by  fear  and  the  necessities  of 
begun  guilt  into  enormity :  deeper  and  deeper.  Happy  the 
man  who  can  not,  even  from  the  faint  shadows  of  his  own 
experience,  comprehend  the  desperate  agony  of  such  a 
state :  the  horror  mixed  with  hardening  effrontery  with 
which  a  man  feels  himself  compelled  to  take  step  after  step, 
and  is  aware  at  last  that  he  is  drifting,  drifting,  from  the 
great  shore  of  truth — like  one  carried  out  by  the  tide  against 
his  will,  till  he  finds  himself  at  last  in  a  sea  of  falsehood,  his 
whole  life  one  great  dream  of  false  appearance. 

Let  us  apply  this  briefly. 

Doubtless  perverted  good  is  always  different  from  origi- 
nal vice.  In  his  darkest  wanderings,  one  in  whom  the  Spirit 
strives  is  essentially  different  from  one  who  is  utterly  de- 
praved. Sensibility  to  anguish  makes  the  difference,  if 
there  were  nothing  else.  Jacob,  lying  in  this  way,  plunging 
headlong,  deeper  and  deeper,  was  yet  a  different  man  from 
one  who  is  through  and  through  hollow.  Grant  this — and 
yet  that  fact  of  human  pervertibility  is  an  awful  fact  and 
mysteiy.  Innocence  may  become  depraved:  delicate  purity 
may  pass  into  grossness.  It  is  an  appalling  fact.  Trans- 
parency of  crystal  clearness  may  end  in  craft,  double-deal- 
ing, contrivance.  Briefly,  therefore — 

1.  Learn  to  say  "  No." 

2.  Beware  of  those  fancies,  those  day-dreams,  which  repre- 
sent things  as  possible  which  should  be  forever  impossible. 
Beware  of  that  affection  which  cares  for  your  happiness  more 
than  for  your  honor. 

Lastly,  in  the  hour  of  strong  temptations,  throwing  our- 
selves off  self,  distrusting  ourselves,  let  us  rest  in  Him  who, 
having  been  tempted,  knows  what  temptation  is ;  who  "  will 
not  suffer  us  to  be  tempted  above  that  we  are  able,  but  will 
with  the  temptation  also  make  0  way  to  escape,  that  we 
be  able  to  bear  it."1 


?i  6        Salvation  out  of  tJte  Visible  Church. 


xiv. 
SALVATION  OUT  OF  THE  VISIBLE  CHURCH. 

"Now  there  was  at  Joppa  a  certain  disciple  named  Tabltha,  which  by  ra. 
terpretation  is  called  Dorcas :  this  woman  was  fail  of  good  works  and  alms, 
deeds  which  she  did,"  etc. — Acts  ix.  36. 

"  There  was  a  certain  man  in  Caesarea  called  Cornelius,  a  centuri jn  of  the 
band  called  the  Italian  band,"  etc. — Acts  x.  1. 

Two  events  are  connected  with  St.  Peters  stay  at  Joppa: 
the  miraculous  restoration  of  Dorcas,  and  the  vision  which 
prepared  for  the  reception  of  Cornelius  into  the  Christian 
Church.  The  apostle  was  at  Lydda,  when  he  was  summoned 
by  the  news  of  the  death  of  Dorcas  to  Joppa,  about  twelve 
miles  distant.  Now  observe  here  the  variety  of  the  gifts 
which  are  bestowed  upon  the  Christian  Church.  Four 
characters,  exceedingly  diverse,  are  brought  before  us  in 
this  ninth  chapter :  Paul,  a  man  singularly  gifted,  morally 
and  intellectually,  with  qualities  more  brilliant  than  almost 
ever  fell  to  the  lot  of  man  ;  Peter,  full  of  love  and  daring,  a 
champion  of  the  truth  ;  Ananias,  one  of  those  disciples  of  the 
inward  life  whose  vocation  is  sympathy,  and  who,  by  a  single 
word, "  brother,"  restore  light  to  those  that  sit  in  darkness 
and  loneliness  ;  lastly,  Dorcas,  in  a  humbler,  but  not  less  true 
sphere  of  divine  goodness,  clothing  the  poor  with  her  own 
hands,  practically  loving  and  benevolent. 

W,  err  in  the  comparative  estimate  we  form  of  great  and 
small.  Imagine  a  political  economist  computing  the  value 
of  such  a  life  as  this  of  Dorcas.  He  views  men  in  masses : 
considers  the  economic  well-being  of  society  on  a  large 
scale :  calculates  what  is  productive  of  the  greatest  good  for 
the  greatest  number.  To  him  the  few  coats  and  garments 
made  for  a  few  poor  people  would  be  an  item  in  the  world's 
well-being  scarcely  worthy  of  being  taken  into  the  reckoning. 
Let  the  historian  estimate  her  worth.  The  chart  of  time  lies 
unrolled  before  him.  The  fall  of  dynasties  and  the  blending 
together  of  races,  the  wars  and  revolutions  of  nations  that 
have  successively  passed  across  the  world's  stage — these  are 
the  things  that  occupy  him.  What  are  acts  like  hers  in  the 
midst  of  interests  such  as  these  and  of  contemplations  so 
large  ?  All  this  is  beneath  the  dignity  of  history.  Or  again, 
let  us  summon  a  man  of  larger  contemplations  still  To  the 


Salvation  out  of  the  Visible  Church.        7 1  7 

astronomer,  lifting  his  clear  eye  to  the  order  of  the  stars,  this 
planet  itself  is  but  a  speck.  To  come  down  from  the  universe 
to  the  thought  of  a  tiny  earth  is  a  fell  descent ;  but  to  de- 
scend to  the  thought  of  a  humble  female  working  at  a  few 
garments,  were  a  fall  indeed. 

Now  rise  to  the  Mind  of  which  all  other  minds  are  but 
emanations — and  this  conception  of  grand  and  insignificant 
is  not  found  in  His  nature.  Human  intellect,  as  it  rises  to 
the  great,  neglects  the  small.  The  Eternal  mind  condescends 
to  the  small ;  or  rather,  with  It  there  is  neither  great  nor 
email.  It  has  divided  the  rings  of  the  earthworm  with  as 
much  microscopic  care  as  the  orbits  in  which  the  planets 
move :  It  has  painted  the  minutest  feather  on  the  wing  of 
the  butterfly  as  carefully  as  It  has  hung  the  firmament  with 
the  silver  splendor  of  the  stars.  Great  and  small  are  words 
which  have  only  reference  to  us. 

Further  still :  judging  the  matter  by  the  heart,  ascending 
to  the  heart  of  God,  there  is  another  aspect  of  the  subject : 
great  belongs  only  to  what  is  moral — infinitude  and  eternity 
are  true  of  feelings  rather  than  of  magnitude,  or  space,  or 
time.  The  mightiest  distance  that  mind  can  conceive,  cal- 
culable only  by  the  arrow-flight  of  light,  can  yet  be  meas- 
ured. The  most  vast  of  all  the  cycles  that  imagination  ever 
wanted  for  the  ages  that  are  gone  by,  can  yet  be  estimated 
by  number.  But  tell  us,  if  you  can,  the  measure  of  a  single 
feeling.  Find  for  us,  if  you  can,  the  computation  by  which 
we  may  estimate  a  single  spiritual  affection.  They  are  abso- 
lutely incommensurable — these  things  together,  magnitude 
and  feeling.  Let  the  act  of  Dorcas  be  tried  thus.  When 
the  world  has  passed  away,  and  the  lust  thereof,  "he  that 
doeth  the  will  of  God  abideth  forever."  The  true  infinite, 
the  real  eternal,  is  love.  When  all  that  economist,  historian, 
philosopher  can  calculate,  is  gone,  the  love  of  Dorcas  will 
still  be  fresh,  and  living,  in  the  eternity  of  the  illimitable 
Mind. 

Observe,  once  more,  the  memorial  v/hich  she  left  behind 
her.  When  Peter  went  into  the  upper  chamber,  he  was 
surrounded  by  the  poor  widows,  who  showed  him,  weeping, 
the  garments  she  had  made.  Tliis  \vas  the  best  epitaph  :  the 
tears  of  the  poor. 

There  is  a  strange  jar  upon,  the  mind  in  the  funeral,  when 
the  world  is  felt  to  be  going  on  as  usual.  Traffic  and  pleas- 
ure do  not  alter  when  our  friend  lies  in  the  upper  chamber. 
The  great,  busy  world  rolls  on,  unheeding,  and  our  egotism 
suggests  the  thought,  So  will  it  be  when  I  am  not.  This 
world,  whose  very  existence  seems  linked  with  mine,  and  to 


7 1 8        Salvation  out  of  the  Visible  Church. 

subsist  only  in  mine,  will  not  be  altered  by  my  dropping  out 
of  it.  Perhaps  a  few  tears,  and  then  all  that 'follow  me  and 
love  me  now  will  dry  them  up  again.  I  am  but  a  bubble  on 
the  stream  :  here  to-day,  and  then  gone.  This  is  painful  to 
conceive.  It  is  one  of  the  pledges  of  our  immortality  that 
we  long  to  be  remembered  after  death ;  it  is  quite  natural. 
Now  let  us  inquire  into  its  justice. 

Dorcas  died  regretted  :  she  was  worth  regretting,  she  was 
worth  being  restored  ;  she  had  not  lived  in  vain,  because  she 
had  not  lived  for  herself.  The  end  of  life  is  not  a  thought, 
but  an  action — action  for  others.  But  you,  why  should  you 
be  regretted  ?  Have  you  discovered  spiritual  truth,  like 
Paul  ?  Have  you  been  brave  and  true  in  defending  it,  like 
Peter  ?  or  cheered  desolate  hearts  by  sympathy,  like  Ananias  ? 
or  visited  the  widows  and  the  fatherless  in  their  affliction, 
like  Dorcas  ?  If  you  have,  your  life  will  leave  a  trace  behind 
which  will  not  soon  be  effaced  from  earth.  But  if  not,  what 
is  your  worthless,  self-absorbed  existence  good  for,  but  to  be 
swept  away,  and  forgotten  as  soon  as  possible  ?  You  will 
leave  no  record  of  yourself  on  earth,  except  a  date  of  birth, 
and  a  date  of  death,  with  an  awfully  significant  blank  be- 
tween. 

The  second  event  connected  with  St.  Peter's  stay  at  Joppa 
was  the  conversion  of  Cornelius. 

A  new  doctrine  was  dawning  on  the  Church.  It  was  the 
universality  of  the  love  of  God.  The  great  controversy  in 
the  early  history  of  Christianity  was,  not  the  atonement,  not 
predestination,  not  even,  except  at  first,  the  resurrection,  but 
the  admissibility  of  the  Gentiles  to  the  Church  of  Christ. 
It  was  the  controversy  between  Christianity,  the  universal 
religion,  and  Judaism,  the  limited  one.  Except  we  bear  this 
in  mind,  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  and  the  Epistles  will  be 
alike  unintelligible  to  us. 

The  germ  of  this  truth  had  been  planted  by  Stephen.  St. 
Paul  was  now  raised  up  as  his  successor,  to  develop  it  still 
further.  So  that  now  a  very  important  crisis  had  arrived. 
For  it  has  been  well  observed,  that  had  St.  Peter's  accept- 
ance of  this  truth  been  delayed  by  leaving  it  to  gradual 
mental  growth,  the  effects  would  have  been  incalculably  dis- 
astrous to  Christianity.  A  new  apostle  had  arisen,  and  a 
new  church  was  established  at  Antioch ;  and  had  St.  Peter 
and  the  rest  been  left  in  their  reluctance  to  this  truth,  the 
younger  apostle 'would  have  been  necessarily  the  leader  of  a 
party  to  which  the  elder  apostles  were  opposed,  and  the 
Church  of  Antioch  would  have  been  in  opposition  to  the 
Church  at  Jerusalem  :  a  timely  miracle,  worthy  of  God,  pre- 


Salvation  out  of  the  Visible  Church.        7 1 9 

vented  this  catastrophe  :  at  the  very  crisis  of  time  St.  Peter's 
mind,  too,  was  enlightened  with  the  truth. 

The  vision  was  evidently  in  its  form  and  in  its  direction 
the  result  of  previous  natural  circumstances.  The  death  of 
Stephen  must  have  had  its  effect  on  the  apostle's  mind. 
That  truth  for  which  he  died,  the  transient  character  of 
Judaism,  must  have  suggested  strange  new  thoughts,  to  be 
pondered  on  and  doubted  on  ;  add  to  this,  the  apostle  was 
in  a  state  of  hunger.  In  ecstasy,  or  trance,  or  vision,  things 
meet  for  food  presented  themselves  to  his  mental  eye.  Evi- 
dently the  form  in  which  this  took  place  was  shaped  by  his 
physical  cravings,  the  direction  depended  partly  upon  his 
previous  thoughts  concerning  the  opening  question  of  the 
Church.  But  the  eternal  truth,  the  spiritual  verity  conveyed 
by  the  vision,  was  clearly  of  a  higher  source.  Here  are  the 
limits  of  the  natural  and  the  supernatural  closely  bordering 
on  each  other. 

And  this  is  only  analogous  to  all  our  life.  The  human 
touches  on  the  Divine,  earth  borders  upon  heaven — the  lim- 
its are  not  definable.  "  I  live,"  said  St.  Paul.  Immediately 
after,  he  corrects  himself:  "yet  not  I,  but  Christ  liveth  in 
me."  Man's  spirit  prays ;  yet  is  it  not  "  the  Spirit  making 
intercession  for  us  with  groanings  which  can  not  be  uttered  ?" 
As  if  the  mind  of  man  were  hardly  to  be  distinguished  from 
the  mind  of  God.  We  are  on  the  brink  of  the  world  unseen 
— on  the  very  verge  of  the  spirit-realm.  Everywhere  around 
us  is  God. 

Now  the  contents  of  this  vision  were — a  vessel  let  down 
from  heaven,  full  of  animals,  domestic  and  wild,  clean  and 
unclean.  This  was  let  down  from  heaven,  and  taken  up  to 
heaven  again.  All  had  come  from  God,  so  that  the  truth 
conveyed  was  clear  enough.  These  distinctions  of  clean  and 
unclean  were  but  conventional  and  artificial,  after  all — tem- 
poral arrangements,  not  belonging  to  the  unalterable.  God 
had  made  all  and  given  all.  The  analogy  was  not  difficult 
to  perceive.  God  is  the  Creator  of  mankind.  He  is  the 
universal  Father.  All  have  come  from  Him.  Sanctified  by 
Him,  there  can  be  no  man  common  or  unclean. 

Against  even  the  first  part  of  this  St.  Peter's  -mind  revolt- 
ad — "  Not  so,  Lord."  It  is  not  a  little  remarkable  that  the 
two  first  to  whom  this  expansive  truth  was  revealed  were 
bigoted  men  :  St.  Paul  the  Jewish,  St.  Peter  the  Christian 
bigot.  For  St.  Peter  was  a  Christian,  yet  a  bigot  still.  Is 
this  wonderful  and  rare  ?  or  are  we  not  all  bigots  in  our 
way, the  largest-minded  of  us  all?  St.  Peter  was  willing  to 
admit  a  proselyte :  the  admission  of  an  entire  Gentile  was  * 


720        Salvation  out  of  the  Visible  Church, 

stumbling-block;  afterwards  he  could  admit  a  Gentile,  but 
hesitated  to  eat  with  him.  There  are  some  of  us  who  can 
believe  in  the  Christianity  of  those  who  are  a  little  beyond 
our  own  Church  pale ;  some  who  even  dimly  suspect  that  God 
may  love  the  Jew  ;  some,  too,  who  will  be  ready,  with  quali- 
fications, to  acknowledge  a  benighted  Roman  Catholic  for  a 
brother;  but  how  many  of  us  are  there  who  would  not  be 
startled  at  being  told  to  love  a  Unitarian  ?  how  many  who 
would  not  shrink  from  the  idea  as  over-bold,  that  he  who  is 
blind  to  the  Redeemer's  Deity,  yet  loving  Him  with  all  his 
heart,  may  perchance  have  that  love  accepted  in  place  of 
adoration,  and  that  it  may  be  at  our  peril  that  we  call  him 
"  common  or  unclean  ?"  Oh  !  there  wras  a  largeness  in  the 
heart  of  Christ,  of  which  we  have  only  dreamed  of  as  yet — 
a  something,  too,  in  these  words,  "  God  hath  showed  me  that 
I  should  not  call  any  man  common  or  unclean,"  which  it  will 
require,  perhaps,  ages  to  develop. 

At  the  same,  or  nearly  the  same  time  when  this  was  taking 
piace  at  Joppa,  a  manifestation,  somewhat  similar,  was  going 
on  at  Caesarea,  a  day's  journey  distant.  Remark  here  the 
coincidence.  There  was  an  affinity,  it  seems,  between  the 
minds  of  these  two  men,  Peter  and  Cornelius — a  singular, 
mysterious  sympathy.  Nay,  more  than  that,  very  shortly 
before,  a  similar  phenomenon  had  been  felt  in  the  mind  of  St. 
Paul,  more  than  a  hundred  miles  off,  in  a  valley  near  Damas- 
cus ;  concerning  all  which  we  can  say  little,  except  that  it  is 
very  plain  there  is  a  great  deal  more  going  on  upon  earth 
than  our  ordinary  life  conceives  of.  In  the  scientific  world, 
similar  coincidences  perpetually  take  place :  discoveries,  ap- 
parently unconnected,  without  any  apparent  link  between 
the  minds  which  make  them,  are  announced  from  different 
parts  of  the  world  almost  simultaneously.  Xo  man,  perhaps, 
has  been  altogether  unconscious  of  mental  sympathies,  coin- 
cidences of  thought,  which  are  utterly  inexplicable.  All  that 
I  deduce  from  this  is  the  solemn  awfulness  of  the  universe  in 
which  we  live.  We  are  surrounded  by  mystery.  Mind  is 
more  real  than  matter.  Our  souls  and  God  are  real.  Of  the 
reality  of  nothing  else  are  we  sure :  it  floats  before  us,  a  fan- 
tastic shadow-world.  Mind  acts  on  mind.  The  Eternal 
Spirit  blends  mind  with  mind,  soul  with  soul,  and  is  moving 
over  us  all  with  His  mystic  inspiration  every  hour. 

In  Csesarea  there  was  a  cohort  of  soldiers,  the  body-guard 
of  the  governor  who  resided  there.  They  were  not,  as  was 
the  case  in  other  towns,  provincial  soldiers,  but,  being  a 
guard  of  honor,  were  all  Romans,  called  commonly  the  Ital- 
ian band.  One  of  the  centurions  of  this  guard  was  Cornelius 


Salvation  out  of  the  Visible  Church.        721 

• — "  a  devout  man."  A  truth-loving,  truth-seeking,  truth-find- 
ing man  ;  one  of  those  who  would  be  called  in  this  day  a 
restless,  perhaps  an  unstable  man  ;  for  he  changed  his  religion 
twice.  He  had  aspirations  which  did  not  leave  him  content- 
ed with  paganism.  He  found  in  Judaism  a  higher  truth,  and 
became  a  proselyte.  In  Judaism  he  was  true  to  the  light  he 
had  :  he  was  devout,  gave  alms,  and  even  influenced  some  of 
the  soldiers  of  the  guard,  as  it  would  appear  (ver.  7).  The 
result  was  as  might  have  been  expected.  "He  that  hath, 
to  him  shall  be  given."  Give  us  such  a  man,  and  we  will 
predict  his  history.  He  will  be  ever  moving  on  ;  not  merely 
changing,  but  moving  on,  from  higher  to  higher,  from  light 
to  light,  from  love  to  love,  till  he  loses  himself  at  last  in  the 
Fountain  of  Light  and  the  Sea  of  Love.  Heathenism,  Juda- 
ism, Christianity.  Not  mere  change,  but  true,  ever  upward 
progress.  He  could  not  rest  in  Judaism,  nor  anywhere  else 
on  earth. 

To  this  man  a  voice  said,  "  Thy  prayers  and  thine  alms 
are  come  up  as  a  memorial  before  God."  Prayers — that  we 
can  understand  ;  but  alms — are  then  works,  after  all,  that  by 
which  men  become  meritorious  in  the  sight  of  God  ?  To 
answer  this,  observe :  Alms  may  assume  two  forms.  They 
may  be  complete  or  incomplete.  Alms  complete — works 
which  may  be  enumerated,  estimated — deeds  done  and  put 
in  as  so  much  purchase — ten  times  ten  thousand  such  will 
never  purchase  heaven.  But  the  way  in  which  a  holy  man 
does  his  alms  is  quite  different  from  this.  In  their  very  per- 
formance done  as  pledges  of  something  more ;  done  with  a 
sense  of  incompleteness ;  longing  to  be  more  nearly  perfect 
— they  become  so  many  aspirations  rising  up  to  God  ;  sacri- 
fices of  thanksgiving,  ever  ascending  like  clouds  of  incense, 
that  rise  and  rise  in  increasing  volumes,  still  dissatisfied  and 
still  aspiring.  Alms  in  this  way  become  prayers — the  high- 
est prayers;  and  all  existence  melts  and  resolves  itself  into  a 
prayer.  "  Thy  prayers  and  thine  alms ;"  or  if  you  will,  "  Thy 
prayers  and  thy  prayers,"  are  come  up  to  be  remembered ; 
for  what  were  his  alms  but  devout  aspirations  of  his  heart  to 
God? 

Thus,  in  the  vision  of  the  everlasting  state  which  John  saw 
in  Patmos,  the  life  of  the  redeemed  presented  itself  as  one 
eternal  chant  of  grateful  hallelujahs,  hymned  on  harps  whose 
celestial  melodies  float  before  the  Throne  forever.  A  life  of 
prayer  is  a  life  whose  litanies  are  ever  fresh  acts  of  self-devot- 
ing love.  There  was  no  merit  in  those  alms  of  Cornelius; 
they  were  only  poor  imperfect  aspirations,  seeking  the  ear 
of  God,  and  heard  and  answered  there 

31 


722         Salvation  out  of  the  Visible  Church. 

All  this  brings  us  to  a  question  which  must  not  be  avoided 
— the  salvability  of  the  heathen  world.  Let  us  pronounce 
upon  this,  if  firmly,  yet  with  all  lowliness  and  modesty. 

There  are  men  of  whose  tenderness  of  heart  we  can  not 
doubt,  who  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  without  doubt 
the  heathen  shall  perish  everlastingly.  A  horrible  conclu- 
sion :  and  if  it  were  true,  no  smile  should  ever  again  pass 
across  the  face  of  him  who  believes  it.  No  moment  can, 
with  any  possible  excuse,  be  given  to  any  other  enterprise 
than  their  evangelization,  if  it  be  true  that  eternity  shall 
echo  with  the  myriad  groans  and  agonies  of  those  who  are 
dropping  into  it  by  thousands  in  an  hour.  Such  men,  how- 
ever, save  their  character  for  heart  at  the  expense  of  their 
consistency.  They  smile  and  enjoy  the  food  and  light  just 
as  gayly  as  others  do.  They  are  too  affectionate  for  their 
creed ;  their  system  only  binds  their  views ;  it  can  not  con- 
vert their  hearts  to  its  gloomy  horror. 

We  lay  down  two  principles:  No  man  is  saved  by  merit, 
but  only  by  faith.  No  man  is  saved,  except  in  Christ. 
"There  is  none  other  name  under  heaven  given  among  men 
whereby  we  must  be  saved." 

But  when  we  come  *o  consider  what  is  saving  faith,  we 
find  it  to  be  the  broad  principle  of  trust  in  God,  above  all 
misgivings,  living  for  the  invisible  instead  of  the  seen.  In 
Hebrews  xi.  we  are  told  that  Noah  was  saved  by  faith. 
Faith  in  what  ?  In  the  atonement  ?  or  even  in  Christ  ? 
Nay,  but  in  the  predicted  destruction  of  the  world  by  water ; 
the  truth  he  had,  not  the  truth  he  had  not.  And  the  life  he 
led  in  consequence,  higher  than  that  of  the  present-seeking 
world  around  him,  was  the  life  of  faith,  "  by  the  which  he 
condemned  the  world,  and  became  heir  of  the  righteousness 
which  is  by  faith."  Salvation,  therefore,  is  annexed  to  faith. 
Not  necessarily  faith  in  the  Christian  object,  but  in  the 
truth,  so  far  a»>  it  is  given.  Does  God  ask  more? 

Again  :  the  Word  revealed  itself  to  men  before  it  was 
manifested  in  the  flesh.  Before  this  universe  was  called  into 
being,  when  neither  star  nor  planet  was,  the  Father  was  not 
alone.  From  all  eternity  He  contemplated  Himself  in 
Another — Himself  in  Himself;  else  God  had  not  been  love. 
For  another  is  required  for  love.  To  lose  and  find  one's  self 
again  in  another's  being,  that  is  love.  Except  this,  we  can 
not  conceive  love  possible  to  Him.  But  thus  with  the  other, 
which  was  His  very  self;  in  language  theological,  the  Eter- 
nal Son  in  the  bosom  of  the  Father;  God  thrown  into  objec- 
tivity by  Himself.  There  was  a  universe  before  created  uni- 
verse  existed ;  there  was  love  when  as  vet  there  was  none 


i  Salvation  out  of  the  Visible  Church.        723 

except  Himself  on  whom  that  affection  could  be  thrown; 
and  the  expression  of  Himself  to  Himself,  the  everlasting 
Word,  filled  eternity  with  the  anthem  of  the  Divine  solilo- 
quy. Now  this  word  expressed  itself  to  man  before  it  min- 
gled itself  with  flesh.  "  Before  Abraham  was,  I  am."  Read 
we  not  in  the  Old  Testament  of  revelations  made  to  men  in 
visions,  trances,  day-dreams,  sometimes  in  voices,  articulate 
or  inarticulate,  sometimes  in  suggestions  scarcely  distin- 
guishable from  their  own  thoughts? 

Moreover,  recollect  that  the  Bible  contains  only  a  record 
of  the  Divine  dealings  with  a  single  nation  ;  His  proceedings 
with  the  minds  of  other  people  are  not  recorded.  That  large 
other  world — no  less  God's  world  than  Israel  was,  though  in 
their  bigotry  the  Jews  thought  Jehovah  was  their  own  ex- 
clusive property — scarcely  is — scarcely  could  be  named  on 
the  page  of  Scripture  except  in  its  external  relation  to  Israel. 
But  at  times,  figures,  %as  it  were,  cross  the  rim  of  Judaism, 
when  brought  in  contact  with  it,  and  passing  for  a  moment 
as  dim  shadows," do  yet  tell  us  hints  of  a  communication  and 
a  revelation  going  on  unsuspected.  We  are  told,  for  exam- 
ple, of  Job — no  Jew,  but  an  Arabian  emir,  who  beneath  the 
tents  of  Uz  contrived  to  solve  the  question  to  his  heart  which 
still  perplexes  us  through  life — the  co-existence  of  evil  with 
Divine  benevolence;  one  who  wrestled  with  God  as  Jacob 
did,  and  strove  to  know  the  shrouded  Name,  and  hoped  to 
find  that  it  was  love.  We  find  Naaman  the  Syrian,  and 
Nebuchadnezzar  the  Babylonian,  under  the  providential  and 
loving  discipline  of  God*  Rahab  the  Gentile  is  saved  by 
faith.  The  Syrophenician  woman  by  her  sick  daughter's 
bedside,  amidst  the  ravings  of  insanity,  recognizes,  without 
human  assistance,  the  sublime  and  consoling  truth  of  a  uni 
versal  Father's  love  in  the  midst  of  apparent  partiality.  The 
"Light  which  lighteth  every  man  that  cpmeth  into  the 
world"  had  not  left  them  in  darkness. 

From  all  this  we  are  constrained  to  the  conviction  that 
there  is  a  Church  on  earth  larger  than  the  limits  of  the 
Church  visible ;  larger  than  Jew,  or  Christian,  or  the  Apostle 
Peter,  dreamed ;  larger  than  our  narrow  hearts  dare  to  hope 
even  now.  They  whose  soarings  to  the  First  Good,  First 
Perfect,  and  First  Fair,  entranced  us  in  our  boyhood,  and 
whose  healthier  aspirations  are  acknowledged  yet  as  our  in- 
structors in  the  reverential  qualities  of  our  riper  manhood — • 
will  our  hearts  allow  us  to  believe  that  they  have  perished  ? 
Nay.  "  Many  shall  come  from  the  east  and  west,  and  shall 
pit  down  with  Abraham,  and  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  in  the  king- 
dom of  heaven."  The  North  American  Indian  who  WOP 


724  The  Word  and  the  World. 

shipped  the  great  Spirit,  and  was  thereby  sustained  in  a  life 
more  dignified  than  the  more  animalized'  men  amongst  his 
countrymen;  the  Hindoo  who  believed  in  the  rest  of  God, 
and  in  his  imperfect  way  tried  to  "  enter  into  rest,"  not  for- 
getting benevolence  and  justice  —  these  shall  come,  while 
"the  children  of  the  kingdom"  —men  who,  with  greater 
light,  only  did  as  much  as  they — "  shall  be  cast  out." 

These,  with  an  innumerable  multitude  whom  no  man  can 
number,  out  of  every  kingdom,  and  tongue,  and  people,  with 
Rahab  and  the  Syrophenician  woman,  have  entered  into 
that  Church  which  has  passed  through  the  centuries,  absorb- 
ing silently  into  itself  ail  that  the  world  ever  had  of  great, 
and  good,  and  noble.  They  were  those  who  fought  the  bat- 
tle of  good  against  evil  in  th^ir  day,  penetrated  into  the  in- 
visible from  the  thick  shadows  of  darkness  which  environed 
them,  and  saw  the  open  Vision  which  is  manifested  to  all,  in 
every  nation,  who  fear  God  and  work  righteousness — to  all, 
in  other  words,  wrho  live  devoutly  towards  God,  and  by  love 
towards  man.  And  they  shall  hereafter  "  walk  in  white,  for 
they  are  worthy."  *  *  *  *  It  may  be  that  I  err  in  this.  It 
may  be  that  this  is  all  too  daring.  Little  is  revealed  upon 
the  subject,  and  we  must  not  dogmatize.  I  may  have  erred  ; 
and  it  may  be  all  a  presumptuous  dream.  But  if  it  be,  God 
will  forgive  the  daring  of  a  heart  whose  hope  has  given  birth 
to  the  idea ;  whose  faith  in  this  matter  simply  receives  its 
substance  and  reality  from  things  hoped  for,  and  whose  con- 
fidence in  all  this  dark,  mysterious  world  can  find  no  rock  to 
rest  upon  amidst  the  roaring  billows  of  uncertainty,  except 
"  the  length,  and  the  breadth,  and  the  depth,  and  the  height, 
of  the  love  which  passeth  knowledge,"  and  which  has  filled 
the  universe  with  the  fullness  of  His  Christ. 


XV. 
THE  WORD  AND  THE  WORLD. 

"And  ;t  :ame  to  pass,  that,  while  Apollos  was  at  Corinth,  Paul  having 
/assed  through  the  upper  coasts  came  to  Ephesus ;  and  finding  certain  disci- 
ples, he  said  unto  them,  Have  }re  received  the  Holy  Ghost  since  ye  believed  ? 
And  they  said  unto  him,  We  have  not  so  much  as  heard  whether  there  be 
any  Holy  Ghost,"  etc. — Acts  xix.  1,  2. 

WE  consider,  to-day,  the  nineteenth  chapter  of  the  Acts 
of  the  Apostles,  but  first  we  must  make  some  preliminary 
remarks. 


The  Word  and  the  World.  725 

The  second  missionary  journey  of  St.  Paul  was  done,  and 
he  had  left  Europe  for  Asia.  The  object  of  his  travel  was 
threefold.  1.  To  complete,  in  the  temple  of  Jerusalem  the 
vow  which  he  had  begun  at  Corinth  (xviii.  18,  21).  2.  To 
visit  Antioch,  the  mother-church  of  Gentile  Christianity, 
where  his  presence  was  much  needed  (xviii.  22).  3.  To  re- 
visit the  churches  of  Galatia,  and  strengthen  those  who  had 
been  tempted  by  false  teaching  in  his  absence  (xviii.  23). 

The  last  two  of  these  objects  were  connected  with  one  sin- 
gle point  of  interest.  It  was  the  Jewish  controversy,  which 
was  then  at  its  height.  The  council  of  Jerusalem  had  de- 
cided that  a  Gentile  was  not  dependent  for  salvation  on  the 
Jewish  law  (xv.  23-29).  But  another  question  remained 
still  open :  Was  a  Christian  who  did  not  obey  the  law  on 
the  same  level  as  a  Christian  who  did  obey  it  ?  Was  it  not 
a  superior  religious  standing-ground,  to  add  the  ritual  life 
to  the  life  of  faith? 

With  this  question  the  whole  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Gala- 
tians  is  occupied.  That  epistle  does  not  deal  with  the  ques- 
tion, whether  the  ritual  law  is  necessary  for  salvation  ;  but 
with  this — whether  a  Gentile  Christian  became  a  higher  man 
than  before  by  a  ceremonial  life ;  whether,  in  St.  Paul's  words, 
"having  begun  in  the  spirit,"  he  could  be  "made  perfect 
through  the  flesh." 

At  Antioch  that  question  assumed  a  practical  form.  The 
Jewish  and  Gentile  Christians  had  lived  in  harmony,  until 
certain  zealous  ritualists  came  from  Jerusalem,  where  St. 
James  presided.  Then  a  severance  took  place.  The  law-ob- 
serving disciples  admitted  these  new  converts  to  be  Chris- 
tians, but  would  not  admit  their  standing  in  the  Church  to 
be  equal  to  their  own.  They  denied  their  complete  brother- 
hood. They  refused  to  eat  with  them.  A  Christian,  not  ob- 
serving the  ceremonial  law,  was  to  a  Christian  who  did  ob- 
serve it  very  much  what  a  proselyte  of  the  gate  was  to  an 
ancient  Jew. 

Two  men  of  leading  station  yielded  to  this  prejudice, 
though  it  was  destructive  of  the  very  essence  of  Christianity. 
These  were  St.  Peter  and  Barnabas.  The  "  dissimulation," 
as  St.  Paul  calls  it,  of  these  two  apostles  suggests  two  in- 
structive lessons. 

The  yielding  of  Barnabas  reminds  us  of  the  insecurity  of 
mere  feeling.  Barnabas  was  a  man  of  feeling  and  fine  sensi- 
bilities. He  could  not  bear  to  have  his  relative  Mark  severe- 
ly judged  (Acts  xv.  36-39,  and  Col.  iv.  10).  It  pained  him 
to  the  heart  to  see  that  Paul,  when  he  first  essayed  to  join 
himself  to  his  disciples^  was  misunderstood  (Acts  ix.  2^,  27). 


726  The  Word  and  the  World. 

He  was  a  "  son  of  consolation."  He  sold  his  property  to  dis- 
tribute to  the  Christian  poor  (Acts  iv.  36,  37).  He  healed 
many  a  broken  heart.  But  he  wanted  just  that  firmness 
which  men  of  feeling  so  often  want — the  power  of  standing 
steadily  by  a  principle. 

The  unsteadiness  of  St.  Peter  exhibits  a  different  truth. 
It  tells  that  a  fall,  however  it  may  qualify  a  man  for  giving 
advice  to  others  similarly  tempted,  does  not  qualify  for  future 
consistency,  nor  for  the  power  of  showing  mercy  in  the  high- 
est way.  No  doubt  St.  Peter's  fall,  after  his  conversion,  pe- 
culiarly fitted  him  for  strengthening  his  brethren.  But  sin 
weakens  the  power  of  resistance.  He  who  yields  once  will 
more  easily  yield  the  second  time.  He  who  shrunk  from 
standing  by  his  Master  found  it  fearfully  easy  to  shrink  from 
abiding  by  a  principle.  Sin  indulged  breaks  down  the  bar- 
riers between  good  and  evil,  and  turns  strength  into  weak- 
ness !  And  failure  does  not  make  men  merciful  to  others. 
St.  Peter  is  just  as  hard  to  the  Gentile  Christians,  expelling^ 
them  from  Christian  society  for  that  which  he  knew  to  be  in- 
different, as  if  he  had  always  been  firm  in  his  own  integrity. 
He  only  can  judge  of  error  and  show  mercy,  who  has  been 
"  tempted,  yet  without  sin."  This  nineteenth  chapter  is  di- 
visible into  three  chief  subjects : 

I.  The  baptism  of  John's  disciples. 
II.  The  burning  of  the  "Ephesian  letters." 
HI.  The  tumult  occasioned  by  the  worshippers  of  Diana. 

I.  When  St.  Paul  came  to  Ephesus,  he  found  twelve  disci- 
ples of  John,  bearing  the  name  of  Christians,  but  having  a 
very  imperfect  form  of  Christianity.  Now  the  baptism  of 
John,  which  was  all  these  men  knew,  means  the  doctrine  of 
John — that  cycle  of  teaching  which  is  briefly  symbolized  by 
the  chief  ritual  act  of  the  system.  The  system  of  John  was 
contained  in  a  very  narrow  range  of  truth.  It  was  such 
truth  as  we  might  have  expected  from  a  man  who  had  been 
so  disciplined.  It  was  John's  lot  to  be  born  into  the  world 
in  a  period  of  highly-advanced  society ;  and  in  that  hot-bed 
of  life-fictions,  Jerusalem,  the  ardent  mind  of  the  young  man 
found  nothing  to  satisfy  the  cravings  of  its  desire.  He  want- 
ed something  deeper  and  truer  than  the  existing  systems 
could  afford  him.  He  went  to  the  Sadducee  and  the  Phari- 
see in  vain.  He  found  no  life  in  the  Jewish  ritual — no  assist- 
ance from  the  rabbis.  He  went  into  the  wilderness  to 
commune  with  God,  to  try  what  was  to  be  learned  from  Him 
by  a  soul  in  earnest,  without  church,  ministers,  or  ordi- 
nances. The  heavens  spoke  to  him  of  purity,  and  the  river  by 


The  Word  and  the  World.  727 

hisJ  side  of  God's  eternity.  Locusts  and  honey,  his  only  food, 
taught  him  that  man  has  a  higher  life  to  nourish  than  that 
which  is  sustained  by  epicurean  luxuries.  So  disciplined 
John  came  back  to  his  countrymen.  As  might  be  expected, 
no  elaborate  theology  formed  any  part  of  his  teaching.  "  We 
want  a  simpler,  purer,  austerer  life.  Let  men  be  real. 
Fruits  worthy  of  repentance — fruits,  fruits,  not  profession. 
A  new  life.  Repent."  That  was  the  burden  of  John's 
message. 

A  preparatory  one  evidently,  one  most  incomplete  in  itself. 
It  implied  the  need  of  something  additional,  as  St.  Paul  told 
these  converts.  "  John  verily  baptized  with  the  baptism  of 
repentance,  saying  unto  the  people  that  they  should  believe 
on  Him  who  should  come  after  him,  that  is,  on  Christ  Jesus." 
And  none  felt  more  distinctly  than  John  that  his  was  mere- 
ly an  initial  work.  That  was  a  touching  acknowledgment  of 
the  subordinate  part  he  had  to  perform  in  the  construction  of 
the  world's  new  life.  "  He  must  increase,  but  I  must  de 
crease."  The  work  of  John  was  simply  the  work  of  the  axe. 
"  The  axe  is  laid  to  the  root  of  the  trees ;"  to  destroy,  not  to 
build ;  to  cut  up  by  the  roots  ancient  falsehoods ;  to  tear 
away  all  that  was  unreal ;  to  make  a  clearance  that  the  light 
of  day  might  come  in.  A  great  work,  but  still  not  the  great- 
est. 

And  herein  lay  the  difference  between  the  two  baptisms. 
John  baptized  with  water,  Christ  with  the  Holy  Ghost  and 
fire.  The  one  was  simply  the  washing  away  of  a  false  and 
evil  past ;  the  other  was  the  gift  of  the  power  to  lead  a  pure, 
true  life. 

This  was  all  that  these  disciples  knew ;  yet  remark,  they 
are  reckoned  as  Christians.  They  are  called  "  certain  disci- 
ples " — that  is,  of  Jesus.  They  knew  little  enough  of  Chris- 
tianity ;  they  had  not  so  much  as  heard  whether  there  be 
any  Holy  Ghost.  The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  they  knew 
not,  nor  that  of  sanctification,  nor  probably  that  of  the  atone- 
ment. And  yet  in  the  Word  of  God  they  are  called  disci- 
ples of  Christ. 

Let  us  learn  from  that  a  judgment  of  charity.  Let  not 
the  religious  man  be  too  prone  to  talk  with  contempt  of  a 
legal  spirit*  Let  him  not  sneer  at  "merely  moral  men." 
Morality  is  not  religion,  but  it  is  the  best  soil  on  which  re- 
ligion grows.  He  who  lives  an  honest,  sincere,  honorable 
life,  and  has  strong  perceptions  of  moral  right  and  moral 
wrong,  may  not  have  reached  the  highest  stages  of  spiritual- 
ity ;  he  may  "  know  only  the  baptism  of  John ;"  he  may 
aim  as  yet  at  nothing  higher  than  doing  his  duty  well,  "  ac* 


728  The  Word  and  the  World. 

cusing  no  man  falsely,  being  content  with  his  wages,"  giving 
one  coat  out  of  two  to  the  poor;  and  yet  that  man,  with 
scanty  theology  and  small  spiritual  experience,  may  be  a 
real  ""disciple"  in  the  school  of  Christ,  and  one  of  the  chil- 
dren of  the  Highest. 

Nay,  it  is  the  want  of  this  preparation  which  so  often 
makes  religion  a  sickly  plant  in  the  soul.  Men  begin  with 
abundance  of  spiritual  knowledge ;  they  understand  well  the 
"  scheme  of  salvation ;"  they  talk  of  religious  privilege,  and 
have  much  religious  liberty ;  they  despise  the  formal  spirit 
arid  the  legal  spirit.  But  if  the  foundation  has  not  been  laid 
deep  in  a  perception  of  the  eternal  difference  between  right 
and  wrong,  the  superstructure  will  be  but  flimsy.  I  believe 
it  is  a  matter  of  no  small  importance  that  the  baptism  of 
John  should  precede  the  baptism  of  Christ ;  that  is,  that  a 
strict  life,  scrupulous  regularity,  abhorrence  of  evil — perhaps 
even  something  too  austere,  the  usual  accompaniment  of  sin- 
cerity at  the  outset — should  go  before  the  peace  which  comes 
of  faith  in  Christ.  First  the  blade,  then  the  ear,  then  the  full 
corn  in  the  ear.  You  can  not  have  the  harvest  first.  There 
is  an  order  in  the  development  of  the  soul,  as  there  is  in  the 
development  of  the  year  of  nature,  and  it  is  not  safe  to  force. 
Nearly  two  thousand  years  were  spent  in  the  Divine  gov- 
ernment in  teaching  the  Jews  the  meaning  of  holiness,  the 
separation  of  right  from  wrong.  And  such  must  be  the  or- 
der of  the  education  of  children  and  of  men.  The  baptism 
of  repentance  before  the  baptism  of  the  Spirit. 

The  result  which  followed  this  baptism  was  the  gifts  of 
tongues  and  prophecy.  On  a  former  occasion  I  endeavored  to 
explain  what  is  meant  by  the  gift  of  tongues.  It  appeared, 
then,  that  "  tongues  "  were  not  so  much  the  power  of  speaking 
various  languages,  as  the  power  of  speaking  spiritual  truths 
with  supernatural  and  heavenly  fervor.  This  passage  favors 
that  interpretation.  The  apostle  was  there  with  twelve  new 
converts.  To  what  purpose  was  the  supposed  use  of  various 
languages  among  such  a  number,  who  already  understood 
one  another?  It  would  seem  more  like  the  showing  off  of 
a  new  accomplishment  than  the  humble  character  of  Chris- 
tian modesty  permits.  If  this  gift  simply  made  them  lin- 
guists, then  the  miracle  was  of  a  temporary  and  earthly 
character.  But  if  it  consisted  in  elevating  their  spiritual  in- 
tuitions, and  enabling  them  to  speak,  "  not  in  the  words 
which  man's  wisdom  teacheth,  but  which  the  Holy  Ghost 
teacheth,  comparing  spiritual  things  with  spiritual,"  then 
you  have  a  miracle — celestial  indeed,  worthy  of  its  Spirit- 
Author.  If  it  were  only  a  gift  of  languages,  then  the  mira- 


The  Word  and  the  World.  729 

cle  has  nothing  to  do  with  us;  but  if  it  were  the  elevating 
of  the  natural  faculties  by  God's  Spirit  to  a  higher  and  di- 
viner use,  then  we  have  a  marvel  and  a  truth  which  belongs 
to  all  ages.  The  life  is  the  light  of  men.  Give  life,  and 
light  follows.  Expand  the  heart,  and  you  enlarge  the  intel- 
lect. Touch  the  soul  with  love,  and  then  you  touch  the  lips, 
with  hallowed  fire,  and  make  even  the  stammering  tongue 
speak  the  words  of  living  eloquence. 

This  was  the  gift  of  tongues  that  followed  the  reception 
of  the  Divine  Spirit. 

II.  The  second  subject  in  the  chapter  is  the  burning  of 
the  "  Ephesian  letters." 

Ephesus  was  the  metropolis  of  Asia.  Its  most  remarkable 
feature  was  the  temple  of  Diana — one  of  the  wonders  of  the 
world.  It  contained  a  certain  image,  misshapen,  of  a  human 
form,  reported  by  tradition  to.  have  fallen  from  the  skies; 
perhaps  one  of  those  meteoric  stones,  which,  generated  in  th.rf 
atmosphere,. and  falling  to  the  ground,  are  reckoned  by  the 
vulgar  to  be  thunderbolts  from  heaven. 

This  image  represented  Nature,  the  prolific  nurse  and 
source  of  all  life,  and  the  worship  was  a  worship  of  Nature. 
Upon  the  base  of  the  statue  wrere  certain  mysterious  sen- 
tences, and  these,  copied  and  written  upon  papers  and  amu- 
lets, were  known  far  and  wide  by  the  name  of  "  Ephesian 
letters."  This  was  the  heathen  form  of  magical  superstition. 
But  it  seems  there  was  a  Jewish  practice  of  the  occult  art 
besides.  They  used  certain  incantations,  herbs,  and  magi- 
cal formulas,  said  by  tradition  to  have  been  taught  by  Sol- 
omon, for  the  expulsion  of  diseases  and  the  exorcism  of  evil 
spirits. 

The  state  of  Ephesus,  like  that  of  Corinth  and  Athens,  was 
one  of  metropolitan  civilization  ;  and  it  is  nothing  strange 
that  in  such  a  stage  of  social  existence,  arts  and  beliefs  like 
these  should  flourish ;  for  there  is  always  a  craving  in  the 
soul  of  man  for  something  supernatural,  an  irrepressible  de- 
sire for  communion  with  the  unseen  world.  And  where  an 
over-refined  civilization  has  choked  up  the  natural  and 
healthy  outlets  of  this  feeling,  it  will  inevitably  find  an  un« 
natural  one.  The  restless  spirit  of  those  times,  dissatisfied 
with  their  present  existence,  in  spite  of  itself  feeling  the  deg- 
radation of  the  life  of  epicurean  indolence  and  selfishness, 
instinctively  turned  to  the  other  world  in  quest  of  marvels. 
We  do  not  wonder  to  find  atheism  and  abject  superstition 
co-tenants  of  the  same  town  or  the  same  mind.  We  do  not 
Qiarvel  that  in  the  very  city  where  reasonable  Christianity 

31* 


730  The  Word  and  the  World. 

could  scarcely  find  a  footing,  a  mob  could  be  found  scream- 
ing  for  two  hours, "  Great  is  Diana  of  the  Ephesians !"  that 
when  men  had  "not  so  much  as  heard  whether  there  be  any 
Holy  Ghost,"  wise  men  and  men  in  authority  should  be  be- 
lievers in  "  the  image  which  fell  down  from  Jupiter."  Ephe- 
sus  was  exactly  the  place  where  Jewish  charlatans  and  the 
vendors  of  "Ephesian  letters"  could  reap  a  rich  harvest  from 
the  credulity  of  skeptical  voluptuaries. 

It  is  difficult  to  know  what  to  say  about  this  Oriental 
magic.  '  Shall  we  say  that  it  was  all  imposture  ?  or  account 
for  its  success  by  the  power  of  a  highly-excited  imagination  ? 
or  believe  that  they  were  really  making  use  of  some  unknown 
powers  of  nature,  which  they  themselves  in  ignorance  sup- 
posed to  be  supernatural  ?  Little  can  now  be  decided. 
That  the  magicians  themselves  believed  in  their  own  art  is 
plain,  from  the  fact  of  the  existence  of  these  costly  "  Ephesian 
letters,"  and  scientific  "  curious  books,"  which  had  appar- 
ently reached  the  dignity  of  an  elaborate  system ;  and  also 
from  the  fact  that  some  of  them,  as  the  seven  sons  of  Sceva, 
believed  in  Christianity  as  a  higher  kind  of  magic,  and  at- 
tempted to  use  its  formula,  as  more  efficacious  than  their 
own.  "We  adjure  you  by  Jesus  whom  Paul  preacheth." 
Had  they  been  only  impostors,  they  would  have  taken  Paul 
for  an  impostor  too. 

Here  was  one  of  those  early  attempts,  which  in  after  ages 
became  so  successful,  to  amalgamate  Christianity  with  the 
magical  doctrines.  Gnosticism  was  the  result  in  the  East, 
Romanism  the  result  in  the  West. 

But  the  spirit  of  Christianity  brooks  no  amalgamation. 
The  essence  of  magic  consists  in  this :  the  belief  that  by 
some  external  act — not  connected  with  moral  goodness,  nor 
making  a  man  wiser  or  better — communication  can  be  in- 
sured with  the  spiritual  world  ;  and  the  tutelage  of  God  or 
some  superior  spirit  be  commanded  for  a  mortal.  It  mat- 
ters not  whether  this  be  attempted  by  Ephesian  letters, 
amulets,  charms,  curious  books  —  or  by  sacraments,  or  by 
Church  ordinances  or  priestly  powers — whatever  professes  to 
bring  God  near  to  man,  except  by  making  man  more  like  to 
God,  is  of  the  same  spirit  of  Antichrist. 

The  spirit-world  of  God  has  its  laws,  and  they  are  unal- 
terable. They  are  such  as  these  :  "  Blessed  are  the  pure  in 
heart,  for  they  shall  see  God  ;"  "Blessed  are  the  merciful — 
the  peacemakers — the  meek — the  poor  in  spirit ;"  "  If  any 
man  will  do  His  will,  he  shall  know ;"  "  If  a  man  love  Me 
he  will  keep  My  words  :  and  My  Father  will  love  him,  and 
We  will  come  unto  him.  and  make  our  abode  with  him/ 


The  Word  and  the  World.  73 1 

This  is  Christianity,  There  is  no  way  of  becoming  a  par- 
taker of  "the  powers  of  the  world  to  come,"  except  by  hav- 
ing the  heart  right  with  God.  God's  presence,  God's  pro- 
tection, is  the  privilege  of  the  humble,  the  holy,  the  loving. 
These  are  the  laws  of  the  kingdom  of  God's  Spirit,  and  no 
magic  can  reverse  them.  The  contest  was  brought  to  an 
issue  by  the  signal  failure  of  these  magicians  to  work  a  mir- 
acle— the  man  possessed  leaped  upon  the  exercisers,  and  they 
fled  wounded,  upon  which  there  was  great  consternation  in 
Ephesus.  The  possessors  of  curious  books  came,  confessed 
their  guilt,  and  burnt  them  with  their  own  hands  in  the 
apostle's  presence. 

You  will  observe  in  all  this  the  terrible  supremacy  of 
conscience.  There  was  struck  a  chord  deep  in  the  moral 
nature  of  these  men,  and  it  vibrated  in  torture.  They  could 
not  bear  their  own  secret,  and  they  had  no  remedy  but  im- 
mediate confession.  It  is  this  arraigning  accuser  within  the 
bosom  that  compels  the  peculator,  after  years  of  concealed 
theft,  to  send  back  the  stolen  money  to  his  employer,  with 
the  acknowledgment  that  he  has  suffered  years  of  misery. 
It  was  this  that  made  Judas  dash  down  his  gold  in  the 
Temple,  and  go  and  hang  himself.  It  is  this  that  again  and 
again  has  forced  the  murderer  from  his  unsuspected  security 
in  social  life,  to  deliver  himself  up  to  justice,  and  to  choose 
a  true  death  rather  than  the  dreadful  secret  of  a  false  life. 
Observe  how  mightily  our  moral  nature  works — for  health 
and  peace,  if  there  be  no  obstruction  ;  but  for  disease  and 
torture,  if  it  be  perverted.  But,  anyhow,  it  works,  and  with 
living,  indestructible  force,  as  the  juices  of  vigorous  life,  if 
obstructed,  create  and  feed  gigantic  disease. 

Consider,  in  the  next  place,  the  test  of  sincerity  furnished 
by  this  act  of  burning  the  Ephesian  letters.  First  of  all  it 
was  a  costly  sacrifice.  They  were  valued  at  fifty  thousand 
pieces  of  silver.  In  those  days,  copies  were  not  multiplied 
by  printing ;  and  the  possessor  of  a  secret  would  take  care 
not  to  multiply  it.  Rarity  created  costliness.  The  posses- 
sion of  one  such  book  was  the  possession  of  a  fortune.  Then, 
again,  there  was  the  sacrifice  of  livelihood.  By  these  books 
they  got  their  living.  And  a  man  who  had  lived  to  thirty 
or  forty  years  of  age  in  this  mode  of  life  was  not  young 
enough  to  begin  the  world  again  with  a  new  profession.  It 
wras  to  throw  themselves  almost  into  beggary.  Moreover, 
it  wras  the  destruction  of  much  knowledge  that  was  really 
valuable.  As  in  the  pursuit  of  alchemy  real  chemical  se- 
crets were  discovered,  so  it  can  not  be  doubted  that  these 
curious  manuscripts  contained  many  valuable  natural  facts. 


732  The  Word  and  the  World. 

To  burn  them  was  to  waste  all  these — to  give  the  lore  ao- 
cumulated  for  years  to  the  winds. 

Once  more:  it  was  an  outrage  to  feeling.  Costly  manu- 
scripts, written  with  curious  art,  many  of  them  probably  the 
heirlooms  of  a  family,  many  which  were  associated  with  a 
vast  variety  of  passages  in  life,  old  feelings,  old  teachers 
.and  companions,  these  were  to  be  committed  mercilessly  to 
tthe  flames.  Remember,  too,  how  many  other  ways  there 
were  of  disposing  of  them.  Might  they  not  be  sold,  and  the 
proceeds  "  given  to  the  poor  ?"  Might  they  not  at  least  be 
made  over  to  some  relative  who,  not  feeling  any  thing  wrong 
in  the  use  or  possession  of  them,  would  not  have  his  con- 
science aggrieved  ?  Or  might  they  not  be  retained,  the  use 
of  them  being  given  up,  as  curious  records  of  the  past,  as  the 
treasure-stores  of  so  much  that  was  beautiful  and  wise? 

And  then  conscience  arose  with  her  stern,  clear  voice. 
They  are  the  records  of  an  ignorant  and  guilty  past.  There 
must  be  no  false  tenderness ;  the  sacrifice  must  be  real,  or  it 
is  none.  .  To  the  flames  with  them,  till  their  ashes  are  strew- 
ed upon  the  winds,  and  the  smoke  will  rise  up  to  heaven  a 
sweet  savor  before  God. 

Whoever  has  made  such  a  sacrifice  as  this — and  every 
real  Christian  in  the  congregation  in  some  shape  or  other 
has — will  remember  the  strange  medley  of  feeling  which  ac- 
companied the  sacrifice.  We  should  err  if  we  expected  such 
a  deed  to  be  done  with  feelings  entirely  single.  There  is  a 
mixture  in  all  such  sacrifices.  Partly  fear  constrained  the 
act,  produced  by  the  judgment  on  the  other  exorcists;  part- 
ly genuine  remorse ;  partly  there  was  a  lingering  regret  as 
leaf  after  leaf  perished  in  the  flames  ;  partly  a  feeling  of  re- 
lief, and  partly  a  heavy  sense  of  loss  in  remembering  that 
the  work  of  years  was  obliterated,  and  that  the  past  had  to 
be  lived  afresh  as  a  time  wasted ;  partly  shame,  and  partly 
a  wild  tumult  of  joy,  at  the  burst  of  new  hope,  and  the  pros- 
pect of  a  nobler  life.  We  can  not,  and  dare  not,  too  closely 
scan  such  things.  The  sacrifice  was  made,  and  He  who 
knows  the  mixture  of  the  earthly  and  the  spiritual  in  His 
creatures'  hearts  doubtless  accepted  the  sacrifice. 

There  is  no  Christian  life  that  has  not  in  it  sacrifice,  and 
that  alone  is  the  sacrifice  which  is  made  in  the  spirit  of  the 
conflagration  of  the  "Ephesian  letters,"  without  reserve, 
without  hesitation,  without  insincere  tenderness.  If  the 
slaveholder,  convinced  of  the  iniquity  of  the  traffic  in  man, 
sells  the  slaves  on  his  estate  to  the  neighboring  planter,  the 
mark  of  sincerity  is  wanting  ;  or  if  the  trader  in  opium  or  in 
spirits  quits  his  nefarious  commerce,  but  first  secures  the 


The  Word  and  the  World.  733 

value  of  all  that  remains  in  his  warehouse  or  in  his  ships, 
again  there  is  a  something  which  betokens  the  want  of  a 
heart  true  and  honest;  or  if  the  possessor  of  a  library 
becomes  convinced  that  certain  volumes  are  unfit  for  his 
shelves,  immoral,  polluting  the  mind  of  him  that  reads  them, 
and  yet  can  not  sacrifice  the  brilliant  binding  and  the  costly 
edition  without  an  equivalent,  what  shall  we  say  of  these 
men's  sincerity  ? 

Two  things  marked  these  Ephesians'  earnestness — the  vol- 
untariness  of  their  confession,  and  the  unreserved  destruction 
of  these  records  and  means  of  evil.  And  I  say  to  you,  if  there 
be  a  man  here  before  me  with  a  sin  upon  his  heart,  let  him 
remember  conscience  will  arise  to  do  her  dreadful  work  at 
last.  It  may  be  when  it  is  too  late.  Acknowledgment  at 
once,  this  is  all  that  remains  for  him  to  relieve  his  heart  of 
its  intolerable  load.  If  he  has  wronged  a  man  let  him  ac- 
knowledge it  and  ask  forgiveness;  if  he  has  defrauded  him 
of  his  due,  or  kept  him  from  his  rights,  let  him  repair,  restore, 
make  up ;  or,  if  the  guilt  be  one  with  which  man  inter- 
meddleth  not,  and  of  wliich  God  alone  takes  cognizance,  on 
his  bended  knees  this  night,  and  before  the  sun  of  to-morrow 
dawn,  let  him  pour  out  the  secret  of  his  heart,  or  else,  it  may 
be  that  in  this  world,  and  in  the  world  to  come,  peace  is  ex- 
iled from  his  heart  forever. 

III.  We  shall  consider,  thirdly,  the  sedition  respecting  Di- 
ana's worship.  First  under  this  head  let  us  notice  the  speech 
of  Demetrius — in  which  observe  : 

1.  The  cause  of  the  slow  death  which  error  and  falsehood 
die  :  shot  through  and  through,  they  still  linger  on.     Existing 
abuses  in  Church  and  State  are  upheld  because  they  are  in- 
tertwined with  private  interests.     The  general  good  is  im- 
peded by  private  cupidity.     The  welfare  of  a  nation,  the  es- 
tablishment of  a  grand  principle,  is  clamored  against  because 
destructive  of  the  monopoly  of  a  few  particular  trades.     The 
salvation  of  the  world  must  be  arrested  that  Demetrius  may 
continue  to  sell  shrines  of  Diana.     This  is  the  reason  why  it 
takes  centuries  to  overthrow  an  evil,  after  it  has  been  proved 
an  evil. 

2.  The  mixture  of  religious  and  selfish  feelings.     Not  only 
"  our  craft,"  but  also  the  worship  of  the  great  goddess  Diana. 
Demetrius  was,  or   thought  himself  sincere ;    a  man  really 
zealous  for  the  interests  of  religion.     And  so  it  is  with  many 
a  patriotic  and  religious  cry.     "  My  country  " — "  my  church  " 
— "  my  reli'jion  " — it  supports  me.     "By  this  craft  we  have 
our  wealth." 


734  The  Word  and  the  World. 

3.  Numbers  are  no  test  of  truth.  What  Demetrius  said, 
and  the  town-clerk  corroborated,  was  a  fact — that  the  whole 
world  worshipped  the  great  goddess  Diana.  Antiquity,  uni- 
versality, popularity,  were  all  on  her  side  ;  on  the  other,  there 
were  only  Paul,  Gaius,  Aristarchus.  If  numbers  tested  truth, 
Apollos  in  the  last  chapter  need  not  have  become  the  brilliant 
outcast  from  the  schools  of  Alexandria,  nor  St.  Paul  stand  in 
Ephesus  in  danger  of  his  life. 

He  who  seeks  Truth  must  be  content  with  a  lonely,  little- 
trodden  path.  If  he  can  not  worship  her  till  she  has  been 
canonized  by  the  shouts  of  the  multitude,  he  must  take  his 
place  with  the  members  of  that  wretched  crowd  who  shout- 
ed for  two  long  hours,  "  Great  is  Diana  of  the  Ephesians !" 
till  truth,  reason,  and  calmness  were  all  drowned  in  noise. 

Let  us  notice  the  judicious  speech  of  the  town-clerk,  or 
chamberlain  more  properly,  in  which  observe — 

1.  The  impression  made  by  the  apostle  on  the  wiser  and 
calmer  part  of  the  community.     The  Asiarchs,  or  magistrates, 
were  his  friends.     The  town-clerk  exculpated  him,  as  Gallio 
had  done  at  Corinth.     Herein  we  see  the  power  of  consis- 
tency. 

2.  The   admitted   moral   blamelessness  of  the  Christians. 
Paul  had  not  "  blasphemed  "  the  goddess.     As  at  Athens,  he 
had  not  begun  by  attacking  errors,  or  prejudices,  or  even  su- 
perstitions.    He  preached  truth,  and  its  effect  began  to  be 
felt  already,  in  the  decline  of  the  trade  which  flourished  by 
the  sale  of  silver  models  of  the  wondrous  temple — a  statistical 
fact,  evidencing  the  amount  of  success.     Overcome  evil  by 
good,  error  by  truth.     Christianity — opposed  by  the  force  of 
governments,  counterfeited  by  charlatanism,  sneered  at   by 
philosophers,  cried  down  by  frantic  mobs,  coldly  looked  at 
from  a  distance  by  the  philosophical,  pursued  with  unrelent- 
ing hatred  by  Judaism,  met  by  unions  and  combinations  of 
trades,  having  arrayed  against  it  every  bad  passion  of  human- 
ity— went  swiftly  on,  conquering  and  to  conquer. 

The  continental  philosophers  tell  us  that  Christianity  is 
effete.  Let  this  narrative  determine.  Is  that  the  history  of 
a  principle  which  has  in  it  seeds  of  death  ?  Comes  that  from 
the  invention  of  a  transient  thought  of  man's,  or  from  the 
Spirit  of  the  everlasting  ages  ? 


Solomon  s  Restoration.  735 


XVI. 
SOLOMON'S  RESTORATION. 

"Did  not  Solomon  king  of  Israel  sin  by  these  things?  yet  among  many 
nations  was  there  no  king  like  him,  who  was  beloved  of  his  God." — Nehem. 
xiii.  26. 

THERE  is  one  study,  my  Christian  brethren,  which  never 
can  lose  its  interest  for  us  so  long  as  we  are  men  :  and  that 
is,  the  investigation  of  human  character.  The  deep  interest 
of  biography  consists  in  this — that  it  is  in  some  measure  the 
description  to  us  of  our  own  inner  history.  You  can  not  un- 
veil the  secrets  of  another  heart  without  at  the  same  time 
finding  something  to  correspond  with,  and  perchance  explain, 
the  mysteries  of  your  own.  Heart  answers  here  to  heart. 
Between  the  wisest  and  the  worst  there  are  ten  thousand 
points  of  marvellous  resemblance  ;  and  so  the  trials,  the  frail- 
ties, the  bitterness  of  any  human  soul,  faithfully  traced  out, 
ever  shadow  out  to  us  a  portraiture  of  our  own  experience. 
Give  but  the  inner  heart-history  of  the  most  elevated  spirit 
that  ever  conquered  in  life's  struggle,  and  place  it  before  the 
most  despicable  that  ever  failed,  and  you  exhibit  to  him  so 
much  of  the  picture  of  his  own  very  self,  that  you  perforce 
command  his  deepest  attention.  Only  let  the  inarticulate 
life  of  the  peasant  find  for  itself  a  distinct  voice  and  a  true 
biographer,  let  the  inward  struggles  which  have  agitated 
that  rough  frame  be  given  faithfully  to  the  world,  and  there 
is  not  a  monarch  whose  soul  will  not  be  thrilled  writh  those 
inner  details  of  an  existence  with  which  outwrardly  he  has  not 
a  single  thought  in  common. 

It  "is  for  this  reason  that  Solomon's  life  is  full  of  painful 
interest.  Far  removed  as  he  is,  in  some  respects,  above  our 
sympathies,  in  others  he  peculiarly  commands  them.  He 
was  a  monarch,  and  none  of  us  know  the  sensations  which 
belong  to  rule.  He  was  proclaimed  by  God  to  be  among 
the  wisest  of  mankind,  and  few  of  us  can  even  conceive  the 
atmosphere  in  which  such  a  gifted  spirit  moves,  original,  in- 
quiring, comprehending,  one  to  whom  Nature  has  made  her 
secret  open.  He  lived  in  the  infancy  of  the  world's  society, 
and  we  live  in  its  refined  and  civilized  manhood. 

And  yet,  brethren,  when  we  have  turned  away  wearied 
from  all  those  subjects  in  which  the  mind  of  Solomon  expati- 
ated, and  try  to  look  inward  at  the  man,  straightway  we 


7  36  Solomon  s  Restoration. 

find  ourselves  at  home.  Just  as  in  our  own  trilling,  petty 
history,  so  we  find  in  him,  life  with  the  same  unabated,  mys- 
terious interest ;  the  dust  and  the  confusion  of  a  battle,  sub- 
lime longings,  and  low  weaknesses,  perplexity,  struggle ;  and 
then  the  grave  closing  over  all  this, and  leaving  us  to  marvel 
in  obscurity  and  silence  over  the  strange  destinies  of  man. 
Humbling,  brethren,  is  all  this,  at  the  same  time  that  it  is 
most  instructive.  God's  strange  dealings  with  the  human 
heart,  when  shall  they  cease  their  interest  for  us  ?  When 
shall  it  be  that  life,  with  all  its  mysteries,  will  tire  us  to 
look  upon?  When  shall  it  be  that  the  fate  of  man  shall 
cease  to  wake  up  emotion  in  man's  bosom. 

Now,  we  are  to  bear  in  mind  that  the  career  of  Solomon  is 
a  problem  which  has  perplexed  many,  and  is  by  no  means  an 
easy  one  to  solve.  He  belongs  to  the  peculiar  class  of  those 
who  begin  well,  and  then  have  the  brightness  of  their  lives 
obscured  at  last.  His  morning  sun  rose  beautifully ;  it  sank 
in  the  evening,  clouded,  and  dark  with  earthy  exhalations — 
too  dark  to  prophesy  with  certainty  how  it  should  rise  on 
the  morrow. 

Solomon's  life  was  not  what  religious  existence  ought  to 
be.  The  life  of  God  in  the  soul  of  man  ought  to  be  a  tiling 
of  perpetual  development ;  it  ought  to  be  more  bright,  and 
its  pulsations  more  vigorous  every  year.  Such,  certainly,  at 
least  to  all  appearance,  Solomon's  was  not.  It  was  excel- 
lence, at  all  events,  marred  with  inconsistc  ncy.  It  was  orig- 
inal uprightness  disgraced  by  a  fall,  and  thac  fall  so  prolong- 
ed and  signal  that  it  has  always  been  a  disputed  question 
among  commentators  whether  he  ever  rose  from  it  again  at 
all.  But  the  passage  which  I  have  selected  for  the  text,  in 
connection  with  one  or  two  others,  seems  to  decide  this  ques- 
tion. "  Did  not  Solomon  king  of  Israel  sin  by  these  things  ?" 
that  is,  marriage  with  foreign  wives  ?  "  Yet  among  many 
nations  was  there  no  king  like  him  who  was  beloved  of  his 
God."  Now  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  view  given  us  in 
this  verse.  Six  hundred  years  after  Solomon  had  been  sleep- 
ing in  earthly  dust,  when  all  contemporaries  were  dead,  and 
all  personal  feeling  had  passed  away,  when  history  could 
pronounce  her  calm  verdict  upon  his  existence  as  a  whole, 
Nehemiah,  in  this  passage,  gave  a  summary  of  his  character. 
He  speaks  to  us  of  Solomon  as  a  saint — a  saint  in  whom 
saintliness  had  been  wonderfully  defaced — imperfect,  tempt- 
ed, fallen ;  but  still  ranked  among  those  whom  God's  love 
had  pre-eminently  distinguished. 

Now  let  us  compare  with  this  the  prophecy  which  iiad 
been  uttered  by  Nathan  before  Solomon  was  born.  Thus 


Solomon  s  Restoration.  737 

he  spoke  in  God's  name  to  David  of  the  son  who  was  to  suc- 
ceed him  on  the  throne :  "  I  will  be  his  father,  and  he  shall 
be  iny  son.  If  lie  commit  iniquity,  T  will  chasten  him  with 
the  rod  of  men," — L  e.,  the  rod  as  a  human  being  uses  it,  for 
correction,  not  everlasting  destruction — "  and  with  the  stripes 
of  the  children  of  men.  But  my  mercy  shall  not  depart  away 
from  him,  as  I  took  it  from  Saul."  In  this  we  have  a  distinct 
covenant,  made  prophetically.  God  foretold  Solomon's  terri- 
ble apostasy ;  and  with  it  He  foretold  Solomon's  restoration. 
And  there  is  one  point  especially  remarkable.  He  parallels 
Solomon's  career  with  Saul's.  Saul  began  well,  and  Saul 
ended  ill.  Just  so  it  was  with  Solomon.  Here  was  the  par- 
allel. But  farther  than  this,  God  distinctly  warned,  tho  par- 
allel did  not  go.  Saul's  deterioration  from  good  was  perma- 
nent. Solomon's  deterioration,  dark  as  it  was,  had  some 
point  of  essential  difference.  It  was  not  forever.  Saul's  life 
darkened  from  morning  brightness  into  the  gloom  of  ever- 
lasting night.  Solomon's  lite  darkened  too,  but  the  curtain 
of  clouds  was  rolled  aside  at  last,  and  bcfcro  the  night  set  in 
the  sun  shone  out  in  serene,  calm  brilliancy. 

We  take  up,  therefore,  for  our  consideration  to-day,  the  life 
of  Solomon  in  these  two  particulars. 

I.  The  wanderings  of  an  erring  spirit.     "  Did  not  Solomon 
king  of  Israel  sin  by  these  tilings '?" 

II.  The  guidance  of  that  spirit,  amidst  all  its  wanderings, 
by  God's  love.     "  There  was  no  king  like  unto  him  who  was 
beloved  of  his  God." 

I.  "  Did  not  Solomon  king  of  Israel  sin  by  these  things  ?" 
This  is  the  first  point  for  us  to  dwell  on — the  wanderings  of 
a  frail  and  erring  human  spirit  from  the  right  way.  That 
which  lay  at  the  bottom  of  all  Solomon's  transgressions  was 
his  intimate  partnership  with  foreigners.  "  Did  not  Solomon 
sin  by  these  things  ?"  that  is,  if  we  look  to  the  context,  mar- 
riage with  foreign  wives.  The  history  of  the  text  is  this : 
Nehemiah  discovered  that  the  nobles  of  Judah  during  the 
Captivity,  when  law  and  religious  customs  had  been  relaxed, 
had  married  wives  of  Ashdod,  of  Ammon,  and  of  Moab  ;  and 
then,  in  his  passionate  expostulation  with  them,  he  reminds 
them  that  it  was  this  very  transgression  which  led  to  the 
fall  of  the  monarch  who  had  been  most  distinguished  for 
God's  favor.  In  the  whole  Jewish  system,  no  principle  was 
more  distinct  than  this — the  separation  of  God's  people  from 
partnership  with  the  world.  Exclusiveness  was  the  princi- 
ple on  which  Judaism  was  built.  The  Israelites  were  not  to 
mix  with  tlie  nations;  they  were  not  to  marry  with  them; 


Solomon  s  Restoration. 

they  were  not  to  join  with  them  in  religious  fellowship  or 
commercial  partnership.  Every  thing  was  to  be  distinct — 
as  distinct  as  God's  service  and  the  world's.  And  it  was  this 
principle  which  Solomon  transgressed.  He  married  a  prin- 
cess of  Egypt.  He  connected  himself  with  wives  from  idola- 
trous countries — Moabites,  Ammonites,  Edomites,  Sidonians, 
Hittites.  And  then  Nehemiah's  argument,  built  on  the  eter- 
nal truth  that  friendship  with  the  world  is  enmity  with  God, 
is  this :  "  Did  not  Solomon  sin  by  these  things  ?" 

That  Jewish  law,  my  brethren,  shadowed  out  an  everlast- 
ing truth,  God's  people  are  an  exclusive  nation ;  God's 
Church  is  forever  separated  from  the  world.  This  is  her 
charter,  "  Come  out  from  among  them,  and  be  ye  separate, 
saith  the  Lord,  and  touch  not  the  unclean  thing  ;  and  I  will 
receive  you,  and  will  be  a  Father  unto  you,  and  ye  shall  be 
my  sons  and  daughters,  saith  the  Lord  Almighty."  God's 
people  may  break  that  charter,  but  they  do  it  at  their  own 
peril.  And  we  may  be  very  sure  of  this,  when  a  religious 
person  begins  to  feel  an  inclination  for  intimate  communion 
with  the  world,  and  begins  to  break  down  that  barrier  which 
is  the  line  of  safety,  the  first  step  is  made  of  a  series  of  long, 
dark  wanderings  from  God.  We  are  to  be  separate,  breth- 
ren, from  the  world.  Mistake  not  the  meaning  of  that  word. 
The  world  changes  its  complexion  in  every  age.  Solomon's 
world  was  the  nations  of  idolatry  lying  round  Israel.  Our 
world  is  not  that.  The  world  is  that  collection  of  men  in 
every  age  who  live  only  according  to  the  maxims  of  their 
time.  The  world  may  be  a  profligate  world,  or  it  may  be  a 
moral  world.  All  that  is  a  matter  of  accident.  Our  world 
is  a  moral  world.  The  sons  of  our  world  are  not  idolaters, 
they  are  not  profligate,  they  are,  it  may  be,  among  the  most 
fascinating  of  mankind.  Their  society  is  more  pleasing,  more 
lively,  more  diversified  in  information  than  religious  society. 
No  marvel  if  a  young  and  ardent  heart  feels  the  spell  of  the 
fascination.  No  wonder  if  it  feels  a  relief  in  turning  away 
from  the  dullness  and  the  monotony  of  home  life  to  the 
sparkling  brilliancy  of  the  world's  society.  No  marvel  if 
Solomon  felt  the  superior  charms  of  the  accomplished  Egyp- 
tian and  the  wealthy  Tyrian.  His  Jewish  countrymen  and 
countrywomen  were  but  homely  in  comparison.  What  won- 
der if  the  young  monarch  felt  it  a  relaxation  to  emancipate 
himself  from  the  thraldom  of  a  society  which  had  little  to 
interest  his  grasping  and  restless  mind,  and  to  throw  himself 
upon  a  companionship  which  had  more  of  refinement,  and 
more  of  cultivation,  and  more  of  that  enlargement  of  mind 
which  his  own  gifted  character  was  so  fitted  to  enjoy  ? 


Solomon  s  Restoration.  739 

It  is  no  marvel,  brethren.  It  is  all  most  natural,  all  most 
intelligible — a  temptation  which  we  feel  ourselves  every 
day.  "The  brilliant,  dazzling,  accomplished  world — what 
Christian  with  a  mind  polished  like  Solomon's  does  not  own 
its  charms  ?  And  yet  now,  pause.  Is  it  in  wise  Egypt  that 
our  highest  blessedness  lies  ?  Is  it  in  busy  restless  Sidon  ? 
Is  it  in  luxurious  Moab  ?  No,  my  Christian  brethren.  The 
Christian  must  leave  the  world  alone.  His  blessedness  lies 
in  quiet  work  with  the  Israel  of  God.  His  home  is  in  that 
deep,  unruffled  tranquillity  which  belongs  to  those  who  are 
trying  to  know  Christ.  And  when  a  Christian  will  not  learn 
this — when  he  will  not  understand  that  in  calmness,  and 
home,  and  work,  and  love,  his  soul  must  find  its  peace — when 
he  will  try  keener  and  more  exciting  pleasures — when  he 
says,  I  must  taste  what  life  is  while  I  am  young,  its  feverish- 
ness,  its  strange,  delirious,  maddening  intoxication,  he  has 
just  taken  Solomon's  first  step,  and  he  must  take  the  whole 
of  Solomon's  after,  and  most  bitter  experience,  along  with  it. 

The  second  step  of  Solomon's  wandering  was  the  unre- 
strained pursuit  of  pleasure.  And  a  man  like  Solomon  can 
not  do  any  thing  by  halves.  What  he  did,  he  did  thorough- 
ly. No  man  ever  more  heartily  and  systematically  gave 
himself  up  to  the  pursuit.  If  he  once  made  up  his  mind 
that  pleasure  was  his  aim,  then  for  pleasure  he  lived.  There 
are  some  men  who  are  prudent  in  their  epicureanism.  They 
put  gayety  aside  when  they  begin  to  get  palled  with  it,  and 
then  return  to  it  moderately  again.  Men  like  Solomon  can 
not  do  that.  No  earnest  man  can.  No ;  if  blessedness  lies 
in  pleasure,  he  will  drink  the  cup  to  the  dregs.  Listen  to 
what  he  says :  "  I  sought  in  mine  heart  to  give  myself  unto 
wine,  yet  acquainting  mine  heart  with  wisdom ;  and  to  lay 
hold  on  folly,  till  I  might  see  what  was  that  good  for  the 
sons  of  men,  which  they  should  do  under  the  heaven  all  the 
days  of  their  life."  That  was  a  pursuit  of  pleasure  which 
was  at  least  decided  and  systematic — manly.  Observe, 
brethren,  we  have  none  of  the  cool,  cautious  sipping  of  en- 
joyment there.  We  have  none  of  the  feeble,  languid  at- 
tempts to  enjoy  the  world  which  make  men  venture  ankle- 
deep  into  dissipation,  and  only  long  for  courage  to  go  a  lit- 
tle farther.  It  is  the  earnestness  of  an  impassioned  man,  a 
man  who  has  quitted  God,  and  thrown  himself,  heart  and 
soul,  upon  every  thing  that  he  tries,  and  says  he  will  try  it 
fairly  and  to  the  full. 

"  Let  us  see  what  the  world  is  worth."  Perhaps  some 
minds  amongst  us  now  are  not  altogether  strangers  to  a 
feeling  such  as  this.  There  is  many  a  soul,  formed  for  high- 


74-O  Solomon  s  Restoration. 

er  and  better  things,  that  has,  at  one  time  or  another,  lost 
its  hold  on  God,  and  felt  the  impulse  of  its  own  desires  urg- 
ing it  on  forever,  dissatisfied,  restless,  panting  for  a  celestial 
fruit  which  seems  forbidden,  and  half  expecting  to  find  that 
fruit  in  life's  excitement.  These  are  the  wanderings  of  an 
erring  spirit. 

But,  my  brethren,  let  us  mark  the  wanderings  of  an  im- 
mortal soul  infinite  in  its  vastness.  There  is  a  moral  to  be 
learnt  from  the  wildest  worldliness.  When  we  look  on  the 
madness  of  life,  and  are  marvelling  at  the  terrible  career  of 
dissipation,  let  there  be  no  contempt  felt.  It  is  an  immortal 
spirit  marring  itself.  It  is  an  infinite  soul,  which  nothing 
short  of  the  Infinite  can  satisfy,  plunging  down  to  ruin  an<d 
disappointment.  Men  of  pleasure,  whose  hearts  are  as  ca- 
pable of  an  eternal  blessedness  as  a  Christian's,  that  is  the 
terrible  meaning  and  moral  of  your  dissipation.  God  in 
Christ  is  your  only  Eden,  and  out  of  Christ  you  can  have 
nothing  but  the  restlessness  of  Cain  ;  you  are  blindly  pursu- 
ing your  destiny.  That  unquenched  impetuosity  within  you 
might  have  led  you  up  to  God.  You  have  chosen  instead 
that  your  heart  shall  try  to  satisfy  itself  upon  husks. 

There  was  another  form  of  Solomon's  worldliness.  It 
was  not  worldliness  in  pleasure,  but  worldliness  in  occupa- 
tion. He  had  entered  deeply  into  commercial  speculations. 
He  had  alternate  fears  and  hopes  about  the  return  of  his 
merchant-ships  on  their  perilous  three-years'  voyage  to  India 
and  to  Spain.  He  had  his  mind  occupied  with  plans  for 
building.  The  architecture  of  the  Temple,  his  own  palace, 
the  forts  and  towns  of  his  now  magnificent  empire,  all  this 
filled  for  a  time  his  soul.  He  had  beirun  a  system  of  nation- 
al debt  and  ruinous  taxation.  He  had  become  a  slaveholder 
and  a  despot,  who  was  compelled  to  keep  his  people  down 
by  armed  force.  Much  of  this  was  not  wrong,  but  all  of  it 
was  dangerous.  It  is  a  strange  thing  how  business  dulls  the 
sharpness  of  the  spiritual  affections.  It  is  strange  how  the 
harass  of  perpetual  occupation  shuts  God  out.  It  is  strange 
how  much  mingling  with  the  world,  politics,  and  those  things 
which  belong  to  advancing  civilization — things  which  arc 
very  often  in  the  way  of  our  duty — deaden  the  delicate  sense 
of  right  and  wrong.  Let  Christians  be  on  their  guard  by 
double  prayerfulness  when  duty  makes  them  men  of  business 
or  calls  them  to  posts  of  worldly  activity.  Solomon  did 
things  of  questionable  morality  which  he  never  would  have 
done  if  he  had  not  had  the  ambition  to  distinguish  himself 
among  the  princes  of  this  world.  Business  and  worldliness 
dried  up  the  springs  of  his  spirituality.  It  was  the  climax 


Solomon  s  Restoration.  74 * 

of  Solomon's  transgression  that  he  suffered  the  establishment 
of  idolatry  in  his  dominions. 

There  are  writers  who  have  said  that  in  this  matter  Solo- 
mon was  in  advance  of  his  age — enlightened  beyond  the  nar. 
rowness  of  Judaism,  and  that  this  permission  of  idolatry  was 
the  earliest  exhibition  of  that  spirit  which  in  modern  times 
we  call  religious  toleration.  But,  my  brethren,  Solomon 
went  far  beyond  toleration.  It  is  written,  when  Solomon 
was  old  his  wives  turned  away  his  heart  after  other  gods  ; 
for  he  went  after  Ashtoreth,  the  goddess  of  the  Zidonians, 
and  after  Milcom,  the  abomination  of  the  Ammonites.  The 
truth  seems  to  be,  Solomon  was  getting  indifferent  about  re- 
ligion. He  had  got  into  light  and  worldly  society,  and  the 
libertinism  of  his  associations  was  beginning  to  make  its  im- 
pression upon  him.  He  was  beginning  to  ask,  Is  not  one  re- 
ligion as  good  as  another,  so  long  as  each  man  believes  his 
own  in  earnest  ?  He  began  to  feel  there  is  a  great  deal  to  be 
said  for  these  different  religions.  After  all,  there  is  nothing  cer- 
tain ;  and  why  forbid  men  the  quiet  enjoyment  of  their  own 
opinion  ?  And  so  he  became  what  men  call  liberal,  and  he 
took  idolatry  under  his  patronage.  There  are  few  signs  in  a 
soul's  state  more  alarming  than  that  of  religious  indifference, 
that  is,  the  spirit  of  thinking  all  religions  equally  true — the 
real  meaning  of  which  is,  that  all  religions  are  equally  false. 

II.  We  are  to  consider,  in  the  last  place,  God's  loving 
guidance  of  Solomon  in  the  midst  of  all  his  apostasy.  My 
Christian  brethren,  in  the  darkest,  wildest  wranderings,  a  man 
to  whom  God  has  shown  his  love  in  Christ  is  conscious  still 
of  the  better  way.  In  the  very  gloom  of  his  remorse  there 
is  an  instinctive  turning  back  to  God.  It  is  enumerated 
among  the  gifts  that  God  bestowed  on  Solomon,  that  He 
granted  to  him  "  largeness  of  heart."  Now  that  largeness 
of  heart  which  we  call  thoughtfulness  and  sensibility,  gen- 
erosity, high  feeling,  marks  out,  for  the  man  who  has  it,  a 
peculiar  life.  Life  becomes  an  intense  thing  :  if  there  be 
guilt,  then  his  life  will  be  desolating  remorse ;  if  love,  then 
the  very  ecstasy  of  blessedness.  But  a  cool,  commonplace 
life  he  can  not  have.  According  to  Scripture  phraseology, 
Solomon  had  a  great  heart ;  and  therefore  it  was  that  for 
such  a  one  the  discipline  which  was  to  lead  him  back  to  God 
must  needs  be  terrible.  "  If  he  commit  iniquity,  I  will  chas- 
ten him  with  the  rod  of  men."  That  was  God's  covenant, 
and  with  tremendous  fidelity  was  it  kept. 

You  look  to  the  life  of  Solomon,  and  there  are  no  outward 
reverses  there  to  speak  of.  His  reign  was  a  type  of  the  reign 


742  Solomon  s  Restoration. 

of  the  power  of  j.eace.  No  war,  no  national  disaster,  inter- 
rupted the  even  flow  of  the  current  of  his  days.  Xo  loss  of 
a  child,  like  David's,  pouring  cold  desolation  into  his  soul — 
no  pestilences  nor  famines.  Prosperity  and  riches,  and  the 
internal  development  of  the  nation's  life,  that  was  the  reign 
of  Solomon.  And  yet,  brethren,  with  all  this,  was  Solomon 
happy  ?  Has  God  no  arrows  winged  in  heaven  for  the  heart, 
except  those  which  come  in  the  shape  of  outward  calamity? 
Is  there  no  way  that  God  has  of  making  the  heart  gray  and 
old  before  its  time,  without  sending  bereavement,  or  loss,  or 
sickness?  Has  the  Eternal  Justice  no  mode  of  withering 
and  drying  up  the  inner  springs  of  happiness,  while  all  is 
green,  and  wild,  and  fresh  outwardly  ?  We  look  to  the  his- 
tory of  Solomon  for  the  answer. 

The  first  way  in  which  his  aberration  from  God  treasured 
up  for  him  chastisement,  was  by  that  weariness  of  existence 
which  breathes  through  the  whole  book  of  Ecclesiastes. 
That  book  bears  internal  evidence  of  having  been  written 
after  repentance  and  victory.  It  is  the  experience  of  a  ca- 
reer of  pleasure  ;  and  the  tone  which  vibrates  through  the 
whole  is  disgust  with  the  world,  and  mankind,  and  life,  and 
self.  I  hold  that  book  to  be  inspired.  God  put  it  into  the 
heart  of  Solomon  to  make  that  experience  public.  But,  my 
brethren,  by  "  inspired,"  I  do  not  mean  that  all  the  feelings 
to  which  that  book  gives  utterance  are  right  or  holy  feel- 
ings. St.  John  could  not  have  written  that  book.  St.  John, 
who  had  lived  in  the  atmosphere  of  love,  looking  on  this 
world  as  God  looks  on  it — calmly,  with  the  deep  peace  of 
heaven  in  his  soul,  at  peace  with  himself,  and  at  peace  with 
man — could  never  have  penned  the  book  of  Ecclesiastes. 
To  have  written  the  book  of  Ecclesiastes  a  man  must  have 
been  qualified  in  a  peculiar  way.  He  must  have  been  a  man 
of  intense  feeling — large  in  heart,  as  the  Bible  calls  it.  He 
must  have  been  a  man  wrho  had  drunk  deep  of  unlawful 
pleasure.  He  must  have  been  a  man  in  the  upper  ranks  of 
society,  with  plenty  of  leisure  and  plenty  of  time  to  brood 
on  self.  Therefore,  in  saying  it  is  an  inspired  book,  I  mean 
the  inspired  account  of  the  workings  of  a  guilty,  erring,  and 
yet,  at  last,  conquering  spirit.  It  is  not  wrritten  as  a  wise 
and  calm  Christian  would  write,  but  as  a  heart  would  write 
which  was  fevered  with  disappointment,  jaded  with  passion- 
ate attempts  in  the  pursuit  of  blessedness,  and  forced  to  God 
as  the  last  resource. 

My  younger  brethren,  that  saddest  book  in  all  the  Bible 
stands  before  you  as  the  beacon  and  the  warning  from  a  God 
who  loves  you,  and  would  spare  you  bitterness  if  He  could. 


Solomon  s  Restoration.  743 

Follow  inclination  now,  put  no  restraint  on  feeling — say  that 
there  is  time  enough  to  be  religious  by-and-by — forget  that 
now  is  the  time  to  take  Christ's  yoke  upon  you,  and  learn 
gradually  and  peacefully  that  serene  control  of  heart  which 
must  be  learnt  at  last  by  a  painful  wrench — forget  all  that, 
and  say  that  you  trust  in  God's  love  and  mercy  to  bring  all 
right,  and  then  that  uuok  of  Ecclesiastes  is  your  history. 
The  penalty  that  you  pay  for  a  youth  of  pleasure  is,  if  you 
have  any  thing  good  in  you,  an  old  age  of  weariness  and  re- 
morseful dissatisfaction. 

Another  part  of  Solomon's  chastisement  was  doubt.  Once 
more  turn  to  the  book  of  Ecclesiastes.  "All  things  come 
alike  to  all :  there  is  one  event  to  the  righteous  and  to  the 
wicked ;  to  the  good,  and  to  the  clean,  and  to  the  unclean ; 
to  him  that  sacrificeth,  and  to  him  that  sacrificeth  not."  In 
this,  brethren,  you  will  observe  the  querulous  complaint  of  a 
man  who  has  ceased  to  feel  that  God  is  the  Ruler  of  this 
world.  A  blind  chance,  or  a  dark  destiny,  seems  to  rule  all 
earthly  things.  And  that  is  the  penalty  of  leaving  God's 
narrow  path  for  sin's  wider  and  more  flowery  one.  You  lose 
your  way ;  you  get  perplexed ;  doubt  takes  possession  of 
your  soul.  And,  my  Christian  brethren,  if  I  speak  to  any 
such,  you  know  that  there  is  no  suffering  more  severe  than 
doubt.  There  is  a  loss  of  aim,  and  you  know  not  what  you 
have  to  live  for.  Life  has  lost  its  meaning  and  its  infinite 
significance.  There  is  a  hollowness  at  the  heart  of  your  ex- 
istence. There  is  a  feeling  of  weakness,  and  a  discontented 
loss  of  self-respect.  God  has  hidden  His  face  from  you  be- 
cause you  have  been  trying  to  clo  without  Him  or  to  serve 
Him  with  a  divided  heart. 

But  now,  lastly,  we  have  to  remark,  that  the  love  of  God 
brought  Solomon  through  all  this  to  spiritual  manhood. 
"Let  us  hear  the  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter:  Fear  God, 
and  keep  his  commandments :  for  this  is  the  whole  duty  of 
man."  In  this,  brethren,  we  have  the  evidence  of  his  victory. 
Doubt,  and  imprisonment,  and  worldliness  have  passed  away, 
and  clear  activity,  belief,  freedom,  have  taken  their  place.  It 
was  a  terrible  discipline,  but  God  had  made  that  discipline 
successful.  Solomon  struggled  manfully  to  the  end.  The 
details  of  his  life  were  dark,  but  the  life  itself  was  earnest ; 
and  after  many  a  fall,  repentance,  with  unconquerable  pur- 
pose, began  afresh.  And  so  he  struggled  on,  often  baffled, 
often  down,  but  never  finally  subdued ;  and  still  with  tears 
and  indomitable  trust,  returning  to  the  conflict  again.  And 
so  when  we  come  to  the  end  of  his  last  earthly  work,  we  find 
the  sour  smoke,  which  had  so  long  been  smouldering  in  his 


744  Solomon  s  Restoration. 

heart  and  choking  his  existence,  changed  into  bright,  clear 
flame.  He  has  found  the  secret  out  at  last,  and  it  has  filled 
his  whole  soul  with  blessedness.  God  is  man's  happiness. 
"  Fear  God,  and  keep  His  commandments :  for  this  is  the 
whole  duty  of  man." 

And  now,  brethren,  let  us  come  to  the  meaning  and  the 
personal  application  of  all  this.  There  is  a  way — let  us  not 
shrink  from  saying  it — there  is  a  way  in  which  sin  may  be 
made  to  minister  to  holiness.  "To  whomsoever  much  is 
forgiven  the  same  loveth  much."  There  was  an  everlasting 
truth  in  what  our  Messiah  said  to  the  moral  Pharisees : 
"The  publicans  and  the  harlots  go  into  the  kingdom  of 
God  before  you."  Now  these  are  Christ's  words ;  and  we 
will  not  fear  to  boldly  state  the  same  truth,  though  it  be 
liable  to  much  misinterpretation.  Past  sin,  brethren,  may  be 
made  the  stepping-stone  to  heaven.  Let  a  man  abuse  that 
if  he  will  by  saying,  "  Then  it  is  best  to  sin."  A  man  may 
make  the  doctrine  absurd,  even  shocking,  by  that  inference, 
but  it  is  true  for  all  that.  "All  things  work  together  for 
good  to  them  that  love  God."  All  things,  even  sin.  God 
can  take  even  your  sin,  and  make  it  work  to  your  soul's 
sanctification.  He  can  let  you  down  into  such  an  abyss  of 
self-loathing  and  disgust,  such  life-weariness,  and  doubt, 
and  misery,  and  disappointment,  that  if  He  ever  raises  you 
again  by  the  invigorating  experience  of  the  love  of  Christ, 
you  will  rise  stronger  from  your  very  fall,  and  in  a  manner 
secured  against  apostasy  again.  Solomon,  king  of  Israel, 
sinned,  and,  by  the  strange  power  of  the  cross  of  Christ, 
that  sin  gave  him  deeper  knowledge  of  himself,  deeper 
insight  into  the  mystery  of  human  life,  more  marvellous 
power  of  touching  the  souls  of  his  brother-men,  than  if  he 
had  not  sinned.  But  forget  not  this,  if  ever  a  great  sinner 
becomes  a  great  saint,  it  will  be  through  agonies  which  none 
but  those  who  have  sinned  knoAV. 

Brethren,  I  speak  to  those  among  you  who  know  some- 
thing about  what  the  world  is  worth,  who  have  tasted  its 
fruits,  and  found  them  like  the  Dead  Sea  apples — hollowness 
and  ashes.  By  those  foretastes  of  coming  misery  which 
God  has  already  given  you,  those  lonely  feelings  of  utter 
wretchedness  and  disappointment  when  you  have  returned 
home  palled  and  satiated  from  the  gaudy  entertainment, 
and  the  truth  has  pressed  itself  icy  cold  upon  your  heart, 
"  Vanity  of  vanities  " — is  this  worth  living  for  ?  By  all  that, 
be  warned.  Be  true  to  your  convictions.  Be  honest  with 
yourselves.  Be  manly  in  working  out  your  doubts,  as 
Solomon  was.  Greatness,  goodness,  blessedness,  lie  not  in 


Joseph's  Forgiveness  of  his  Brethren.       745 

the  life  that  you  are  leading  now.  They  lie  in  quite  a 
different  path :  they  lie  in  a  life  hid  with  Christ  in  God. 
Before  God  is  compelled  to  write  that  upon  your  heart  in 
disgust  and  disappointment,  learn  "what  is  that  good  for 
the  sons  of  men  which  they  should  do "  all  the  days  of 
their  life  under  the  heaven.  Learn  from  the  very  greatness 
of  your  souls,  which  have  a  capacity  for  infinite  agony,  that 
you  are  in  this  world  for  a  grander  destiny  than  that  of 
frittering  away  life  in  uselessness. 

Lastly,  let  us  le#rn  from  this  subject  the  covenant  love 
of  God.  There  is  such  a  thing  as  love  which  rebellion 
can  not  weary,  which  ingratitude  can  not  cool.  It  is  the  love 
of  God  to  those  whom  He  has  redeemed  in  Christ.  "  Did 
not  Solomon,  king  of  Israel,  sin  ?  and  yet  there  was  no 
king  like  him  who  was  beloved  of  his  God."  Let  that,  my 
Christian  brethren,  be  to  us  a  truth  not  to  teach  carelessness, 
but  thankfulness.  Oh !  trembling  believer  in  Christ,  are 
you  looking  into  the  dark  future  and  fearing,  not  knowing 
what  God  will  be  to  you  at  the  last  ?  Remember,  Christ 
"  having  loved  His  own  who  are  in  the  world  loved  them  to 
to  the  end."  Your  salvation  is  in  the  hands  of  Christ;  the 
everlasting  arms  are  beneath  you.  The  rock  on  which  your 
salvation  is  built  is  love,  and  the  gates  of  hell  shall  not 
prevail  against  you. 


XVII. 
JOSEPH'S  FORGIVENESS  OF  HIS  BRETHREN. 

"  And  when  Joseph's  brethren  saw  that  their  father  was  dead,  they  said, 
Joseph  will  peradventure  hate  us,  and  will  certainly  requite  us  all  the  evil 
which  we  did  unto  him.  And  they  sent  a  messenger  unto  Joseph,  saying, 
Thy  father  did  command  before  he  died,  saying,  So  shall  ye  say  unto  Joseph, 
Forgive,  I  pray  thee  now,  the  trespass  of  thy  brethren,  and  their  sin ;  for 
they  did  unto  thee  evil :  and  now,  we  pray  thee,  forgive  the  trespass  of  the 
servants  of  the  God  of  thy  father.  And  Joseph  wept  when  they  spake  unto 
him.  And  his  brethren  also  went  and  fell  down  before  his  face ;  and  they 
said,  Behold,  we  be  thy  servants.  And  Joseph  said  unto  them,  Fear  not : 
for  am  I  in  the  place  of  God  ?  But  as  for  you,  ye  thought  evil  against  me ; 
but  God  meant  it  unto  good,  to  bring  to  pass,  as  it  is  thiy  day,  to  save  much 
people  alive.  Now,  therefore,  fear  ye  not :  I  will  nourish  you,  and  your  little 
ones.  And  he  comforted  them,  and  spake  kindly  unto  them. " — Gen.  1.  15-21. 

CHRISTIANITY  is  a  revelation  of  the  love  of  God — a  de- 
mand of  our  love  by  God  based  thereon.  Christianity  is  a 
revelation  of  Divine  forgiveness — a  requirement  thereupon 
that  we  should  forgive  each  other. 

32 


746       JosepKs  Forgiveness  of  his  Brethren. 

"  A  new  commandment  I  give  unto  you,  That  ye  love  one 
another;  as  I  have  loved  you,  that  ye  also  love  one  another" 
(John  xiii.  34) ;  "  Ye  call  me  Master  and  Lord  :  and  ye  say 
well,  for  so  I  am.  If  I,  then,  your  Lord  and  Master,  have 
washed  your  feet ;  ye  also  ought  to  wash  one  another's  feet. 
For  I  have  given  you  an  example,  that  ye  should  do  as  I  have 
done  to  you"  (John  xiii.  13-15)  ;  "Forgive  us  our  debts,  as 
we  forgive  our  debtors  "  (Matt.  vi.  12) ;  "  Beloved,  if  God  so 
loved  us,  we  ought  also  to  love  one  another"  (1  Johniv.  11) ; 
"  Fo?bearing  one  another,  and  forgiving  one  another,  even  as 
God  for  Christ's  sake  hath  forgiven  you"  (Ephes.  iv.  32). 

Now  these  duties  of  love,  forgiveness,  service,  are  called 
"  new  commandments."  But  we  should  greatly  mistake  if 
we  suppose  that  they  are  new  in  this  sense,  that  they  were 
created  by  the  Gospel,  and  did  not  exist  before.  The  Gospel 
did  not  make  God  love  us ;  it  only  revealed  His  love.  The 
Gospel  did  not  make  it  our  duty  to  forgive  and  love ;  it  only 
revealed  the  eternal  order  of  things,  to  transgress  which  is 
our  misery.  These  belong  to  the  eternal  order  and  idea  of 
our  humanity.  We  are  not  planted  by  Christ  in  a  new  ar« 
bitrary  state  of  human  relationships,  but  redeemed  into  the 
state  to  which  we  were  created. 

So  St.  John  says, "  I  write  no  new  commandment  unto  you, 
but  an  old  commandment  which  ye  had  from  the  beginning. 
The  old  commandment  is  the  word  which  ye  have  heard  from 
the  beginning.  Again,  a  new  commandment  I  write  unto 
you,  which  thing  is  true  in  him  and  in  you  ;  because  the  dark- 
ness is  past,  and  the  true  light  now  shineth  " — old,  because 
of  the  eternal  order  of  love  ;  new,  because  shown  in  the  light 
of  the  love  of  Christ.  Christianity  is  the  true  life — the  right 
humanity. 

Now  the  proof  of  this  is,  that  ages  before  Christ  appeared, 
they  who  gave  themselves  up  to  God  to  be  led  instead  of  to 
their  own  hearts,  did  actually  reduce  to  practice,  and  mani- 
fested in  their  lives,  those  very  principles  which,  as  princi- 
ples, were  only  revealed  by  Christ. 

Here,  for  instance,  three  thousand  years  before  Christ,  Jo- 
seph, a  Hebrew  slave,  taught  by  life's  vicissitudes,  educated 
by  God,  acts  out  practical  Christianity — one  of  its  deepest 
and  most  difficult  lessons.  There  is  nothing  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament more  childlike  than  this  forgiveness  of  his  brethren. 
Some  perhaps  may  be  shocked  at  dwelling  on  this  thought : 
it  seems  to  them  to  derogate  from  Christ.  This  is  as  if  they 
thought  that  they  honored  Christ  by  believing  that  until  He 
came  no  truth  was  known — that  He  created  truth.  These 
persons  tremble  at  every  instance  of  a  noble  or  pure  life 


Josep/is  Forgiveness  of  his  Brethren.       747 

which  can  be  shown  in  persons  not  enlightened  by  Christian- 
ity. But,  in  truth,  this  is  a  corroboration  of  Christianity. 
Christianity  is  a  full  revelation  of  the  truth  of  life,  into  which 
every  one  who  had  been  here  had,  in  his  measure,  struck  his 
roots  before.  It  is  simply  "  the  truth,  the  same  yesterday, 
to-day  and  forever."  And  all  instances  of  such  a  life  only 
corroborate  the  truth  of  the  revelation. 
We  divide  our  subject  into  two  parts : 

I.  The  petition  of  the  brethren. 
IT.  Joseph's  forgiveness. 

1.  The  petition  was  suggested  by  their  own  anticipations 
of  vengeance.  No\v  whence  came  these  anticipations  ?  I 
reply,  from  their  own  hearts.  Under  similar  circumstances 
they  would  have  acted  so,  and  they  took  for  granted  that  Jo- 
seph would.  We  suspect  according  to  our  nature,  we  look 
on  others  as  we  feel.  Suspicion  proves  character,  so  does 
faith.  We  believe  and  suspect  as  we  are.  But  unless  there 
had  been  safety  for  them  in  Joseph's  heart,  a  guaranty  in  the 
nobleness  of  Joseph's  nature,  their  abject  humiliation  would 
have  saved  them  nothing.  Little  they  knew  the  power  of 
hate,  the  sweetness  of  revenge,  if  they  fancied  that  a  grudge 
treasured  up  so  many  years  would  be  foregone  on  the  very 
verge  of  accomplishment  for  the  sake  of  any  satisfaction, 
prayer,  apology. 

Now  the  error  of  Joseph's  brethren  is  our  error  towards 
God.  Like  them,  we  impute  to  God  our  own  vindictive  feel- 
ings, and,  like  them,  we  pray  a  prayer  which  is  in  itself  an  in- 
sult or  absurd.  We  think  that  sin  is  an  injury,  a  personal 
affront,  instead  of  a  contradiction  of  our  own  nature,  a  de- 
parture from  the  Divine  harmony,  a  disfigurement  of  what 
is  good.  Consequently  we  expect  that  God  resents  it.  Our 
vindictive  feelings  we  impute  to  God  :  we  would  revenge, 
therefore  we  think  He  would.  And  then  in  this  spirit,  "  For- 
give us,"  means,  "  Forego  thy  vengeance.  Do  not  retaliate. 
I  have  injured  Thee  ;  but  lo  !  I  apologize,  I  lie  in  the  dust. 
Bear  no  malice,  indulge  no  rancor,  O  God  !"  This  is  the 
heathen  prayer  which  we  often  offer  up  to  God.  And  just 
as  it  must  have  been  unavailing  in  Joseph's  case  except  there 
were  safety  in  Joseph's  character,  so  must  it  be  useless  in 
ours  unless  in  God's  nature  there  be  a  guaranty  which  we 
think  our  prayers  create.  Think  you  that  God,  if  revenge- 
ful, can  be  bought  off  by  prayer,  by  rolling  in  the  dust,  by 
unmanly  cries,  by  coaxing,  or  flattery  ?  God's  forgiveness  is 
the  regeneration  of  our  nature.  God  can  not  avert  the  coi> 
sequences  of  our  sin. 


748       Joseph's  Forgiveness  of  his  Brethren. 

We  must  get  rid  of  these  heathen  ideas  of  God.  God'a 
forgiveness  is  properly  our  regeneration.  You  can  not  by 
prayer  buy  off  God's  vindictiveness ;  for  God  is  not  vin- 
dictiveness, but  love.  You  can  not  by  prayer  avert  the 
consequences  of  sin,  for  the  consequences  are  boundless, 
inseparable  from  the  act.  Nor  is  there  in  time  or  eternity 
any  thing  that  can  sever  the  connection.  If  you  think  that 
you  can  sin,  and  then  by  cries  avert  the  consequences  of 
sin,  you  insult  God's  character.  You  can  only  redeem  the 
past  by  alteration  of  the  present.  By  faith  in  God's  love, 
by  communion  with  His  Spirit,  you  may  redeem  yourself; 
but  you  can  not  win  the  love  of  God  by  entreaty  unless  that 
love  be  yours  already  —yours,  that  is,  when  you  claim  it. 

2.  Next,  observe  the  petition  was  caused  by  their  father's 
insisting  on  their  asking  pardon. 

He  recognized  the  duty  of  apology.  For  Jacob  knew 
that  Joseph  bore  no  malice.  Not  to  change  Joseph,  but  to 
fulfill  their  obligations,  he  gave  the  charge  that  required  sat- 
isfaction. We  know  how  false  conceptions  are  of  satisfac- 
tion :  in  the  language  of  the  old  duel,  to  give  satisfaction 
meant  to  give  one  who  had  been  injured  by  you  an  opportu- 
nity of  taking  your  life.  In  the  language  of  semi-heathen 
Christianity,  to  satisfy  God  means  to  give  God  an  equivalent 
in  blood  for  an  insult  offered.  No  wonder  that  with  such 
conceptions  the  duty  of  apology  is  hard — almost  impossible. 
W"e  can  not  say, "  I  have  erred,"  because  it  gives  a  triumph. 
Now  the  true  view  of  satisfaction  is  this — to  satisfy,  not  re- 
venge, but  the  law  of  right.  The  sacrifice  of  Christ  satisfied 
God,  because  it  exhibited  that  which  alone  can  satisfy  Him, 
the  entire  surrender  of  humanity.  The  satisfaction  of  an 
apology  is  doing  the  right — satisfying — doing  all  that  can  be 
done. 

It  may  be  our  lot  to  be  in  Jacob's  circumstances :  we  may 
be  arbiters  in  a  dispute,  or  seconds  in  a  quarrel.  And  remem- 
ber, to  satisfy  in  this  sense  is  not  to  get  for  your  friend  all 
his  vindictiveness  requires,  or  to  make  him  give  as  little  as 
the  other  demands,  but  to  see  that  he  does  all  that  should  of 
right  be  done. 

His  honor !  Yes ;  but  you  can  not  satisfy  his  honor  by 
glutting  his  revenge,  only  by  making  him  do  right.  And  if 
he  has  erred  or  injured,  in  no  possible  way  can  you  repair  his 
honor  or  heal  his  shame  except  by  demanding  that  he  shall 
make  full  acknowledgment.  "  I  have  erred"  it  is  very  hard 
to  say ;  but  because  it  is  hard  it  is  therefore  manly.  You  are 
too  proud  to  apologize,  because  it  will  give  your  adversary  an 
advantage?  But  remember,  the  advantage  is  already  given 


Joseph's  Forgiveness  of  his  Brethren.       749 

to  him  by  the  wrong  that  you  have  done,  and  every  hour 
that  you  delay  acknowledgment  you  retain  your  inferiority ; 
you  diminish  the  difference  and  your  inferiority  so  soon  as 
you  dare  to  say,  "  I  did  wrong ;  forgive  me." 

3.  Plea — as  servant  of  the  same  God  (ver.  17).  Forgive- 
ness is  not  merely  a  moral  but  a  religious  duty.  Now  re- 
member this  was  an  argument  which  was  only  available  in 
behalf  of  the  Jews.  It  could  not  have  been  pleaded  for  an 
Egyptian.  Joseph  might  have  been  asked  to  forgive  on 
grounds  of  humanity ;  but  not  by  the  sanctions  of  religion, 
if  an  Egyptian  had  offended  him.  For  an  Egyptian  did 
not  serve  the  God  of  his  fathers. 

How  shall  we  apply  that  ?  According  to  the  spirit  in 
which  we  do,  we  may  petrify  it  into  a  maxim  narrower  than 
Judaism,  or  enlarge  it  into  Christianity.  If  by  "  servants 
of  the  God  of  our  fathers,"  we  mean  our  own  sect,  party, 
church,  and  that  we  must  forgive  them,  narrow  indeed  is  the 
principle  we  have  learnt  from  this  passage.  But  Judaism 
was  to  preserve  truth — Christianity  to  expand  it.  Christian- 
ity says,  just  as  Judaism  did,  "Forgive  the  servants  of  the 
God."  Its  pleas  are,  "  Forgive  :  for  he  is  thy  fellow-servant. 
Seventy  times  seven  times  forgive  thy  brother"  But  it  ex- 
pands that  word  "brother"  beyond  what  the  law  ever 
dreamed  of — God  is  the  Father  of  man.  If  there  be  a  soul 
for  which  Christ  did  not  die,  then  that  man  you  are  not,  on 
Judaistic  principles,  bound  to  forgive.  If  there  be  one  whom 
the  love  of  God  does  not  embrace  in  the  Gospel  family,  then 
for  that  one  this  plea  is  unavailing.  But  if  God  be  the 
Father  of  the  race,  and  if  Christ  died  for  all ;  if  the  word 
"neighbor"  means  even  an  .alien  and  a  heretic;  then  this 
plea,  narrowed  by  the  law  to  his  nation,  expands  for  us  to  all. 
Because  the  servant  of  our  Maker  and  the  child  of  our  Father, 
therefore  he  must  be  forgiven,  let  him  be  whosoever  he  may. 

II.  Let  us  consider,  in  .the  second  place,  Joseph's  forgive- 
ness. 

1.  Joseph's  forgiveness  was  shown  by  his  renunciation  of 
the  office  of  avenger — "  Am  I  in  the  place  of  God  ?"  Now 
this  we  may  make  to  convey  a  Christian  or  a  heathen  sense, 
as  we  read  it.  It  might  read — we  often  do  read  it — we  often 
say  it  thus  :  "  I  will  not  avenge,  because  God  will.  If  God 
did  not,  I  would.  But  certain  that  He  will  do  it,  I  can  wait, 
and  I  will  wait,  long  years  ;  I  will  watch  the  reverses  of  for- 
tune ;  I  will  mark  the  progress  of  disease  ;  I  will  observe  the 
error,  failing,  grief,  loss ;  and  I  will  exult  and  say, '  I  knew  it, 
but  my  hand  was  not  on  him;  God  has  revenged  me  better 


75°       Joseph's  Forgiveness  of  his  Brethren. 

than  I  could  myself.' '  This  is  the  cold-blooded,  fearful  feel 
ing  that  is  sometimes  concealed  under  Christian  forgiveness. 
Do  not  try  to  escape  the  charge.  That  feeling  your  heart 
and  mine  have  felt,  when  we  thought  we  were  forgiving,  and 
were  praised  for  it.  That  wras  not  Joseph's  meaning.  Read 
it  thus  :  "  If  God  does  not,  dare  I  avenge  ?  '  Am  I  in  the 
place  of  God  ?'  Dare  I 

"  '  Snatch  from  His  hand  the  balance  and  the  rod, 
Rejudge  His  justice,  be  the  God  of  God  ?' " 

So  speaks  St.  Paul,  "  Vengeance  is  mine."  Therefore  wait, 
sit  still,  and  see  God's  wrath  ?  No  !  "  Therefore,  if  thine  en- 
emy hunger,  feed  him  ;  if  he  thirst,  give  him  drink."  This  is 
the  Christian  revenge. 

I  say  not  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  the  duty  of  re- 
dressing wrongs,  especially  those  of  others.  There  is  a  keen 
sense  of  wrrong,  a  mighty  demand  of  the  heart  for  justice, 
which  can  not  be  put  aside.  And  he  who  can  not  feel  indig- 
nation against  wrong  can  not,  in  a  manly  way,  forgive  injury. 
But  I  say,  the  only  revenge  wrhich  is  essentially  Christian  is 
that  of  retaliating  by  forgiveness.  And  he  who  has  ever 
tasted  that  Godlike  feeling  of  forbearance  when  insulted  ; 
of  speaking  wrell  of  one  who  has  slandered  him  (pleasure  all 
the  more  exquisite  if  the  slanderer  does  not  know  it)  ;  of 
doing  service  in  requital  of  an  injury;  he,  and  only  he,  can 
know  how  it  is  possible  for  our  frail  humanity,  by  abnegating 
the  place  of  God  the  Avenger,  to  occupy  the  place  of  God 
the  Absolver. 

2.  Joseph  forgave,  or  facilitated  forgiveness,  by  observing 
the  good  results    of  what   had   seemed   so    cruel   (ver.  20). 
Good  out  of  evil — that  is  the  strange  history  of  this  world, 
whenever  we   learn  God's  character.     No   thanks   to   you. 
Your  sin  dishonored  you,  though  it  will  honor  God.     By  our 
intentions,  and  not  by  the  results,  are  our   actions  judged. 
Remember  this  tenaciously :  forgiveness  becomes  less  diffi- 
cult, your  worst  enemy  becomes  your  best  friend,  if  you  trans- 
mute his  evil  by  good.     No  one  can  really  permanently  in- 
jure us  but  ourselves.     No  one  can  dishonor  us  :  Joseph  was 
immured  in  a  dungeon.     They  spat  on  Christ.     Did  that  sully 
the  purity  of  the  one,  or  lower  the  Divine  dignity   of  the 
other? 

3.  He  forgot  the  injury.     He  spake  kindly  to  them,  com- 
forted them,  and  bade  them  fear  not.     An  English  proverb 
has  joined  forgiving  and  forgetting.     No  forgiveness  is  com- 
plete which  does  not  join  forgetfulness.     You  forgive  only  so 
far  as  you  forget.     But  here  we  must  explain,  else  we  get 


Joseph's  Forgiveness  of  his  Brethren.       751 

into  the  common  habit  of  using  words  without  meaning. 
To  forget,  literally,  is  not  a  matter  of  volition.  You  can  by 
will  remember — you  can  not  by  an  act  of  will  forget — you 
can  not  give  yourself  a  bad  memory  if  you  have  a  good  one. 
In  that  sense,  to  forget  is  a  foolish  way  of  talking.  And 
indeed  to  forget  in  ihe  sense  of  oblivion  would  not  be  truly 
forgiving ;  for  if  we  forgive  only  while  we  do  not  recollect, 
who  shall  insure  that  with  recollection  hate  shall  not  return  ? 

More  than  that.  In  the  parable  of  the  forgiving  debtor, 
you  remember  his  sin  in  this  sense  was  not  forgotten.  Fresh 
sin  waked  up  all  the  past.  He  was  forgiven ;  then  he  was 
reminded  of  the  past  debt,  and  cast  into  prison.  Not  for  his 
new  offense,  but  for  his  old  debt,  was  he  delivered  to  the 
tormentors — it  was  not  forgotten.  But  the  true  Christian 
forgiveness,  as  here  in  Joseph's  example,  is  unconditional. 
Observe — he  did  not  hold  his  brethren  in  suspense;  he  did 
not  put  them  on  their  good  behavior;  he  did  not  say,  "I 
hold  this  threat  over  you  if  you  do  it  again."  That  is  for- 
giving and  not  forgetting.  But  that  was  a  frank,  full,  free 
remission — consoling  them — trying  to  make  them  forget — 
neither  by  look  or  word  showing  memory,  unless  the  fault 
had  been  repeated.  It  was  unconditional,  with  no  reserve 
behind.  That  was  forgiving  and  forgetting. 

To  conclude.  Forgiveness  is  the  work  of  a  long  life  to 
learn.  This  was  at  the  close  of  Joseph's  life.  He  would  not 
have  forgiven  them  in  youth — not  when  the  smart  was  fresh 
— ere  he  saw  the  good  resulting  from  his  suffering.  But 
years,  experience,  trial,  had  softened  Joseph's  soul.  A  dun- 
geon and  a  government  had  taught  him  much;  also  his  fa- 
ther's recent  death.  Do  not  think  that  any  formula  will 
teach  this.  No  mere  maxims  got  by  heart  about  forgiveness 
of  injuries — no  texts  perpetually  on  the  tongue  will  do  this — 
God  alone  can  teach  it :  By  experience  ;  by  a  sense  of  human 
frailty ;  by  a  perception  of  "  the  soul  of  goodness  in  things 
evil ;"  by  a  cheerful  trust  in  human  nature  ;  by  a  strong  sense 
of  God's  love ;  by  long  and  disciplined  realization  of  the  aton- 
ing love  of  Christ :  only  thus  can  we  get  that  free,  manly, 
large,  princely  spirit  which  the  best  and  purest  of  all  the  pa- 
triarchs, Joseph,  exhibited  in  his  matured  manhood. 


752  A  Thanksgiving  Day. 


xvni. 
A  THANKSGIVING  DAY. 

"Afterward  Jesus  findeth  him  in  the  temple,  and  said  nnto  him,  BehoV), 
&OU  art  made  whole :  sin  no  more,  lest  a  worse  thing  come  unto  thee.  The 
man  departed,  and  told  the  Jews  that  it  was  Jesus,  which  had  made  hinj 
whole." — John  v.  14,  15. 

THE  man  to  whom  these  words  were  spoken  had  been 
lying,  only  a  few  days  before,  a  helpless,  hopeless  sufferer 
among  the  porches  of  Bethesda,  together  with  a  number  of 
others  affected  in  a  similar  manner.  By  a  singular,  unex- 
pected, and  miraculous  event,  he  was  rescued  from  his  calam- 
ity, while  the  remainder  were  left  to  the  mercies  of  public 
charity,  or  to  avail  themselves  of  the  mysterious  spring  of 
Bethesda. 

It  was  a  time  of  festival  in  Jerusalem,  the  streets  were 
probably  echoing  with  the  voice  of  mirth  and  festivity,  with 
the  sounds  of  them  that  kept  holiday :  but  it  was  to  this  con- 
gregation of  the  sick  and  the  miserable  that  the  Redeemer 
bent  his  steps;  it  was  what  might  have  been  expected  from 
the  Son  of  Man — "The  whole  need  not  a  physician,  but  they 
thr-t  are  sick."  It  was  the  office  of  the  Man  of  Sorrows  to 
ooothe  the  wretched  ;  and  of  all  the  crowded  scenes  that  day 
enacting  in  the  Holy  City,  the  "great  multitude  of  impotent 
folk,  of  blind,  halt,  withered,"  found  that  their  abode  was  the 
most  congenial  atmosphere  t<>  the  soul  of  the  Redeemer. 

And  in  all  this  we  have  but  a  miniature  representation  of 
the  world  as  it  is  now.  Jerusalem  contained  within  its  walls, 
within  its  proud  battlements,  and  amidst  its  stately  temples, 
as  much  wretchedness  and  as  much  misery,  separated  only 
by  a  thin  partition  from  its  abodes  of  luxury  and  state,  as 
our  own  metropolis  does  now.  It  is  a  miniature  representa- 
tion of  the  world  in  this,  so  full  of  outward  show  and  of  in- 
ward wretchedness.  It  is  a  representation  of  the  world  we 
live  in,  inasmuch  as  it  is  a  place  where  selfishness  prevails; 
for  there  was  affixed  a  certain  condition  to  the  healing  of  the 
spring,  that  the  man  should  be  the  first ;  if  he  were  not  the 
first,  no  miracle  took  place,  and  there  was  one  more  friend- 
less wretch. 

This  man  had  no  one  to  give  him  the  little  assistance  re- 
quired. For  thirty-eight  years  he  had  been  lingering  here, 
and  there  appeared  to  have  been  no  visitor  who  would  sup 


A  Thanksgiving  Day.  753 

ply  what  was  wanting  of  the  ties  of  blood  or  relationship. 
It  is,  I  say,  but  a  representation  of  what  this  world  is,  when 
the  love  of  God  has  not  touched  the  heart  of  man.  It  is  a 
representation  of  the  world,  too,  in  this,  that  with  suifering 
there  is  frequently  appointed  the  remedy.  The  remedy  is 
often  found  side  by  side  with  the  pain  it  may  relieve,  if  we 
could  but  make  use  of  it.  It  is  so  in  both  bodily  and  spirit- 
ual maladies — there  is  a  remedial  system,  a  pool  of  Bethesda, 
everywhere  springing  up  by  the  side  of  sin  and  suffering. 

It  is  a  representation  of  the  world,  also,  that  the  presence 
of  the  Son  of  Man  should  be  felt  rather  in  scenes  of  sorrow 
than  of  joy.  It  is  not  in  the  day  of  high  health  and  strength, 
when  our  intellect  is  powerful,  our  memory  vigorous,  when 
we  feel  strong  in.  our  integrity  and  our  courage,  but  when 
our  weakened  powers  have  made  us  feel  that  we  are  "  a 
worm  and  no  man  ;"  when  our  failing  faculties  convince  iis 
that,  except  for  our  connection  with  immortality,  our  minds 
would  be  as  nothing;  when  we  feel  temptation  getting  too 
strong  for  us,  and  that  we  are  on  the  brink  of  falling — then 
it  is  that  we  are  taught  there  is  a  strength  not  our  own,  be- 
yond any  thing  that  we  possess  of  our  own.  It  is  then  that 
the  presence  of  the  Son  of  Man  is  felt ;  then  is  the  day  of  our 
merciful  and  mysterious  deliverance. 

And  there  is  another  resemblance  to  be  noted.  The  Sa- 
viour of  the  world  went  into  the  Bethesda  porches,  and  out 
of  the  great  number  of  sufferers  he  selected  one — not  because 
of  his  superior  righteousness,  not  for  any  merit  on  his  part, 
but  for  reasons  hidden  within  His  own  Almighty  Mind.  So 
it  is  in  the  world — one  is  taken,  another  is  left ;  one  nation 
is  sterile,  another  is  fertile  ;  one  is  full  of  diseases  from  which 
another  is  exempted ;  one  man  is  surrounded  with  luxuries 
and  comforts,  another  with  every  suffering  which*  flesh  is  heir 
to.  So  much  for  the  miniature  of  the  world  exhibited  by 
the  pool  of  Bethesda. 

Now  in  connection  with  this  subject  there  are  two  branch- 
es in  which  we  will  arrange  our  observations. 

I.  The  cause  of  this  man's  disease. 
II.  The  history  of  his  gratitude. 

I.  Concerning  the  cause  of  his  disease,  we  are  not  left  in 
any  doubt,  the  Redeemer's  own  lips  have  told  us  what  it  was 
— "  Sin  no  more,  lest  a  worse  thing  come  unto  thee."  So  we 
see  there  was  a  strange  connection  between  this  bodily  mal- 
ady and  moral  evil,  a  connection  that  would  have  startled  all 
around  if  it  had  been  seen.  No  doubt  the  men  of  science, 
versed  in  the  healing  art.  would  have  found  some  cause  for 

32* 


754  A  Thanksgiving  Day. 

his  malady  connected  with  the  constitution  of  his  bodily 
frame ;  but  the  Redeemer  went  beyond  all  this.  Thirty- 
eight  years  before,  there  had  been  some  sin  committed,  pos- 
sibly a  small  sin,  in  our  eyes  at  least,  of  which  the  result  had 
been  thirty-eight  years  of  suffering ;  and  so  the  truth  we 
gather  from  this  is,  there  is  a  connection  between  physical 
and  moral  evil ;  a  connection,  my  Christian  brethren,  more 
deep  than  any  of  us  have  been  accustomed  to  believe  in. 

But  most  assuredly,  many  of  the  most  painful  forms  of  dis- 
ease that  come  upon  the  body  depend  upon  the  nervous  con- 
stitution ;  and  the  nervous  system  is  connected  inseparably 
with  the  moral  state  more  than  men  suppose.  Often  where 
we  have  been  disposed  to  refer  the  whole  to  external  causes, 
there  has  been  something  of  moral  disorder  in  the  character 
which  makes  that  constitution  exquisitely  susceptible  of  suf- 
fering and  incapable  of  enjoyment.  Every  physician  will 
tell  us  that  indulged  passions  will  lead  to  a  disturbed  state 
of  body  ;  that  want  of  self-control  in  various  ways  will  end  in 
that  wretched  state  when  the  light  that  falls  on  the  eye  inflicts 
torture,  the  sounds  that  are  heard  in  the  ear  are  all  discord, 
and  all  this  beautiful  creation,  so  formed  for  delight,  only 
ministers  to  the  sufferings  of  the  diseased  and  disorganized 
frame.  Thus  we  see  that  external  suffering  is  often  connect- 
ed with  moral  evil,  but  we  must  carefully  guard  and  modify 
this  statement,  for  this  is  not  universally  the  case  ;  and  it  is 
clear  this  was  the  Saviour's  opinion,  for  when  the  disciples 
came  to  Him  on  another  occasion  asking  whether  the  blind 
man  or  his  parents  did  sin,  He  answered  that  neither  had 
sinned,  plainly  showing  that  there  was  sometimes  physical 
suffering  for  which  there  was  no  moral  cause.  In  that  case 
it  was  not  for  his  own  sin,  or  even  that  of  others — it  baffled 
all  the  investigations  of  man  to  explain  it. 

Now,  we  must  remember  this  when  we  see  cases  of  bodily 
suffering :  we  must  consider  that  there  is  a  .great  difference 
between  the  two  senses  in  which  the  word  punishment  is 
used.  It  may  be  a  penalty,  it  may  be  a  chastisement :  one 
meaning  of  punishment  is,  that  the  law  exacts  a  penalty  if  it 
is  broken — notice  having  been  given  that  a  certain  amount 
of  suffering  would  follow  a  certain  course  of  action.  All 
the  laws  of  God,  in  the  physical  world,  in  the  moral  world, 
or  in  the  political  world,  if  broken,  commonly  entail  a  penal- 
ty. Revolutions  beset  a  nation,  shaking  its  very  founda- 
tions, owing  to  some  defects  in  the  justice  or  wisdom  of  its 
government,  and  we  can  not  say  that  all  this  comes  from  the 
dust,  or  springs  out  of  the  ground.  There  are  causes  in  the 
history  of  past  events  that  will  account  for  it.  The  philo- 


A  Thanksgiving  Day.  755 

sophical  historian  of  future  years  will  show  the  results  of. 
some  political  mistake,  continued  perhaps  for  centuries,  by 
the  rulers  of  this  nation.  So  in  the  moral  and  in  the  physi- 
cal world  there  are  laws,  as  it  were,  that  execute  themselves. 
If  a  man  eat  a  deleterious  herb,  whether  he  does  it  willing- 
ly or  unconsciously,  the  penalty  will  fall  on  his  body.  If  a 
man  touch  the  lightning-conductor,  not  knowing  that  the  air 
is  charged  with  electricity,  no  holiness  on  his  part  will  pre- 
vent the  deadly  stroke.  But  there  is  another  kind  of  law, 
written  in  the  hearts  of  men,  and  given  to  the  conscience, 
when  the  penalty  is  awarded  as  the  result  of  moral  trans- 
gression, and  then  it  becomes  a  chastisement,  and  the  lan- 
guage of  Scripture  then  becomes  the  language  of  our  hearts. 
It  is  the  rod  of  God  that  hath  done  all  this. 

There  is  another  thing  that  we  must  bear  in  mind,  that 
there  are  certain  evils  which  fall  upon  man  over  which  he 
can  have  no  control.  They  come  as  the  result  of  circum- 
stances over  which  he  has  no  power  whatever.  So,  we  read 
in  the  Second  book  of  Kings,  the  child  of  the  Shunammite 
went  out  amongst  the  reapers ;  he  was  suddenly  seized  with 
a  deadly  pain  in  his  head,  was  taken  to  his  mother,  sate  upon 
her  lap,  and  died  at  noon.  A  sunstroke  had  struck  that 
child ;  but  to  say  that  from  any  fault  of  his  he  was  selected 
as  the  object  of  suffering,  when  the  rest  of  the  reapers  were 
spared,  would  be  as  unjust  as  to  say  that  those  upon  whom 
the  Tower  of  Siloam  fell  were  sinners  above  all  the  Gali- 
leans. 

Moreover,  to  understand  this  we  must  recollect  that  the 
laws  of  God  and  the  penalties  of  God  are  not  miracles.  If 
the  penalty  comes  as  the  consequence  appointed  by  God 
Himself,  to  follow  certain  sins,  it  is  a  natural  punishment,  but 
if  it  comes  with  no  connection,  it  is  then  an  arbitrary  punish- 
ment. So,  if  a  man  educates  a  child  ill,  and  he  turns  out  a 
bad  man,  there  is  the  natural  connection  between  the  penalty 
arid  the  guilt.  But  if  a  man,  pursuing  his  journey,  is  struck 
with  lightning,  there  is  no  penalty  there.  Now,  in  the  Old 
Testament  we  find  a  natural  punishment  falling  on  Eli.  He 
allowed  his  children  to  grow  up  without  correction,  and  the 
contempt  and  scorn  of  the  whole  nation  fell  upon  that  family, 
and  the  father  actually  died  in  consequence  of  the  shock  of 
his  children's  misconduct.  But  if  the  father  had  died  in  bat- 
tle, or  by  an  accident,  then  it  would  have  been  unjust  to  say 
that  there  was  any  connection  between  his  misconduct  and  his 
sudden  death ;  it  would  have  been  an  arbitrary  connection. 

The  punishments  of  God  are  generally  not  arbitrary :  each 
Jaw,  as  it  were,  inflicts  its  own  penalty.  It  does  not  execute 


756  A  Thanksgiving  Day. 

one  that  belongs  to  another.  So,  if  the  drunkard  lead  a  life 
of  intoxication,  the  consequence  will  be  a  trembling  hand 
and  a  nervous  frame  ;  but  if  he  be  drowned  in  the  seas  when 
sailing  in  the  storm,  he  is  punished  for  having  broken  a  natu- 
ral law,  not  a  moral  law  of  God.  Let  us  then  bear  in  mind 
that  if  the  ship  convey  across  the  ocean  the  heavenly-mind- 
>ed  missionary  and  the  scoffing  infidel,  if  the  working  of  the 
vessel  be  attended  to,  and  there  is  nothing  unusual  in  the 
winds  and  the  waves,  they  will  convey  the  one  to  his  desti- 
nation as  safely  as  the  other. 

Now,  the  application  we  must  make  of  all  this  is,  if  a  man 
perish  when  out  on  a  sabbath-day,  we  have  no  right  to  say 
that  he  dies  because  he  has  broken  the  sabbath.  If  famine 
or  pestilence  visit  the  land,  it  may  be  explained  by  the  in- 
fringement of  some  of  God's  natural  laws;  the  earth  may 
not  be  rightly  cultivated,  sanitary  means  have  not  been 
taken  to  stop  the  pestilence ;  but  we  have  no  right  to  say 
that  they  come  in  consequence  of  political  relations  which 
are  not  to  our  mind,  or  of  regulations  of  policy  of  which  we 
disapprove. 

There  is  one  thing  more.  It  is  perfectly  possible  that 
transgressions  against  the  natural  laws  of  God  may,  in  the 
end,  become  trespasses  against  His  moral  law,  and  then  the 
penalty  becomes  chastisement.  The  first  man  that  drank  the 
fermented  juice  of  the  grape  was  perfectly  innocent,  even  if 
it  caused  intoxication  ;  but  when  he  found  how  it  affected 
his  brain,  it  became  sin  to  him  thenceforward.  The  first 
time  that  a  man  enters  into  society  which  he  finds  hurtful 
to  his  religious  feelings,  he  may  have  done  it  innocently ; 
but  when  he  sees  how  it  lowers  the  tone  of  his  character,  he 
must  mingle  amongst  them  no  more.  So  want  of  cleanli- 
ness in  some  Alpine  regions  may  result  from  ignorance  of 
the  laws  of  nature  ;  but  when,  in  more  crowded  populations, 
it  is  ascertained  that  it  is  productive  of  disease,  and  injurious 
to  those  around  them,  then  the  infraction  of  the  natural  law 
is  stigmatized  as  a  higher  degree  of  turpitude.  That  which 
was  a  penalty  becomes  something  more  of  chastisement  from 
the  wrath  of  God.  So  it  is  that  science  goes  on  enlighten- 
ing men  more  and  more  as  to  the  laws  of  God's  physical 
world,  and  telling  them  what  they  must  and  what  they  must 
net  do,  in  order  to  lessen  the  amount  of  bodily  suffering 
around  us. 

My  Christian  brethren,  we  have  spoken  of  these  things  at 
some  length,  because  all  these  considerations  have  been 
brought  into  our  view  by  that  pestilence,*  from  which  w« 
*  The  cholera. 


A  Thanksgiving  Day.  757 

celebrate  our  deliverance  this  day ;  partly  the  result  of 
causes  over  which  man  has  no  control,  and  partly  the  result 
of  the  disregard  of  natural  laws ;  partly,  also,  from  the  pres- 
ence of  moral  evil  amongst  us.  That  these  three  distinct 
classes  of  causes  have  been  present  may  be  proved  by  trac- 
ing its  history.  They  who  have  made  it  their  duty  to  trace 
out  its  progress  tell  us  that  its  origin  was  in  1818,  in  Bengal, 
when  it  arose  during  the  overflow  of  the  River  Ganges  ;  and 
then,  dividing  into  two  streams  of  pestilence  and  death,  it 
passed  through  the  world ;  one  going  to  the  east,  the  other 
to  the  west.  The  eastern  current  passed  on  till  it  reached 
the  shores  of  China ;  the  western  moved  slowly  on  with  gi- 
gantic tread,  decimating  nations  as  it  went,  cutting  off  nine 
thousand  of  the  British  army ;  and  passing  through  Persia 
and  Arabia,  it  destroyed  twelve  thousand  of  the  pilgrims  to 
Mecca,  till  it  paused  mysteriously  and  strangely  on  the  very 
verge  of  Europe — as  if  the  voice  of  God  himself  had  said, 
"There  is  danger  near  ;  set  thine  house  in  order."  By  1830 
it  had  reached  the  metropolis  of  Russia.  In  1831  it  was 
doing  its  dreadful  work  in  our  own  capital,  while  eighteen 
thousand  fell  in  Paris  alone ;  and  it  then  passed  on,  as  a 
winged  messenger,  across  the  ocean  to  America. 

There  was  then  a  strange  disappearance  of  the  pestilence 
for  four  or  five  years,  till  1837,  when  it  appeared  first  in  the 
southern  parts  of  Europe,  and  gradually  rolled  its  relentless 
course  onward  to  our  shores.  In  all  this  you  will  perceive 
something  over  which  we  have  no  control.  It  has  pursued 
its  way  not  guided  by  moral  evil  or  by  physical  causes,  but 
by  some  cause,  explain  it  as  you  will — as  electricity,  or  any 
other  conjecture — it  is  one  that  baffles  every  effort  to  stay 
its  progress.  It  has  taken  the  same  road,  too,  that  it  took 
on  its  former  visitation.  The  common  food  of  man  seems 
changed  into  something  poisonous,  the  very  air  is  charged 
with  contagion  ;  every  thing  proclaims  it  as  a  visitation  from 
the  Almighty.  And  in  the  very  character  of  the  disease 
there  is  something  that  marks  it  out  from  all  other  diseases: 
it  has  been  truly  said,  that  in  its  worst  cases  there  is  but  one 
symptom,  and  that  one  is  death.  A  man  is  full  of  health 
and  strength,  and  in  two  hours  he  is  gone.  It  is  a  disease 
which  in  its  best  form  is  terrific.  That  being  who  just  now 
stood  before  you  in  perfect  health,  is  in  a  moment  a  cold, 
livid,  convulsed  mass  of  humanity,  fighting  with  the  foe 
that  threatens  to  overcome  him. 

But  yet  we  find,  in  spite  of  all  this,  that  in  the  progress  of 
this  strange  disease,  great  mistakes  have  been  made  by  man. 
From  the  circumstance  of  the  poorer  classes  being  the  chief 


758  A  Thanksgiving  Day. 

sufferers,  they  fancied  that  it  was  inflicted  by  the  higher; 
and, in  some  places  they  rose  against  them,  accusing  them  of 
poisoning  the  wells.  And  we  find  Christians  so  mistaken  as 
to  look  on  all  this  suffering,  not  as  the  natural  connection 
between  sin  and  its  penalty,  but  as  having  some  arbitrary 
connection  with  the  sin  of  others,  from  which  they  them- 
selves and  their  own  party  are  free. 

But,  in  the  next  place,  we  find  that  it  really  has  been 
caused  in  some  degree  by  the  transgression  of  the  laws  of 
nature  ;  for  whatever  may  have  been  the  secret  origin  of  the 
disease,  whatever  may  be  the  mystery  of  its  onward  course, 
still  we  know  that  there  are  certain  conditions  usually  neces- 
sary to  make  it  destructive.  So  we  find  that  in  India  it  was 
the  natives  who  for  the  most  part  suffered,  those  whose  con- 
stitutions had  less  stamina  than  our  own.  And  here  we  see 
that  debility  produced  by  over-work,  bad  air,  crowded  dwell- 
ings, have  been  the  predisposing  causes ;  and  this  tells  us, 
if  ever  visitation  could  speak,  that  affliction  cometh  not  out 
of  the  dust,  neither  does  sorrow  spring  from  the  ground.  It 
has  no  direct  connection  with  moral  character,  except  on  pe- 
culiar points.  Place  a  worldly  man  and  a  holy  man  in  tiie 
same  unfavorable  circumstances  for  receiving  the  disorder, 
and  you  will  not  find  the  one  has  any  charm  to  escape  the 
fate  of  the  other. 

But  we  do  find  that  this  disease  is  increased  and  propa- 
gated by  human  selfishness.  We  read  of  the  crowds  at 
Bethesda,  of  whom  it  was  said,  there  was  no  man  to  put 
them  into  the  water ;  and  so  it  is  now.  The  poor,  the  helpless, 
the  neglected,  have  been  the  chief  sufferers.  Out  of  two  hun- 
dred and  forty-three  who  in  this  place  have  suffered  from  that 
and  similar  causes,  one  hundred  and  sixty-three  were  re- 
ceiving parish  relief.  And  in  this  there  is  something  that 
tells  us  not  merely  of  ignorance,  but  of  selfishness  ;  for  when 
commissioners  went  through  the  length  and  breadth  of  the 
country  to  examine  into  the  statistics  of  the  disease,  we  were 
met  by  the  startling  fact  that  medical  science,  that  careful 
nursing,  could  do  nothing  while  our  crowded  graveyards,  our 
teeming  and  airless  habitations,  our  worn-out  and  unhealthy 
population,  received  and  propagated  the  miasma  ;  and  ev-ry 
time  that  a  man  in  the  higher  classes  perished,  it  was  as  if 
the  poor  neglected  man  had  spoken  from  the  grave ;  or,  as 
if  God  himself  had  been  heard  to  speak  through  him.  He 
seems  to  say,  "  I  can  prove  to  you  now  my  relationship. 
You  can  receive  evil  from  me,  if  nothing  else  has  ever  passed 
between  us  ;  the  same  constitution,  the  same  flesh  and  blood, 
the  same  frame  were  once  ours ;  and  if  I  can  do  it  in  no  oth 


A  Thanksgiving  Day.  759 

et  way,  I  can  prove,  by  infecting  you,  that  I  am  your  broth 
er  still." 

Once  more :  it  has  been  produced  in  a  degree  by  moral 
evil ;  vice  has  been  as  often  the  predisposing  cause  as  any 
other  external  circumstance,  in  certain  cases.  I  say  in  cer- 
tain cases,  not  in  all.  A  man  might  have  been  a  blasphem- 
er, or  a  slanderer,  but  neither  of  these  sins  would  affect 
him  ;  but  those  sins  which  are  connected  with  the  flesh,  sen' 
suality,  drunkenness,  gradually  pervade  the  human  frame, 
and  fit  it  for  the  reception  of  this  disease. 

II.  But  we  will  pass  on  to  consider  the  history  of  this 
man's  recovery,  and  of  his  gratitude.  The  first  cause  for 
gratitude  was  his  selection.  He  alone  was  taken,  and  others 
were  left.  He  had  cause  for  gratitude,  also,  in  that  he  had 
been  taught  the  connection  between  moral  evil  and  its  pen- 
alty. He  had  been  taught  the  certainty  of  God's  laws,  how 
they  execute  themselves,  and,  more  blessed  than  all,  he  had 
been  taught  that  there  was  a  Personal  Superintendence  over 
all  the  children  of  men.  The  relief  had  come  from  the  per- 
sonal interposition  of  the  Son  of  Man.  He  went  and  told  the 
Jews  that  it  was  Jesus  who  had  done  this.  And  this  ex- 
plains to  us  the  meaning  and  the  necessity  of  a  public  ac- 
knowledgment of  our  gratitude.  It  is  meant  to  show  this 
nation  that  it  is  not  by  chance,  nor  by  the  operation  of 
science,  nor  by  the  might  of  man,  that  we  have  been  rescued, 
but  that  our  deliverance  comes  direct  from  God. 

Let  us  observe  the  popular  account  (for  John  gives  us  the 
popular  account)  of  the  angel  troubling  the  water.  It  mat- 
ters not  whether  it  is  scientifically  to  be  proved  or  not,  the 
secret  causes  lie  hid  beyond  our  investigation  ;  but  this  you 
can  observe,  that  it  was  a  religious  act,  that  it  was  not  done 
by  chance,  that  there  were  living  agents  in  the  healing  pro- 
cess. The  man  of  science  in  the  present  day  would  tell  you 
what  were  the  ingredients  in  the  spring — how  it  told  on  the 
cellular  tissue,  or  on  the  nervous  fabric ;  but  whatever  he 
may  make  of  it  scientifically,  it  is  true  morally  and  relig- 
iously ;  for  what  is  every  remedy  but  the  angel,  the  messen- 
ger of  God  sent  down  from  the  Father  of  all  mercy,  the 
Fountain  of  all  goodness  ?  So  when  we  celebrate  a  day  of 
national  thanksgiving,  it  is  but  the  nation's  voice,  arising  in 
acknowledgment  of  a  Parent's  protection — that  these  things 
come  not  by  chance,  but  that  there  is  personal  superintend- 
ence over  this  world,  and  this  deliverance  is  the  proof  of  a 
Father's  love. 

Once  more  :  a  day  of  thanksgiving  is  meant  to  be  a  wan* 


760  A  Thanksgiving  Day. 

ing  and  a  reminder  against  future  sins.  "  Sin  no  more,  lest 
a  worse  thing  come  unto  thee."  And  it  has  ever  been  so, 
that  the  result  of  panic  has  been  reaction.  After  excitement 
comes  apathy ;  after  terror  has  been  produced,  by  danger 
especially,  comes  indifference,  and  therefore  comes  the  warn- 
ing voice  from  the  Redeemer — "Sin  no  more,  lest  a  worse 
thing  come  unto  thee." 

But  we  may  perhaps  say,  "J!///  sin  did  not  produce  this 
disease.  It  was  no  doing — no  fault  of  mine ;  it  came  from 
causes  beyond  my  control.  The  pestilence  now  has  wreaked 
its  vengeance  ;  I  find  I  had  nothing  to  do  with  it,  and  I  may- 
dismiss  the  subject  from  my  mind."  My  brethren,  let  us 
look  into  this  a  little  more  deeply.  It  was  not  directly  your 
sin  that  nailed  your  Redeemer  to  the  cross,  but  the  sin  of 
the  cruel  Pharisees,  of  the  relentless  multitude  ;  yet  it  is 
said,  "The  Lord  hath  laid  on  Him  the  iniquity  of  us  all."  It 
arises  all  from  this  circumstance,  brethren — there  are  two 
worlds,  a  world  of  evil  and  a  world  of  good.  The  Son  of 
Man  came  as  the  perfect  and  entire  representation  of  the 
kingdom  of  holiness.  He  came  in  collision  with  the  world 
of  evil ;  He  died  for  sinners — for  the  sins  of  others — of  all 
who  partake  of  the  nature  of  moral  evil :  and  therefore  by 
their  sin  they  nailed  the  Redeemer  to  the  cross.  All  those 
who  opposed  themselves  to  Jesus  would  have  opposed  them- 
selves to  Moses,  Zacharias,  and  Abel ;  they  allowed  the  deeds 
of  their  fathers,  and  were  partakers  of  the  blood  of  all  the 
prophets  that  had  been  slain  upon  the  earth. 

The  men  who  join  in  a  crowd,  aiding  and  abetting  the 
death  of  any  individual,  by  the  law  of  every  country  are 
held  guilty;  and  now,  though  there  may  have  been  no  dis- 
tinct act  of  selfishness  by  which  any  man  has  perished  at 
your  hands;  though  there  have  been  no  distinct  want  of 
care  for  the  poor — still  I  may  fearlessly  ask  you  all,  Christian 
brethren,  does  not  your  conscience  tell  you  how  little  the 
welfare  and  the  comfort  of  others  has  been  in  your  thoughts? 
As  far  as  we  have  taken  a  part  in  the  world's  selfishness ;  as  far 
as  we  have  lived  for  self  and  not  for  our  neighbors ;  as  far 
as  we  have  forgotten  the  poor  sufferers  lying  in  the  porches 
af  Bethesda — not  directly,  but  indirectly,  all  that  has  fallen 
upon  this  land  may  have  been  sent  as  a  chastisement  to  us. 

And  there  is  this  to  be  explained — "  Sin  no  more ;"  mean- 
ing apparently,  that  if  a  man  did  not  sin,  nothing  more 
would  happen.  Are  we  to  understand,  then,  that  if  a  man 
has  been  blameless  he  will  never  suffer  from  sorrow  or  sick- 
ness? or  that  if  a  man  will  avoid  sin,  he  will  never  be  visit' 
ed  by  death  ?  To  have  said  that  would  have  been  to  contra 


Christian  Friendship.  761 

diet  the  history  of  the  Redeemer's  own  life  and  death.  He 
died,  though  He  sinned  not.  How  then,  brethren,  can  we 
understand  it?  Why,  we  can  understand  it  but  in  this  way, 
by  recalling  to  our  memory  what  has  been  already  said  of 
the  difference  between  the  punishment  and  the  penalty.  If 
a  man  live  a  humble  and  holy  life  in  Christ  Jesus,  there  is  no 
promise  that  if  plague  visits  his  land  it  shall  not  come  nigh 
him.  Live  in  purity,  live  in  unselfishness;  there  is  no 
promise  that  you  shall  not  be  cut  down  in  a  day ;  there  is 
nothing  in  religion  that  can  shield  you  from  what  the  world 
calls  trouble — from  penalty ;  but  there  is  this — that  which 
would  have  been  chastisement  is  changed  into  penalty. 

The  Redeemer  suffered  death  as  a  penalty ;  but  by  no 
means  as  chastisement ;  on  the  contrary,  it  was  the  richest 
blessing  which  a  Father's  love  could  bestow  upon  His  well- 
beloved  Son,  in  whom  He  was  well  pleased.  So  it  will  be 
with  every  one  of  us.  He  who  lives  to  God,  rests  in  his  Re- 
deemer's love,  and  is  trying  to  get  rid  of  his  old  nature — to 
him  every  sorrow,  every  bereavement,  every  pain,  will  come 
eharged  with  blessings,  and  death  itself  will  be  no  longer  the 
king  of  terrors,  but  the  messenger  of  grace,  the  very  angel 
of  God  descending  on  the  troubled  waters,  and  calling  him 
to  his  Father's  home. 


XIX. 
CHRISTIAN  FRIENDSHIP. 

"Then  they  that  feared  the  Lord  spake  often  one  to  another:  and  the 
Lord  hearkened,  and  heard  it,  and  a  book  of  remembrance  was  written  before 
him  for  them  that  feared  the  Lord,  and  that  thought  upon  his  name." — 
Mai.  iii.  16. 

THE  first  division  of  our  subject  is  suggested  by  the  word 
"  then."  When  ?  They  did  thus  in  the  times  of  Malachi. 
It  is  only  in  reference  to  those  times  that  we  can  extract  the 
true  lesson  from  the  conduct  of  the  holy  men  whose  behav- 
ior he  praises.  We  will  consider — 

I.  The  times  of  Malachi. 
II.  The  patience  of  the  saints  in  evil  times. 

I.  Not  much  is  known  of  the  Prophet  Malachi,  or  his  exact 
date.  We  are  sure,  however,  that  he  was  the  last  prophet 
of  the  old  dispensation.  He  lived  somewhere  between  the 
restoration  from  captivity  and  the  coming  of  Christ. 


762  Christian  Friendship. 

Thus  much  we  know  of  those  times  from  history :  The 
Jews  were  restored.  From  chap,  iii.,  ver.  1 0,  we  learn  that  the 
Temple  had  been  rebuilt.  But  Israel's  grandeur  was  gone, 
although  still  enjoying  outward  prosperity.  The  nation  had 
sunk  into  a  state  of  political  degradation,  and  had  become 
successively  subject  to  the  Persians,  Syrians,  Romans.  It  is 
precisely  that  political  state  in  wrhich  national  virtues  do  not 
thrive,  and  national  decay  is  sure.  *  *  *  * 

Italy — Spain. 

They  had  a  glorious  past.  They  had  the  enlightenment  of 
a  present  high  civilization.  But  with  this  there  was  a  want 
of  unity,  manhood,  and  simple  virtues.  There  was  just  suf- 
ficient gallingness  in  the  yoke  to  produce  faction  and  sullen- 
ness  ;  but  not  enough  curtailment  of  all  physical  comforts 
to  rouse  the  nation  as  one  man  to  reconquer  freedom.  It 
was  a  state  in  which  there  was  no  visible  Divine  interfer- 
ence. 

Compare  this  period  of  Israel's  history  with  all  wrhich  had 
preceded  it.  These  four  hundred  years  belong  to  profane 
history.  The  writings  of  that  period  are  not  reckoned  in- 
spired, so  widely  do  they  differ  from  the  Scripture  tone. 
There  were  no  prophets,  no  flood  of  light,  "  no  open  vision." 
The  Word  of  God  was  precious  as  in  that  time  between  the 
death  of  Joshua  and  the  calling  of  Samuel.*  Except  this  soli 
tary  voice,  prophecy  had  hushed  her  harp. 

Now,  what  was  given  to  Israel  in  that  period  ? 

I  reply,  retrospect,  pause,  and  prospect. 

Retrospect,  in  the  sublime  past  which  God  had  given  her 
for  her  experience.  "  They  have  Moses  and  the  prophets,  let 
them  hear  them."  On  them  they  were  to  live — their  nation's 
sacred  history ;  God's  guidance  and  faithfulness ;  the  sure 
truth  that  obedience  was  best. 

Prospect,  in  the  expectation  of  better  times. 

Dim,  vague  hints  of  the  Old  Testament  had  pointed  them 
to  a  coming  revelation — a  day  in  which  God  should  be  near- 
er to  them,  in  which  society  should  be  more  pure.  An  ad- 
vent, in  short. 

And  between  these  two  there  was  a,  pause. 

They  were  left  by  God  to  use  the  grace  and  knowledge  al« 
ready  given  by  Him. 

Now  this  is  parallel  to  God's  usual  modes  of  dealing.  Foi 
example,  the  pause  of  four  hundred  years  in  the  land  of 
Egypt,  between  the  bright  days  when  Abraham  talked  with 
God,  and  the  deliverance  by  Moses. 

The  pause  in  Canaan  when  the  Israelitish  commonwealth 
*  Four  hundred  and  thirty-one  years. 


Christian  Friendship.  763 

was  left,  like  a  building,  to  settle  down  before  being  built 
higher,  between  the  times  of  Joshua  and  of  Samuel. 

The  pause  in  the  captivity,  and  now  again  a  pause. 

A  pause  after  each  revelation  until  the  next. 

So,  in  the  natural  world.  Just  as  in  summer  there  is  a 
gush  of  nature's  forces  and  a  shooting  forth;  and  then  the 
long  autumn  and  winter,  in  which  is  no  growth,  but  an  op- 
portunity, taught  by  past  experience,  for  the  husbandman  to 
manure  his  ground,  and  sow  his  seed,  and  to  wait  for  a  new 
outpouring  of  life  upon  the  world. 

And  just  as  in  human  life,  between  its  marked  lessons 
there  is  a  pause,  in  which  we  live  upon  past  experience — 
looking  back  and  looking  on.  Experience  and  hope,  that  is 
human  life :  as  in  youth,^  expecting  manhood,  and  then  look- 
ing for  future  changes  in  our  condition,  character,  so  in  all 
God's  revelation  system  there  have  been  periods  of  "  open 
vision,"  and  periods  of  pause — waiting ;  when  men  are  left 
to  experience  and  hope. 

It  is  in  vain  that  we  have  studied  God's  Word  if  we  do 
not  perceive  that  our  own  day  and  circumstances  are  parallel 
with  those  of  the  prophet  MalachL  We  live  in  the  world's 
fourth  great  pause. 

Miracles  have  ceased.  Prophecy  is  silent.  The  Son  of 
God  is  ascended.  Apostles  are  no  longer  here  to  apply  in- 
fallible judgment  to  each  new  circumstance  as  it  arises,  as 
St.  Paul  did  to  the  state  of  the  Corinthian  Church. 

But  we  are  left  to  the  great  Gospel  principles  which  have 
been  already  given,  and  which  are  to  be  our  food  till  the 
next  flood  of  God's  Spirit,  the  next  revelation — that  which 
the  Scripture  calls  "  the  second  advent." 

And  the  parallel  holds  in  another  respect.  The  Jews  had 
but  undefined  hints  of  that  which  was  to  be.  Yet  they  knew 
the  general  outlines  and  character  of  the  coming  time ;  they 
knew  that  it  would  be  a  searching  time,  it  was  to  be  the 
"  Refiner's  "  day ;  they  knew  that  He  should  turn  the  hearts 
of  the  fathers  to  the  children :  and  they  knew  that  the  mes- 
senger age  must  be  preceded  by  a  falling  back  on  simpler 
life,  and  a  return  to  first  principles,  as  Malachi  had  predicted, 
and  as  John  the  Baptist  called  them  to.  They  knew  that  it 
was  an  age  in  which  the  true  sacrifice  would  be  offered. 

And  so  now — we  know  not  yet  what  shall  be  ;  "  but  we 
know  that  when  He  shall  appear  we  shall  be  like  Him,  for 
"ve  shall  see  Him  as  he  is."  "  And  every  man  that  hath  this 
nope  in  Him  purifieth  himself." 

We  know  that  it  will  be  the  union  of  the  human  race— 
they  will  be  "onefold"  , 


764  Christian  Friendship. 

This  is  the  outline  and  character  of  the  revelation ;  and 
we  may  work,  at  least,  towards  it.  "  Ye  are  not  in  darkness, 
that  that  day  should  overtake  you  as  a  thief.  Ye  are  all  the 
children  of  the  light,  and  the  children  of  the  day."  "  Where- 
fore comfort  yourselves  together,  and  edify  one  another,  even 
as  also  ye  do."  To  strive  after  personal  purity  and  attempt 
at  producing  unity,  that  is  our  work. 

We  rest  on  that  we  have,  and  hope  for  that  we  see  not. 
And  only  for  the  glimpse  that  hope  gives  us  of  that,  is  life 
worth  having. 

II.  Let  us  consider  the  conduct  of  different  classes  in  these 
evil  times. 

1.  Some  lived  recklessly. 

Foremost  among  these  were  the  priests,  as  has  been  al- 
ways found  in  evil  times.  The  riot  of  a  priest  is  worse  than 
that  of  the  laity.  Mutual  corruption.  Against  the  priests 
Malacbi's  denunciations  are  chiefly  directed. 

He  speaks  of  the  profanation  of  the  sacred  places  (chap. 
i.  6,  7).  Of  sacrifice  degraded  (ver.  12,  13).  Vice  honored 
(chap.  ii.  ]  7).  In  that  they  called  good  evil  and  evil  good. 
By  these  men  belief  in  God  was  considered  ridiculous. 

And  then  it  was  that  one  of  those  glorious  promises  was 
made,  to  be  fulfilled  in  after-times.  Malachi  foresaw  that 
the  Gentiles  would  take  up  the  neglected  service  (chap.  i.  10. 
11),  and  the  vision  of  a  universal  kingdom  of  God  became 
the  comfort  of  the  faithful  few. 

2.  Others  lived  uselessly,  because  despondingly. 

The  languor  and  despair  of  their  hearts  is  read  in  the 
words  (chap.  iii.  14,  15);  and  indeed  it  is  not  surprising:  to 
what  point  could  good  men  look  with  satisfaction  ?  The  na- 
tion was  enslaved,  and  worse — they  had  become  slaves  in 
spirit.  Their  ancient  purity  was  gone.  The  very  priests 
had  become  atheists.  Where  was  the  promise  of  His  coming? 
Such,  too,  is  the  question  of  these  latter  times.  And  our  re- 
ply is  from  past  experience. 

That  dark  day  passed,  and  a  glorious  revelation  dawned 
on  the  world.  From  what  has  been,  we  justly  infer  what 
will  be.  Promises  fulfilled  are  a  ground  of  hope  for  those 
yet  unfulfilled.  Where  is  the  promise  now  of  holier  times  ? 
Yes,  but  remember  the  question  seemed  to  be  just  as  unan- 
answerable  then;  it  was  just  as  unanswerable  in  the  days  of 
the  Judges,  and  in  the  captivity  in  Egypt  and  in  Babylon. 

This  "Scripture  was  written  for  our  admonition,  on  whom 
the  ends  of  the  world  are  come."  Then  the  consolation  of 
St.  Peter  becomes  intelligible,  "  We  have  a  more  sure  word 


Christian  Friendship.  765 

of  prophecy ;  whereunto  ye  do  well  that  ye  take  heed,  as 
unto  a  light  that  shineth  in  a  dark  place,  until  the  day  dawn, 
and  the  day-star  arise  in  your  hearts." 

3.  But  in  these  evil  times  there  were  a  few  who  com- 
pared with  one  another  their  hopes,  and  sought  strength  in 
Christian  communion  and  fellowship.  Of  them  the  text 
speaks. 

This  communion  of  saints  is  twofold :  it  includes  church 
fellowship  and  personal  friendships. 

It  is  plain  that  from  church  fellowship  they  could  gain  lit- 
tle in  those  days.  Unity  there  was  not,  but  only  disunion. 
Over  that  state  Malachi  lamented  in  that  touching  appeal— 
"  Have  we  not  all  one  Father  ?  hath  not  one  God  created  us  ? 
why  do  we  deal  treacherously  every  man  against  his  brother, 
by  profaning  the  covenant  of  our  fathers  ?"  Israel  had  for- 
gotten that  she  was  a  family. 

And  it  is  true  that  in  our  day  church  fellowship  is  almost 
only  a  name.  The  Christianity  of  the  nation  does  not  bind 
us  as  individuals.  Well — does  the  Church  ?  Are  there  many 
traces  of  a  common  feeling?  When  church  privileges  are 
insisted  on  to  produce  unity,  do  they  not  produce  division? 
Are  not  these  words  of  the  prophet  true  of  us  ?  Where  are 
the  traces  ot  Christian  brotherhood  ? 

Here — in  this  town  ?  here — in  this  congregation  ?  at  the 
holy  supper  which  we  join  in  to-day?  Shall  we  meet  to  get 
private  good,  or  to  feel  we  are  partakers  of  the  same  Body 
and  the  same  Blood  ?  Therefore  to  insist  on  church  union 
as  the  remedy  would  be  to  miss  the  special  meaning  of  this 
verse.  The  malady  of  our  disunion  has  gone  too  deep  to  be 
cured  by  you  or  me. 

We  will  consider  it,  therefore,  in  reference  to  Christian 
friendship.  We  find  that  within  the  outward  Jewish  Church 
there  was  an  inner  circle,  knit  together  by  closer  bonds  than 
circumcision  or  the  passover — by  a  union  of  religious  sym- 
pathies. "  Then  they  that  feared  the  Lord  spoke  often  one 
to  another:"  they  "  thought  upon  His  name." 

Let  us  consider  the  blessing  of  Christian  friendship.  It 
euch  times  it  discharges  a  double  office. 

1.  For  the  interchange  of  Christian  hope  and  Christian 
feeling.     It  is  dreary  to  serve  God  alone ;  it  is  desolate  to 
have  no  one  in  our  own  circle  or  family  from  whom  we  can 
receive  sympathy  in  our  hopes.     Hopes  die. 

2.  It  is  a  mighty  instrument  in  guarding  against  tempta 
tion.     It  is  a  safeguard,  in  the  way  of  example,  and  also  as  a 
standard   of  opinion.     We  should  become  tainted   by  the 
world  if  it  were  not  for  Christian  friends. 


766  Reconciliation  by  Christ. 

In  conclusion,  cultivate  familiar  intimacy  only  with  those 
who  love  good  and  God. 

Doubtless  there  are  circumstances  which  determine  inti- 
macies, such  as  rank,  station,  similarity  of  tastes.  But  one 
thing  must  be  paramount  to  and  modify  them  all — com- 
munion in  God.  Not  in  a  sectarian  spirit.  We  are  not  to 
form  ourselves  into  a  party  with  those  who  think  as  we  do, 
and  use  the  formulas  that  we  do.  But  the  spirit  of  the  text 
requires  us  to  feel  strongly  that  there  is  a  mighty  gulf  be- 
tween those  who  love  and  those  who  do  not  love  God.  To 
the  one  class  we  owe  civility,  courtesy,  kindness,  even  tender- 
ness. It  is  only  those  who  love  the  Lord  who  should  find  in 
our  hearts  a  home. 


XX. 
RECONCILIATION  BY  CHRIST. 

"And  you,  that  were  sometime  alienated  and  enemies  in  your  mind  by 
wicked  works,  yet  now  hath  he  reconciled." — Col.  i.  21. 

THERE  are  two,  and  only  two  kinds  of  goodness  possible : 
the  one  is  the  goodness  of  those  who  have  never  erred ;  the 
other  is  the  goodness  of  those  who,  having  erred,  have  been 
recovered  from  their  error.  The  first  is  the  goodness  of  those 
who  have  never  offended ;  the  second  is  the  goodness  of  those 
who,  having  offended,  have  been  reconciled.  In  the  infinite 
possibilities  of  God's  universe,  it  may  be  that  there  are  some 
who  have  attained  the  first  of  these  kinds  of  righteousness. 
It  may  be  that  amongst  the  heavenly  hierarchies  there  are 
those  who  have  kept  their  first  estate,  whose  performances 
have  been  commensurate  with  their  aspirations,  who  have 
never  known  the  wretchedness,  and  misery,  and  degradation 
of  a  Fall.  But  whether  it  be  so  or  not  is  a  matter  of  no* 
practical  importance  to  us.  It  may  be  a  question  specula- 
tively  interesting,  but  it  is  practically  useless,  for  it  is  plain 
that  such  righteousness  never  can  be  ours.  The  only  religion 
possible  to  man  is  the  religion  of  penitence.  The  righteous- 
ness of  man  can  not  be  the  integrity  of  the  virgin  citadel 
which  has  never  admitted  the  enemy ;  it  can  never  be  more 
than  the  integrity  of  the  city  which  has  been  surprised  and 
roused,  and  which,  having  expelled  the  invader  with  blood 
in  the  streets,  has  suffered  great  inward  loss. 

Appointed  to  these  two  kinds  of  righteousness  there  are 


Reconciliation  by  Christ.  767 

two  kinds  of  happiness.  To  the  first  is  attached  the  blessing 
of  entire  ignorance  of  the  stain,  pollution,  and  misery  of  guilt 
— a  blessed  happiness :  but  it  may  be  that  it  is  not  the  great- 
est. To  the  happiness  resulting  from  the  other  is  added  a 
greater  strength  of  emotion ;  it  may  not  have  the  calmness 
and  "peace  of  the  first,  but,  perhaps,  in  point  of  intensity  and 
fullness  it  is  superior.  It  may  be  that  the  highest  happiness 
can  only  be  purchased  through  suffering :  and  the  language 
of  the  Bible  almost  seems  to  authorize  us  to  say,  that  the 
happiness  of  penitence  is  deeper  and  more  blessed  than  the 
happiness  of  the  righteousness  that  has  never  fallen  could 
be. 

There  are  two  kinds  of  friendship — that  which  has  never 
had  a  shock,  and  that  which,  after  having  been  doubted,  is 
at  last  made  sure.  The  happiness  of  this  last  is  perhaps  the 
greater.  Such  ^eems  to  be  the  truth  implied  in  the  parable 
of  the  prodigal  son  :  in  the  robe,  and  the  ring,  and  the  fatted 
calf,  and  the  music,  and  dancing,  and  the  rapture  of  a  father's 
embrace  :  and  once  more,  in  those  words  of  our  Redeemer, 
"  There  is  more  joy  among  the  angels  of  heaven  over  one 
sinner  that  repenteth,  than  over  ninety  and  nine  just  persons 
that  need  no  repentance."  All  these  seem  to  tell  of  the  im- 
measurable blessedness  of  penitence.  Arid  this,  then,  is  oui- 
subject — the  subject  of  reconciliation. 

But  the  text  divides  itself  into-  two  branches: 

I.  Estrangement. 
II.  Reconciliation. 

Estrangement  is  thus  described:  "You  that  were  some- 
time" (that  is,  once)  "alienated  and  enemies  in  your  mind 
by  wicked  works  :"  in  which  there  are  three  things.  The 
first  is  the  cause  of  the  estrangement — wicked  works ;  the 
second  is  the  twofold  order ;  and  thirdly,  the  degree  of  that 
estrangement;  first  of  all,  mere  alienation,  afterwards  hostili- 
ty, enmity. 

And,  first  of  all,  we  consider  the  cause  of  the  estrange- 
ment—  "wicked  works."  Wicked  works  are  voluntary 
deeds ;  they  are  not  involuntary,  but  voluntary  wrong. 
There  is  a  vague  way  in  which  we  sometimes  speak  of  sin, 
in  which  it  is  possible  for  us  to  lose  the  idea  of  its  guilt,  and 
also  to  lose  the  idea  of  personal  responsibility.  We  speak  of 
sin  sometimes  as  if  it  were  a  foreign  disease  introduced  into 
the  constitution :  an  imputed  guilt  arising  from  an  action 
not  our  own,  but  of  our  ancestors.  It  is  never  so  that  the 
Bible  speaks  of  sin.  It  speaks  of  it  as  wicked  works,  volun- 
tary deeds,^  voluntary  acts ;  that  you,  a  responsible  individ- 


768  Reconciliation  by  Christ. 

ual,  have  done  acts  which  are  wrong,  of  the  mind,  the  hand, 
the  tongue.  The  infant  is  by  no  means  God's  enemy ;  he 
may  become  God's  enemy,  but  it  can  only  be  by  voluntary 
action  after  conscience  has  been  aroused.  This  our  Master's 
words  teach,  when  He  tells  us,  "  Suffer  little  children  to 
come  unto  me,  for  of  such  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven."  And 
such  again  is  the  mystery  of  Christian  baptism.  It  tells  us 
that  the  infant  is  not  the'  child  of  the  devil,  but  the  child  of 
God,  the  member  of  Christ,  the  heir  of  immortality.  Sin, 
then,  is  a  voluntary  action.  If  you  close  your  ear  to  the 
voice  of  God,  if  there  be  transgression  of  an  inward  law,  if 
you  sacrifice  the  heart  and  intellect  to  the  senses,  if  you  let  ease 
or  comfort  be  more  dear  to  you  than  inward  purity,  if  you 
leave  duties  undone,  and  give  the  body  rule  over  the  spirit — 
then  you  sin ;  for  these  aro  voluntary  acts,  these  are  wicked 
works. 

The  result  of  this  is  twofold.  The  first  step  is  simply  the 
step  of  alienation.  There  is  a  difference  between  alienation 
and  hostility :  in  alienation  we  feel  that  God  is  our  enemy  j 
in  hostility  we  look  on  ourselves  as  enemies  to  God.  Alien- 
ation— "  you  that  were  sometime  alienated " — was  a  more 
forcible  expression  in  the  apostle's  time  than  it  can  be  to  us 
now.  In  our  modern  political  society,  the  alien  is  almost  on 
a  level  with  the  citizen.  The  difference  now  is  almost  noth- 
ing ;  in  those  days  it  was  very  great.  The  alien  from  the 
Jewish  commonwealth  had  no  right  to  worship  with  the 
Jews,  and  he  had  no  power  to  share  in  the  religious  advan- 
tages of  the  Jews.  The  strength  of  .the  feeling  that  was  ex- 
isting against  the  alien  you  will  perceive  in  that  proverbial 
expression  quoted  by  the  Redeemer,  "  It  is  not  meet  to  take 
the  children's  bread,  and  cast  it  to  the  dogs"  In  the  Roman 
commonwealth,  the  word  had  a  meaning  almost  stronger 
than  this.  To  be  an  alien  from  the  Roman  commonwealth 
was  to  be  separated  from  the  authority  and  protection  of 
the  Roman  law,  and  to  be  subjected  to  a  more  severe  and 
degrading  kind  of  penalty  than  that  to  which  the  Roman 
citizen  was  subject*  The  lash  that  might  scourge  the  back 
of  the  alien  offender  might  not  fall  on  the  back  of  a  Roman 
citizen ;  and  this  it  was  that  caused  the  magistrates  of  Phil- 
ippi  to  tremble  before  their  prisoners  when  the  Apostle 
Paul  said,  "  They  have  beaten  us  openly,  uncondemned,  be- 
ing Romans."  The  lash  was  the  alien's  portion. 

On  reference  to  the  second  chapter  of  the  Ephesians  we 
find  a  conception  given  of  alienation  in  the  twelfth  verse, 
where  the  apostle,  speaking  of  the  Ephesian  converts,  says, 
"That  at  that  time  ye  were  without  Christ,  bejng  aliens 


Reconciliation  by  Christ.  7^9 

from  the  commonwealth  of  Israel,  and  strangers  from  the 
covenants  of  promise,  having  no  hope,  and  without  God  in 
the  world."  This,  brethren,  is  alienation,  exclusion  —  to 
have  no  place  in  this  world,  to  be  without  lot  or  portion  in 
the  universe,  to  feel  God  as  your  enemy,  to  be  estranged 
from  Him,  and  banished  from  His  presence :  for  the  law  of 
God  acts  as  its  own  executioner  within  our  bosoms,  and 
there  is  no  defying  its  sentence ;  from  it  there  can  be  no  ap- 
peal. 

My  Christian  brethren,  hell  is  not  merely  a  thing  here- 
after, hell  is  a  thing  here ;  hell  is  not  a  thing  banished  to 
the  far  distance,  it  is  ubiquitous  as  conscience.  Wherever 
there  is  a  worm  of  undying  remorse,  the  sense  of  having 
done  wrong,  and  a  feeling  of  degradation,  there  is  hell  be- 
gun. And  now  respecting  this.  These  words,  "  banishment 
from  God,"  "alienation,"  though  merely  popular  phrases, 
are  expressions  of  a  deep  truth — it  is  true  they  are  but  pop- 
ular expressions,  for  God  is  not  wrath.  You  are  not  ab» 
solutely  banished  from  God's  presence.  The  Immutable 
changes  not.  He  does  not  become  angry  or  passionate 
whenever  one  of  the  eight  hundred  million  inhabitants  of 
this  world  commits  a  sin.  And  yet  you  will  observe  there 
is  no  other  way  in  which  we  can  express  the  truth  but  in 
these  popular  words.  Take  the  illustration  furnished  to  us 
last  Sunday  :  it  may  be  that  it  is  the  cloud  and  the  mist  that 
obscure  the  sun  from  us :  the  sun  is  not  changed  in  conse- 
quence :  it  is  a  change  in  our  atmosphere.  But  if  the  phi 
losopher  says  to  you,  the  sun  in  its  splendor  remains  the 
same  in  the  infinite  space  above,  it  is  only  an  optical  delu- 
sion which  makes  it  appear  lurid :  to  what  purpose  is  that 
difference  to  you?  to  you  it  is  lurid,  to  you  it  is  dark.  If 
you  feel  a  darkness  in  your  eye,  coldness  in  your  flesh,  to 
what  purpose,  so  far  as  feeling  is  concerned,  is  it  that  philos- 
ophy tells  you  the  sun  remains  unchanged  ?  And  if  it  be  that 
God  in  the  heaven  above  remains  love  still,  and  that  love 
warms  not  your  heart ;  and  that  God  is  Light,  in  whom  is 
no  darkness  at  all,  yet  He  shines  not  in  your  heart ;  my 
Christian  brethren,  let  metaphysics  and  philosophy  say  what 
they  will,  these  popular  expressions  are  the  true  ones,  after 
all ;  to  you  God  is  angry,  from  God  you  are  banished,  God's 
countenance  is  alienated  from  you. 

The  second  step  of  this  estrangement  reaches  a  higher  de- 
gree still ;  it  is  not  merely  that  God  is  angry,  but  that  we 
have  become  enemies  to  God.  The  illustration  of  the  pro- 
cess of  this  we  have  seen  in  our  common  everyday  life. 

It  is  sometimes  the  case  that  strength  of  attachment  set- 

33 


770  Reconciliation  by  Christ. 

ties  down  to  mere  indifference,  even  changes  to  hatred.  The 
first  quarrel  between  friends  is  a  thing  greatly  to  be  dread- 
ed ;  it  is  often  followed  by  the  cessation  of  all  correspond- 
ence, the  interruption  of  that  intercourse  which  has  gone  on 
so  long.  Well,  a  secret  sense  of  self-blame  and  of  wrong 
will  intrude,  and  the  only  way  in  which  wre  can  escape  it  is 
by  throwing  the  blame  elsewhere.  You  see  by  degrees  a 
cankered  spot  begins,  and  you  look  at  it  and  touch  it,  and 
irritate  it  until  the  mortification  becomes  entire,  and  that 
which  was  at  first  alienation  settles  down  into  absolute  ani- 
mosity. 

And  such  is  it  in  the  history  of  the  alienation  of  the  soul 
from  God.  The  first  step  is  to  become  indifferent,  com- 
munion is  interrupted,  irregularity  is  begun,  sin  by  degrees 
widens  the  breach,  and  then  between  the  soul  and  God  there 
is  a  great  gulf  fixed.  Observe  by  what  different  ways  dif- 
ferent classes  of  character  arrive  at  that.  Weak  characters 
have  one  way,  and  strong  and  bold  characters  have  another. 
The  weak  mind  throws  the  blame  on  circumstances ;  unable 
itself  to  subdue  its  own  passions,  it  imagines  there  is  some  law 
in  the  universe  that  so  ordains  it ;  insists  that  the  blame  is  on 
circumstances  and  destiny,  and  says,  "If  I  am  thus  it  is  not 
my  fault ;  if  I  am  not  to  gratify  my  passions,  why  were  they 
given  to  me  ?  '  Why  doth  He  find  fault,  for  who  hath  re- 
sisted His  will?'  "  And  so. these  weak  ones  become  by  de- 
grees fatalists ;  and  it  would  seem,  by  their  language,  as  if 
they  were  rather  the  patient  victims  of  a  cruel  fate,  the 
blame  belonging  not  to  them,  but  to  God. 

The  way  in  which  stronger  and  more  vicious  characters 
arrive  at  this  enmity  is  different.  Humiliation  degrades, 
and  degradation  produces  anger;  you  have  but  to  go  into 
the  narrow  and  crowded  streets  of  the  most  degraded  por- 
tions of  our  metropolis,  and  there  you  will  see  the  outcast 
turning  Avith  a  look  of  defiance  and  hatred  on  respectability, 
merely  because  it  is  respectable :  and  this,  brethren,  many 
of  us  have  seen,  some  of  us  have  felt,  in  our  relation  towards 
God.  That  terrible  demon  voice  stirs  up  within  us,  "  Curse 
God  and  die."  Haunted  by  furies,  we  stand,  as  it  were,  at 
bay,  and  dare  to  bid  defiance  to  our  Maker.  Nothing  so 
proves  the  original  majesty  of  man  as  this  terrible  fact,  that 
the  creature  can  bid  defiance  to  the  Creator,  and  that  man 
has  it  in  him  to  become  the  enemy  of  God. 

We  pass  on,  in  the  next  place,  to  consider  the  doctrine  of 
reconciliation.  We  need  scarcely  define  what  is  meant  by 
reconciliation.  To  reconcile  is  to  produce  harmony  where 
there  was  discord,  unity  where  before  there  was  variance. 


Reconciliation  by  Christ.  771 

We  accept  the  apostle's  definition  of  reconciliation.  He  saya 
that  "  Christ  hath  made  of  twain  one  new  man,  so  making 
peace."  Now  the  reconciliation  produced  by  Christ's  atone- 
ment is  fourfold : 

In  the  first  place,  Christ  hath  reconciled  man  to  God, 

In  the  second  place,  He  hath  reconciled  man  to  man. 

In  the  third  place,  He  hath  reconciled  man  to  himsell 

And  in  the  fourth  place,  He  hath  reconciled  man  to  duty. 

In  the  first  place,  the  atonement  of  the  Redeemer  has  rec- 
onciled man  to  God,  and  that  by  a  twofold  step :  by  exhibit- 
ing the  character  of  God ;  and  by  that  exhibition  changing 
the  character  of  man. 

Brethren,  the  sacrifice  of  Christ  was  the  voice  of  God  pro- 
claiming love.  In  this  passage  the  apostle  tells  us  that 
"  Christ  has  reconciled  us  to  God  in  the  body  of  His  flesh 
through  death."  We  will  not  attempt  to  define  what  that 
sacrifice  was — we  will  not  philosophize  upon  it ;  for  the 
more  we  philosophize  the  less  we  shall  understand  it.  We 
are  well  content  to  take  it  as  the  highest  exhibition  and  the 
noblest  specimen  of  the  law  of  our  humanity — that  great 
law,  that  there  is  no  true  blessedness  without  suffering,  that 
every  blessing  we  have  comes  through  vicarious  suffering. 
All  that  we  have  and  enjoy  comes  from  others'  suffering. 
The  life  we  enjoy  is  the  result  of  maternal  agony;  our  very 
bread  is  only  obtained  after  the  toil  and  anguish  of  suffering 
myriads  ;  there  is  not  one  atom  of  the  knowledge  we  possess 
now  which  has  not,  in  some  century  of  the  wrorld  or  other, 
been  wrung  out  of  Nature's  secrets  by  the  sweat  of  the  brow 
or  the  sweat  of  the  heart.  The  very  peace  which  we  are  en- 
joying at  this  present  day,  how  has  that  been  purchased  ? 
By  the  blood  of  heroes  whose  bodies  are  now  lying  moulder- 
ing in  the  trenches  of  a  thousand  battle-fields. 

This  is  the  law  of  our  humanity,  and  to  this  our  Redeemer 
became  subject — the  law  of  life,  self-surrender,  without  which 
reconciliation  was  impossible.  And  when  the  mind  has  com- 
prehended this,  that  the  sacrifice  of  Christ  was  the  manifesta- 
tion of  the  love  of  God,  then  comes  the  happy  and  blessed 
feeling  of  reconciliation.  When  a  man  has  surrendered  hi  in- 
self  in  humbleness  and  penitence  to  God,  and  the  proud  spirit 
of  self-excuse  has  passed  awray  :  when  the  soul  has  opened 
itself  to  all  His  influences  and  known  their  power  :  when  the 
saddest  and  bitterest  part  of  suffering  is  felt  no  longer  as 
the  wrath  of  the  Judge  but  as  the  discipline  of  a  Father  : 
when  the  love  of  God  has  melted  the  soul,  and  fused  it  into 
charity :  then  the  soul  is  reconciled  to  God,  and  God  is 
reconciled  to  the  soul :  for  it  is  a  marvellous  thing  how  tha 


/72  Reconciliation  by  Christ. 

change  of  feelings  within  us  changes  God  to  us,  or  rather 
those  circumstances  and  things  by  which  God  becomes  visi- 
ble to  us.  His  universe,  once  so  dark,  becomes  bright :  life, 
once  a  mere  dull,  dreary  thing,  "  dry  as  summer  dust," 
springs  up  once  more  into  fresh  luxuriance,  and  we  feel  it  to 
be  a  divine  and  blessed  thing. 

We  hear  the  voice  of  God  as  it  was  once  heard  in  the 
warden  of  Eden  whispering  among  the  leaves :  every  sound, 
once  so  discordant,  becomes  music,  the  anthem  of  creation 
raised  up,  as  it  were,  with  everlasting  hallelujahs  to  the 
eternal  throne.  Then  it  is  that  a  man  first  knows  his  im- 
mortality, and  the  soul  knows  what  is  meant  by  infinitude 
and  eternity ;  not  that  infinitude  which  can  be  measured  by 
miles,  nor  that  eternity  which  can  be  computed  by  hours ; 
but  the  eternity  of  emotion.  Let  a  man  breathe  but  one 
hour  of  the  charity  of  God,  and  feel  but  one  true  emotion  of 
the  reconciled  heart,  and  then  he  knows  forever  what  is 
meant  by  immortality,  and  he  can  understand  the  reality  of 
his  own. 

The  second  consequence  of  the  Redeemer's  atonement  is 
the  reconciliation  of  man  to  man.  Of  all  the  apostles,  none 
have  perceived  so  strongly  as  St.  Paul  that  the  death  of 
Christ  is  the  reconciliation  of  man  to  man.  Take  that  one 
single  expression  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians — "  For  He 
is  our  peace  who  hath  made  both  one."  Observe,  I  pray 
you,  the  imagery  with  which  he  continues,  "  and  hath  broken 
down  the  middle  wall  of  partition."  The  veil  or  partition 
wall  between  the  court  of  the  Jew  and  Gentile  was  broken 
asunder  at  the  crucifixion.  St.  Paul  saw  in  the  death  of 
Christ  a  spiritual  resemblance  to  that  physical  phenomenon. 
Christ  was  not  only  born  of  woman,  but  under  the  law ;  and 
He  could  not  become,  as  such,  the  Saviour  of  the  world  ;  but 
when  death  had  taken  place,  and  He  was  no  longer  the  Jew, 
but  the  Man,  no  longer  bound  by  limitations  of  time,  and 
place,  and  country,  then  He  became,  as  it  were,  a  Spirit  in 
the  universe,  no  longer  narrowed  to  place  and  to  century, 
but  universal,  the  Saviour  of  the  Gentile  as  well  as  the  Mes- 
siah of  the  Jew. 

Therefore  it  was  that  St.  Paul  called  the  flesh  of  Christ  a 
veil,  and  said  the  death  of  Christ  was  the  taking  down  of 
"the  middle  wall  of  partition"  between  Jew  and  Gentile: 
and  therefore  it  is  by  the  sacrifice  of  Christ,  and  by  tha" 
alone,  man  can  be  thus  reconciled  to  man :  and  on  no  other 
possible  basis  can  there  be  a  brotherhood  of  the  human  race. 
You  may  try  other  ways:  the  men  of  the  world  have  tried, 
and  doubtless  will  go  on  trying,  until  they  find  that  there  is 


Reconciliation  by  Christ.  773 

no  other  way  than  this.  They  may  try  by  the  principle  of 
selfishness,  the  principle  of  moral  rule,  or  the  principle  of 
civil  authority.  Let  the  political  economist  come  forward 
with  his  principle  of  selfishness,  and  tell  us  that  this  is  that 
by  which  alone  the  wealth  of  nations  can  accrue.  He  may 
get  a  nation  in  which  there  are  a  wealthy  few  and  miserable 
many,  but  not  a  brotherhood  of  Christians.  Suppose  you 
say,  men  should  love  one  another.  Will  that  make  them 
love  one  another  ?  You  may  come  forward  with  the  crush- 
ing rule  of  political  authority.  Papal  Rome  has  tried  it  and 
failed.  She  bound  up  the  masses  of  the  human  race  as  a 
gigantic  iceberg ;  but  she  could  give  only  a  temporary  prin- 
ciple of  unity  and  cohesion. 

Therefore  we  turn  back  once  more  to  the  cross  of  Christ : 
through  this  alone  we  learn  there  is  one  God,  one  Father, 
one  baptism,  one  Elder  Brother  in  whom  all  can  be  brothers. 
But  there  is  a  something  besides,  a  deeper  principle  still. 
We  are  told  in  this  passage  we  can  be  reconciled  to  man  by 
the  body  of  Christ  through  death.  And  now,  brethren,  let 
us  understand  this.  By  the  cross  of  Christ  the  apostle 
meant,  reconciled  by  the  spirit  of  the  cross.  And  what  was 
that  spirit  ?  It  was  the  spirit  of  giving,  and  of  suffering,  and 
of  loving,  because  He  had  suffered.  Say  what  we  will,  love 
is  not  gratitude  for  favors  which  have  been  received.  Why 
is  the  child  more  beloved  by  the  parent  than  the  parent  by 
the  child?  Why  did  the  Redeemer  love  His  disciples  more 
than  they  loved  their  Master  ?  Benefits  will  not  bind  the 
affection;  you  must  not  expect  that  they  will.  You  must 
suffer  if  you  would  love;  you  must  remember  that  "it  is 
more  blessed  to  give  than  to  receive."  The  Apostle  Paul 
felt  this  when  he  said  reconciliation  was  produced  through 
the  body  of  the  flesh  of  Christ  by  death. 

Once  more  :  man  becomes  by  the  Redeemer's  atonement 
reconciled  to  himself. 

That  self-reconciliation  is  necessary,  because  we  do  not 
readily  forgive  ourselves.  God  may  have  forgiven  us,  but 
we  can  not  forgive  ourselves.  You  may  obtain  a  remission 
of  the  past,  but  you  can  not  forgive  yourself  and  get  back 
the  feeling  of  self-respect,  unity  within,  rest,  by  sitting  still 
and  believing  tliat  God  has  forgiven  you,  and  that  you  have 
nothing  left  to  look  for  ?  My  brethren,  there  is  a  spirit  of 
self-torture  within  us  which  is  but  a  perversion  of  nobleness, 
a  mistake  of  the  true  principle.  When  you  have  done 
wrong,  you  want  to  suffer.  Love  demands  a  sacrifice,  and 
only  by  sacrifice  can  it  reconcile  itself  to  self.  Then  it  is 
that  the  sacrifice  of  Christ  replies  to  this,  answers  it,  satisfies 


774  Reconciliation  by  Christ. 

it,  and  makes  it  plain.  The  sacrifice  of  Christ  was  suffering 
in  love,  it  was  surrender  to  the  will  of  God.  The  Apostle 
Paul  felt  this :  when  that  Spirit  was  with  him  he  was  recon- 
ciled to  himself.  He  says,  "I  am  crucified  with  Christ, 
nevertheless  I  live,  yet  not  I,  but  Christ  liveth  in  me."  If 
ever  you  devoted  yourself  to  another's  happiness  or  amelio- 
ration, so  far  and  so  long  as  you  were  doing  that  you  forgave 
yourself;  you  felt  the  spirit  of  inward  self-reconciliation  ;  and 
what  we  want  is  only  to  make  that  perpetual,  to  make  that 
binding  which  we  do  by  fits  and  starts,  to  feel  ourselves  a 
living  sacrifice,  to  know  that  we  are,  in  our  highest  and  best 
state,  victims,  offered  up  in  love  on  the  great  altar  of  the 
kingdom  of  Christ,  offered  by  Him  to  God  as  the  first-fruits 
of  His  sacrifice ;  then  we  are  reconciled  to  ourselves  "  by  the 
blood  of  His  flesh  through  death." 

And  lastly,  through  the  atonement  of  the  Redeemer,  man 
becomes  reconciled  to  duty.  There  is  no  discord  more  terri- 
ble than  that  between  man  and  duty.  There  are  few  of  us 
who  fancy  we  have  found  our  own  places  in  this  world  ;  onr 
lives,  our  partnerships,  our  professions,  and  our  trades,  are  not 
those  which  we  should  have  chosen  for  ourselves.  There  is 
an  ambition  within  us  which  sometimes  makes  us  fancy  we 
are  fit  for  higher  things,  that  we  are  adapted  for  other  and 
better  things  than  those  to  which  we  are  called.  But  we 
turn  again  to  the  cross  of  Christ,  and  the  mystery  of  life  be 
comes  plain.  The  life  and  death  of  Christ  are  the  reconcilia- 
tion of  man  to  the  duties  which  he  has  to  do.  You  can  not 
study  His  marvellous  life  without  perceiving  that  the  whole 
of  its  details  are  uncongenial,  mean,  trivial,  wretched  cir- 
cumstances— from  which  the  spirit  of  a  man  revolts. 

To  bear  the  sneer  of  the  Sadducee  and  the  curse  of  the 
Pharisee ;  to  be  rejected  by  His  family  and  friends ;  to  be 
harassed  by  the  petty  disputes  and  miserable  quarrels  of  His 
followers  about  their  own  personal  precedence  ;  to  be  treated 
by  the  government  of  His  country  as  a  charlatan  and  a  dema- 
gogue ;  to  be  surrounded  by  a  crowd  of  men,  coming  and 
going  without  sympathy ;  to  retire  and  find  His  leisure  in- 
truded on  and  Himself  pursued  for  ignoble  ends — these  were 
the  circumstances  of  the  Redeemer's  existence  here.  Yet  in 
these  it  was  that  the  noblest  life  the  world  has  ever  seen  was 
lived.  He  retired  into  the  wilderness,  and  one  by  one  put 
down  all  those  visions  that  would  have  seduced  Him  from 
the  higher  path  of  duty ;  the  vision  of  comfort  which  tempt- 
ed Him  to  change  the  stones  of  this  world  into  bread  •  the 
vision  of  ambition  which  tempted  Him  to  make  the  king- 
doms of  this  world  His  own  by  seeking  good  through  evil; 


Reconciliation  by  Christ.  775. 

the  vision  which  tempted  Him  to  distrust  God,  and  become 
important  by  pursuing  some  strange,  unauthorized  way  of 
His  own,  instead  of  following  the  way  of  submission  to  the 
will  of  God. 

He  ascended  into  the  transfiguration  mount,  and  there  His 
Spirit  converses  with  those  of  an  elder  dispensation,  who  had 
fought  the  fight  before  Him,  Moses  and  Elias,  and  they  spoke 
to  Him  of  the  triumph  which  He  had  to  accomplish  in  death 
at  Jerusalem.  And  He  went  down  again  with  calm,  serene, 
and  transfigured  faith,  and  there,  at  the  very  foot  of  the 
mount,  He  found  His  disciples  engaged  in  some  miserable 
squabble  with  the  Scribes  and  the  Pharisees  about  casting 
out  a  devil.  And  this  life  of  His  is  the  only  interpretation 
of  this  life  of  ours — the  reconciliation  of  our  hearts  with  what 
we  have  to  do.  It  is  not  by  change  of  circumstances,  but 
by  fitting  our  spirits  to  the  circumstances  in  which  God  has 
placed  us,  that  we  can  be  reconciled  to  life  and  duty.  If  the 
duties  before  us  be  not  noble,  let  us  ennoble  them  by  doing 
them  in  a  noble  spirit ;  we  become  reconciled  to  life  if  we 
live  in  the  Spirit  of  Him  who  reconciled  the  life  of  God  with 
the  lowly  duties  of  servants. 

And  now  one  word  in  conclusion.  The  central  doctrine  of 
Christianity  is  the  atonement.  Take  that  away  and  you  ob- 
literate Christianity.  If  Christianity  were  merely  the  imita- 
tion of  Christ,  why  then  the  imitation  of  any  other  good  man, 
the  Apostle  Paul  or  John,  might  have  become  a  kind  of 
Christianity.  If  Christianity  were  merely  martyrdom  for 
truth,  then,  with  the  exception  of  a  certain  amount  of  degree, 
I  see  no  difference  between  the  death  of  Socrates  and  the 
death  of  Jesus  Christ.  But  Christianity  is  more  than  this. 
It  is  the  At-one-ment  of  the  Soul.  It  is  a  reconciliation  which 
the  life  and  death  of  Christ  have  wrought  out  for  this  world 
— :the  reconciliation  of  man  to  God,  the  reconciliation  of  man 
to  man,  the  reconciliation  of  man  to  self,  and  the  reconcilia- 
lion  ol'  Jnan  jo  duty. 


776  The  Pre-eminence  of  Charity. 


XXI. 
THE  PRE-EMINENCE  OF  CHARITY. 

"  And  above  all  things  have  fervent  charity  among  yourselves :  for  charitj 
shall  cover  the  multitude  of  sins." — 1  Peter  iv.  8. 

THE  grace  of  charity  is  exalted  as  the  highest  attainment 
of  the  Christian  life  by  St.  Paul,  St.  Peter,  and  St.  John. 
These  three  men  were  very  different  from  each  other.  Each 
was  the  type  of  a  distinct  order  of  character.  And  it  is  a 
proof  that  the  Gospel  is  from  God,  and  that  the  sacred  writ- 
ings are  inspired  from  a  single  Divine  source,  that  personal 
peculiarities  are  not  placed  foremost  in  them,  but  the  fore- 
most place  is  given  by  each  to  a  grace  which  certainly  was 
not  the  characteristic  quality  of  all  the  three. 

It  is  said  in  these  modern  days  that  Christianity  was  a 
system  elaborated  by  human  intellect.  Men,  they  say, philos- 
ophized and  thought  it  out.  Christianity,  it  is  maintained, 
like  ethics,  is  the  product  of  human  reason.  Now  had  this 
been  true,  we  should  have  found  the  great  teachers  of  Chris- 
tianity each  exalting  that  particular  quality  which  wras  most 
remarkable  in  his  owrn  temperament.  Just  as  the  English 
honor  truthfulness,  and  the  French  brilliancy,  and  the  Hin- 
doos subtlety,  and  the  Italians  finesse  —  and  naturally,  be- 
cause these  are  predominant  in  themselves — we  should  have 
found  the  apostles  insisting  most  strongly  on  those  graces 
which  grew  most  naturally  in  the  soil  of  their  own  hearts. 

Indeed,  in  a  degree  it  is  so.  St.  John's  character  was  ten- 
der, emotional  and  contemplative.  Accordingly,  his  writings 
exhibit  the  feeling  of  religion  and  the  predominance  of  the 
inner  life  over  the  outer. 

St.  Paul  was  a  man  of  keen  intellect,  and  of  soaring  and 
aspiring  thought  which  would  endure  no  shackles  on  its  free- 
dom. And  his  writings  are  full  of  the  two  subjects  we  might 
have  expected  from  this  temperament.  He  speaks  a  great 
deal  of  intellectual  gifts;  very  much  of  Christian  liberty. 

St.  Peter  was  remarkable  for  personal  courage.  A  soldier 
by  nature  :  frank,  free,  generous,  irascible.  In  his  writings, 
accordingly,  we  find  a  great  deal  said  about  martyrdom. 

But  each  of  these  men,  so  different  from  each  other,  exalts 
love  above  his  own  peculiar  quality.  It  is  very  remarkable. 
Not  merely  does  each  call  charity  the  highest,  but  each  names 


The  Pre-eminence  of  Charity.  77'; 

it  in  immediate  connection  with  his  own  characteristic  virtue, 
and  declares  it  to  be  more  Divine. 

St.  John,  of  course,  calls  love  the  heavenliest.  That  we 
expect  from  St.  John's  character.  "God  is  love.  He  that 
dv/elleth  in  love  dwelleth  in  God  ;"  "  No  man  hath  seen  God 
at  any  time  :  if  we  love  one  another  God  dwelleth  in  us." 

But  St.  Paul  expressly  names  it  in  contrast  with  the  two 
feelings  for  which  he  was  personally  most  remarkable,  and, 
noble  as  they  are,  prefers  it  before  them.  First,  in  contrast 
with  intellectual  gifts.  Thus,  "Covet  earnestly  the  best 
gifts :  and  yet  show  I  unto  you  a  more  excellent  way : 
though  I  speak  with  the  tongue  of  men  and  of  angels,  and 
have  not  charity,  it  is  nothing."  Gifts  are  nothing  in  com- 
parison of  charity.  Again,  "  We  know  that  we  all  have 
knowledge :  knowledge  puffeth  up,  but  charity  buildeth  up." 
Knowledge  is  nothing  in  comparison. 

Next,  in  comparison  of  that  liberty  which  was  so  dear  to 
him.  Christian  liberty  permitted  the  converts  the  use  of 
meats,  and  the  disregard  of  days  from  which  the  strict  law 
of  Judaism  had  debarred  them.  Well,  but  there  were  cases 
in  which  the  exercise  of  that  liberty  might  hurt  the  scruples 
of  some  weak  Christian  brother,  or  lead  him  to  imitate  the 
example  against  his  conscience.  "If  thy  brother  be  grieved 
with  thy  meat,  now  walkest  thou  not  charitably"  Liberty 
said,  You  have  a  right  to  indulge ;  but  Charity  said,  Refrain. 

So  that,  according  to  St.  Paul,  there  is  one  thing,  and  one 
only,  to  which  Christian  liberty  must  be  sacrificed.  That 
one  is  Christian  love. 

Now  let  us  see  how  St.  Peter  does  honor  to  the  same 
grace,  at  the  expense  of  that  which  we  should  have  expected 
him  to  reckon  the  essential  grace  of  manhood.  Just  before 
the  text,  we  find  the  command,  "  Be  sober,  and  watch  unto 
prayer."  This  is  a  sentence  out  of  St.  Peter's  very  heart. 
For  in  it  we  have  prayer  represented  as  the  night-watch  of  a 
warrior,  armed,  who  must  not  sleep  his  watch  away.  "  Be 
sober,  and  watch" — the  language  of  the  soldier  and  the  sen- 
tinel ;  words  which  remind  you  of  him  who  drew  his  sword  to 
defend  his  Master,  and  who  in  penitence  remembered  his  own 
disastrous  sleep  w^hen  he  was  surprised  as  a  sentry  at  his 
post.  But  immediately  after  this — "And,  above  all  things, 
have  fervent  charity  amongst  yourselves."  Sobriety,  self- 
rule,  manhood,  courage,  yes ;  but  the  life  of  them  all,  says 
St.  Peter,  the  very  crown  of  manhood,  without  which  sobriety 
is  but  prudent  selfishness,  and  courage  is  but  brute  instinct 
—is  love. 

Now  I  take  that  unanimity  as  a  proof  that  the  Gospel  cornea 

33* 


778  The  Pre-eminence  of  Charity. 

from  one  Living  Source.  How  came  St.  Peter  and  St.  John, 
so  different  from  each  other,  and  St.  Paul,  who  had  had 
almost  no  communion  with  either  of  them,  to  agree,  and 
agree  so  enthusiastically,  in  this  doctrine — love  is  over  all 
and  above  all;  above  intellect,  freedom,  courage  —  unless 
there  had  streamed  into  the  mind  and  heart  of  each  one  of 
them  light  from  One  Source,  even  from  Him  the  deepest  prin- 
ciple of  whose  being,  and  the  law  of  whose  life  and  death, 
were  love  ? 

We  are  to  try,  to-day,  to  understand  this  sentence  of 
St.  Peter.  It  tells  us  two  things — 

I.  What  charity  is. 
II.  What  charity  does. 

I.  It  is  not  easy  to  find  one  word  in  any  language  which 
rightly  and  adequately  represents  what  Christ  and  His  apos- 
tles meant  by  charity.  All  words  are  saturated  with  some  im- 
perfect meaning.  Charity  has  become  identified  with  alms- 
giving. Love  is  appropriated  to  one  particular  form  of  hu- 
man affection,  and  that  one  with  which  self  and  passion  mix 
inevitably.  Philanthropy  is  a  word  too  cold  and  negative. 

Let  us  define  Christian  charity  in  two  sentences:  1.  The 
desire  to  give.  2.  The  desire  to  bless. 

].  The  desire  to  give.  Let  each  man  go  deep  into  his  own 
heart.  Let  him  ask  what  that  mysterious  longing  means 
which  we  call  love,  whether  to  man  or  God,  when  he  has 
stripped  from  it  all  that  is  outside  and  accidental ;  when  he 
has  taken  from  it  all  that  is  mixed  with  it  and  perverts  it. 
Not  in  his  worst  moments — but  in  his  best,  what  did  that 
yearning  mean  ?  I  say  it  meant  the  desire  to  give.  Not  to 
get  something,  but  to  give  something.  And  the  mightier,  the 
more  irrepressible  this  yearning  was,  the  more  truly  was  his 
love  love.  To  give — whether  alms  in  the  shape  of  money, 
bread,  or  a  cup  of  cold  water,  or  else  self.  But  be  sure, 
sacrifice,  in  some  shape  or  other,  is  the  impulse  of  love,  and 
its  restlessness  is  only  satisfied  and  only  gets  relief  in  giving. 
For  this,  in  truth,  is  God's  own  love,  tha  wTill  and  the  power  to 
give.  "  It  is  more  blessed  to  give  than  to  receive."  There- 
fore God  is  the  only  blessed  One,  because  He  alone  gives  and 
never  receives.  The  universe,  teeming  with  life,  is  but  God's 
love  expressing  itself.  He  creates  life  by  the  giving  of  Him- 
self. He  has  redeemed  the  world  by  the  giving  of  His  Son. 
"  God  so  loved  the  world  that  He  gave  His  only  begotten 
Son."  The  death  of  Christ  was  sacrifice.  The  life  of  God  ia 
one  perpetual  sacrifice,  or  giving  of  Himself  and  shedding 
forth  of  His  Spirit.  iClse  it  would  not  be  love. 


The  Pre-eminence  of  Charity.  779 

And  so,  when  the  poor  sinful  woman  gave  her  costly  oint- 
ment with  a  large  profuseness,  Christ  saw  in  it  an  evidence 
of  love.  "  She  loved  much."  For  love  gives. 

2.  The  desire  to  bless.  All  love  is  this  in  a  degree.  Even 
weak  and  spurious  love  desires  happiness  of  some  kind  for 
the  creature  that  it  loves.  Almsgiving  is  often  nothing 
more  than  indolence.  We  give  to  the  beggar  in  the  street, 
to  save  ourselves  the  trouble  of  finding  out  fitter  objects. 
Still,  indolent  as  it  is,  it  is  an  indolent  desire  to  prevent  pain. 

What  we  call  philanthropy  is  often  calm  and  cool — too 
calm  and  cool  to  waste  upon  it  the  name  of  charity.  But  it 
is  a  calm  and  cool  desire  that  human  happiness  were  possi- 
ble. It  is,  in  its  weak  way,  a  desire  to  bless.  -Now,  the  love 
whereof  the  Bible  speaks,  and  of  which  we  have  but  one 
perfect  personification — viz.,  in  the  life  of  Christ — is  the  desire 
for  the  best  and  true  blessedness  of  the  being  loved.  It 
wishes  the  well-being  of  the  whole  man — body,  soul,  and 
spirit ;  but  chiefly  spirit. 

Therefore,  He  fed  the  poor  with  bread.  Therefore,  He 
took  His  disciples  into  the  wilderness  to  rest  when  they  were 
weary.  Therefore,  "  He  gave  Himself  for  us,  that  we,  being 
dead  unto  sin,  might  live  unto  righteousness."  For  the  king- 
dom of  God  is  not  bread  only  and  repose,  which  constitute 
physical  happiness,  but  goodness,  too ;  for  that  is  blessed- 
ness. 

And  the  highest  love  is,  therefore,  the  desire  to  make  men 
good  and  Godlike  ;  it  may  wish,  as  a  subordinate  attainment, 
to  turn  this  earth  into  a  paradise  of  comfort  by  mechanical 
inventions ;  but  far  above  that,  to  transform  into  a  kingdom 
of  God,  the  domain  of  love,  where  men  cease  to  quarrel  and 
to  envy,  and  to  slander  and  to  retaliate.  "  This,  also,  we 
wish,"  said  St.  Paul,  "  even  your  perfection." 

Concerning  this  charity  we  remark  two  points.:  1.  It  is 
characterized  as  fervent.  2.  It  is  capable  of  being  cultivated. 

1.  "Fervent."  Literally  intense,  unremitting,  unwearied. 
Now,  there  is  a  feeble  sentiment  which  wishes  well  to  all  so 
long  as  it  is  not  tempted  to  wish  them  ill,  which  does  well  to 
those  who  do  well  to  them.  But  this,  being  merely  senti 
rnent,  will  not  last.  Ruffle  it  and  it  becomes  vindictive.  In 
contrast  with  that,  St.  Peter  calls  Christ's  spirit,  which  loves, 
those  who  hate  it,  "  fervent "  charity,  which  does  not  tire, 
and  can  not  be  worn  out ;  which  loves  its  enemies,  and  does 
good  to  them  that  hate  it.  For  Christian  love  is  not  the 
dream  of  a  philosopher,  sitting  in  his  study,  and  benevolent- 
ly wishing  the  world  were  better  than  it  is,  congratulating 
himself,  perhaps,  all  the  time  on  the  superiority  shown  by 


780  The  Pre-eminence  of  Charity. 

himself  over  other  less  amiable  natures.  Injure  one  of  these 
beaming  sons  of  good-humor,  and  he  bears  malice :  deep,  un- 
relenting, refusing  to  forgive.  But  give  us  the  man  who,  in 
stead  of  retiring  to  some  small,  select  society,  or  rather  as- 
sociation, where  his  own  opinions  shall  be  reflected,  can  mix 
with  men  where  his  sympathies  are  unmet,  and  his  tastes 
.are  jarred,  and  his  views  traversed,  at  every  turn,  and  s'till 
'can  be  just,  and  gentle,  and  forbearing. 

'  Give  us  the  man  who  can  be  insulted  and  not  retaliate ; 
meet  rudeness  and  still  be  courteous;  the  man  who,  like  the 
Apostle  Paul,  buffeted  and  disliked,  can  yet  be  generous, 
and  make  allowances,  and  say,  "I  will  very  gladly  spend  and 
be  spent  for  you,  though  the  more  abundantly  I  love  you, 
the  less  I  be  loved."  That  is  "  fervent  charity." 

2.  Again,  it  is  capable  of  being  cultivated.  We  assume 
that,  simply  because  it  is  enjoined.  When  an  apostle  says, 
"•Save  fervent  charity  among  yourselves,"  it  is  plain  that  it 
would  be  a  cruel  mockery  to  command  men  to  attain  it  if 
they  could  do  nothing  towards  the  attainment.  It  would  be 
the  same  insult  as  saying  to  the  deformed,  "be  beautiful." 
For  it  is  wanton  cruelty  to  command  where  obedience  is  im- 
possible. 

How  shall  wre  cultivate  this  charity  ? 

Now,  I  observe  first,  love  can  not  be  produced  by  a  direct 
action  of  the  soul  upon  itself.  You  can  not  love  by  a  resolve 
to  love.  That  is  as  impossible  as  it  is  to  move  a  boat  by 
pressing  it  from  within.  *  The  force  with  which  you  press  on 
is  exactly  equal  to  that  with  which  you  press  back.  The  re- 
action is  exactly  equal  to  the  action.  You  force  backward 
exactly  as  much  as  you  force  on.  There  are  religious  per- 
sons who,  when  they  feel  their  affections  cooled,  strive  to 
warm  them  by  self-reproach,  or  by  unnatural  effort,  or  by  the 
excitement  of  what  they  call  revivals — trying  to  work  them- 
selves into  a  state  of  warm  affection.  There  are  others  who 
hope  to  make  feeble  love  strong  by  using  strong  words. 
Now,  for  all  this  they  pay  a  price.  Effort  of  heart  is  fol- 
lowed by  collapse.  Excitement  is  followed  by  exhaustion. 
They  will  find  that  they  have  cooled  exactly  in  that  propor- 
tion in  which  they  warmed,  and  at  least  as  fast. 

It  is  as  impossible  for  a  man  to  work  himself  into  a  state 
of  genuine  fervent  love  as  it  is  for  a  man  to  inspire  himself. 
Inspiration  is  a  breath  and  a  life  coming  from  without. 
Love  is  a  feeling  roused  not  from  ourselves,  but  from  some- 
thing outside  ourselves.  There  are,  however,  twro  methods 
by  which  we  may  cultivate  this  charity. 

1.  By  doing  acts  which  love  demands.     It  is  God'?  mer- 


The  Pre-eminence  of  Charity.  78 1 

ciful  law  that  feelings  are  increased  by  acts  done  on  princi- 
ple. If  a  man  has  not  the  feeling  in  its  warmth,  let  him  not 
wait  till  the  feeling  comes.  Let  him  act  with  such  feeling 
as  he  has ;  with  a  cold  heart  if  he  has  not  got  a  warm  one ; 
it  will  grow  warmer  while  he  acts.  You  may  love  a  man 
merely  because  you  have,  done  him  benefits,  and  so  become 
interested  in  him,  till  interest  passes  into  anxiety,  and  anx- 
iety into  affection.  You  may  acquire  courtesy  of  feeling  at 
last,  by  cultivating  courteous  manner.  The  dignified  polite- 
ness of  the  last  century  forced  man  into  a  kind  of  unselfish- 
ness in  small  things,  which  the  abrupter  manners  of  to-day 
will  never  teach.  And  say  what  men  will  of  rude  sincerity, 
those  old  men  of  urbane  manners  were  kinder  at  heart  with 
real  good  will,  than  we  are  with  that  rude  bluffness  which 
counts  it  a  loss  of  independence  to  be  courteous  to  any  one. 
Gentleness  of  manner  had  some  influence  on  gentleness  of 
heart. 

So,  in  the  same  way,  it  is  in  things  spiritual.  If  our  hearts 
are  cold,  and  we  find  it  hard  to  love  God  and  be  affectionate 
to  man,  we  must  begin  with  duty.  Duty  is  not  Christian 
liberty,  but  is  the  first  step  toward  liberty.  We  are  free 
only  when  we  love  what  we  are  to  do,  and  those  to  whom 
we  do  it.  Let  a  man  begin  in  earnest  with — I  ought— he 
will  end,  by  God's  grace,  if  he  persevere,  with  the  free  bless- 
edness of — I  will.  Let  him  force  himself  to  abound  in  small 
offices  of  kindliness,  attention,  affectionateness,  and  all  those 
for  God's  sake.  By-and-by  he  will  feel  them  become  the 
habit  of  his  soul.  By-and-by,  walking  in  the  conscientious- 
ness of  refusing  to  retaliate  when  he  feels  tempted,  he  will 
cease  to  wish  it :  doing  good  and  heaping  kindness  on  those 
who  injure  him,  he  will  learn  to  love  them.  For  he  has 
spent  a  treasure  there :  "And  where  the  treasure  is,  there 
will  the  heart  be  also." 

2.  The  second  way  of  cultivating  Christian  love  is  by  con- 
templating the  love  of  God.  You  can  not  move  the  boat 
from  within  ;  but  you  may  obtain  a  purchase  from  without. 
You  can  not  create  love  in  the  soul  by  force  from  within  it- 
self- but  you  may  move  it  from  a  point  outside  itself.  God's 
love  is  the  point  from  which  to  move  the  soul.  Love  begets 
love,  Love  believed  in,  produces  a  return  of  love  :  we  can 
not  love  because  we  must.  "  Must "  kills  love ;  but  the 
law  of  our  nature  is  that  we  love  in  reply  to  love.  No  one 
ever  yet  hated  one  whom  he  believed  to  love  him  truly. 
We  may  be  provoked  by  the  pertinacity  of  an  affection 
which  asks  what  we  can  not  give ;  but  we  can  not  hate  the 
true  love  which  does  not  ask  but  gives.  Now  this  ifl  ths 


782  The  Pre-eminence  of  Charity. 

central  truth  of  Christ's  Gospel :  "  We  love  Him  because  H« 
first  loved  us ;"  "  Beloved,  if  God  so  loved  us,  we  ought 
also  to  love  one  another ;"  "  God  is  love." 

It  is  the  one,  almost  only"  struggle  of  religious  life,  to  be- 
lieve this.  In  spite  of  all  the  seeming  cruelties  of  this 
life  ;  in  spite  of  the  clouded  mystery  in  which  God  has 
shrouded  Himself;  in  spite  of  pain  and  the  stern  aspect 
of  human  life,  and  the  gathering  of  thicker  darkness  and 
more  solemn  silence  round  the  soul  as  life  goes  on,  simply  to 
believe  that  God  is  love,  and  to  hold  fast  to  that,  as  a  man 
holds  on  to  a  rock  with  a  desperate  grip  when  the  salt  surf 
and  the  driving  waves  sweep  over  him  and  take  the  breath 
away — I  say  that  is  the  one  fight  of  Christian  life,  compared 
with  which  all  else  is  easy:  when  we  believe  that,  human  af- 
fections are  easy.  It  is  easy  to  be  generous,  and  tolerant, 
and  benevolent,  when  we  are  sure  of  the  heart  of  God,  and 
when  the  little  love  of  this  life,  and  its  coldnesses,  and  its  un- 
returned  affections,  are  more  than  made  up  to  us  by  the  cer- 
tainty that  our  Father's  love  is  ours.  But  when  we  lose 
sight  of  that,  though  but  for  a  moment,  the  heart  sours,  and 
men  seem  no  longer  worth"  the  loving :  and  wrongs  are  mag- 
nified, and  injuries  can  not  be  forgiven,  and  life  itself  drags 
on,  a  mere  death  in  life.  A  man  may  doubt  any  thing  and 
every  thing,  and  still  be  blessed,  provided  only  he  holds  fast 
to  that  conviction.  Let  all  drift  from  him  like  sea-weed  on 
life's  ocean.  So  long  as  he  reposes  on  the  assurance  of  the 
eternal  faithfulness  of  the  Eternal  Charity,  his  spirit  at  least 
can  not  drift.  There  are  moments,  I  humbly  think,  when  we 
understand  those  triumphant  words  of  St.  Paul,  "Let  God  be 
true,  and  every  man  a  liar." 

II.  What  charity  does. 

It  covereth  a  multitude  of  sins. 

Xow  the  only  question  is,  whose  sins  does  chanty  cover? 
Is  it  that  the  sins  of  the  charitable  man  are  covered  by  his 
charity  in  God's  sight  ?  Or  is  it  the  sins  of  others  over 
which  charity  throws  a  mantle  so  as  not  to  see  them  ? 

Some  wise  and  good  men  have  said  the  first.  Love  oblit- 
erates sin  in  the  sight  of  God ;  and  assuredly  it  might  be 
this  that  St.  Peter  meant.  No  doubt  whole  years  of  folly 
we  outlive  "  in  His  unerring  sight,  who  measures  life  by 
love."  Recollect  our  Master's  own  words — "Her  sins,  which 
are  many,  are  forgiven  her :  for  she  loved  much." 

Nevertheless,  that  does  not  seem  to  be  the  meaning  of 
this  passage.  A  large  number  of  deep  thinkers  have  been 
convinced^that  St.  Peter  is  here  describing  Christianity,  and 


The  Pre-eminence  of  Charity.  783 

the  description  which  he  gives  of  it  as  most  characteristic  is, 
that  it  hides  out  of  sight,  and  refuses  to  contemplate,  a  mul- 
titude of  sins  which  malevolence  would  delight  to  see.  It 
throws  a  veil  over  them  and  covers  them.  At  all  events, 
this  is  true  of  Christian  charity :  and  we  shall  consider  the 
passage  in  that  sense  to-day. 

There  are  three  ways,  at  least,  in  which  love  covers  sin. 

1.  In  refusing  to  see  small  faults.  Every  man  has  his 
faults,  his  failings,  peculiarities,  eccentricities.  Every  one  of 
us  finds  himself  crossed  by  such  failings  of  others,  from  hour 
to  hour.  And  if  he  were  to  resent  them  all,  or  even  notice 
all,  life  would  be  intolerable.  If  for  every  outburst  of  hasty 
temper,  and  for  every  rudeness  that  wounds  us  in  our  daily 
path,  we  were  to  demand  an  apology,  require  an  explanation, 
or  resent  it  by  retaliation,  daily  intercourse  would  be  impos- 
sible. The  very  science  of  social  life  consists  in  that  gliding 
tact  which  avoids  contact  with  the  sharp  angularities  of 
character,  which  does  not  argue  about  such  things,  does  not 
seek  to  adjust  or  cure  them  all,  but  covers  them,  as  if  it  did 
not  see. 

Exceedingly  wise  was  that  conduct  of  the  Roman  pro 
consul  at  Corinth  which  we  read  of  in  the  Acts.  The  Jews, 
with  Sosthenes  at  their  head,  had  brought  a  charge  of  heresy 
against  the  Christians,  and  tried  it  at  the  Roman  law.  Gal 
lio  perceived  that  it  was  a  vexatious  one,  and  dismissed  it ; 
drove  them  from  the  judgment-seat.  Whereupon  the  Greeks, 
indignant  at  the  paltry  virulence  of  the  accusation,  took  Sos- 
thenes, in  his  way  from  the  judgment-seat,  and  beat  him  even 
in  Gallio's  presence.  It  is  written,  "  Gallic  cared  for  none  of 
these  things."  He  took  no  notice.  He  would  not  see.  It 
was  doubtless  illegal  and  tumultuous,  a  kind  of  contempt  of 
court — a  great  offense  in  Roman  law.  But  Gallic  preferred 
permitting  a  wholesome  outburst  of  healthy  indignation,  to 
carrying  out  the  law  in  its  letter.  For  he  knew  that  in  that 
popular  riot  human  nature  was  throwing  off  an  incubus.  It 
was  a  kind  of  irregular  justice,  excusable  because  of  its 
provocation.  And  so  Gallio  would  not  see.  He  covered  the 
transgression  in  a  wise  and  willful  blindness. 

That  which  the  Roman  magistrate  did  from  wise  policy, 
the  Christian  spirit  does  in  a  diviner  way.  It  throws  over 
such  things  a  cloak  of  love.  It  knows  when  it  is  wise  not  to 
see.  That  microscopic  distinctness  in  which  all  faults  ap- 
pear to  captious  men,  who  are  forever  blaming,  dissecting, 
complaining,  disappears  in  the  large,  calm  gaze  of  love. 
And  oh  !  it  is  this  spirit  which  our  Christian  society  lacks, 
and  which  we  shall  never  get  till  we  begin  each  one  with  his 


784  Tlie  Pre-eminence  of  Charity. 

own  heart.  What  we  want  is,  in  one  word,  that  graceful 
tact  and  Christian  art  which  can  bear  and  forbear. 

That  was  a  rude,  "  unpardonable "  insult  offered  by  Pe- 
ter to  his  Master  wThen  he  denied  Him.  In  His  hour  of  trial, 
he  refused  to  seem  even  to  know  Him.  We  should  have  said) 
I  will  never  forget  that.  The  Divine  charity  covered  all. 
Ask  ye  how  ?  "  Simon,  son  of  Jonas,  lovest  thou  me  ?  Feed 
my  sheep." 

2.  Love  covers  sin  by  making  large  allowances.  In  all 
evil  there  is  a  "  soul  of  goodness."  Most  evil  is  perverted 
good.  For  instance,  extravagance  is  generosity  carried  to 
excess.  Revenge  is  sometimes  a  sense  of  justice  which  has 
put  no  restraint  upon  itself.  Woman's  worst  fault  is  per- 
verted self-sacrifice.  Incaution  comes  from  innocence.  Now 
there  are  some  men  who  see  all  the  evil,  and  never  trace, 
never  give  themselves  the  trouble  of  suspecting  the  root  of 
goodness  out  of  which  it  sprung.  There  are  others  who  love 
to  go  deep  down,  and  see  why  a  man  came  to  do  wrong, 
and  whether  there  was  not  some  excuse,  or  some  redeeming 
cause  :  in  order  that  they  may  be  just.  Just,  as  "  God  is 
just,  and  the  just ifier  of  him  that  believeth  in  Jesus." 

Not  as  the  passage  is  sometimes  quoted — just,  and  yet  the 
justifier  ;  as  if  there  were  some  difficulty  in  reconciling  God's 
justice  and  God's  mercy  :  but  just  and  the  justitier,  just  and 
therefore  the  justitier.  Merciful  because  just. 

Now  human  life,  as  it  presents  itself  to  these  two  different 
eyes,  the  eye  of  one  who  sees  only  evil,  and  that  of  him  who 
sees  evil  as  perverted  good,  is  two  different  things.  Take 
an  instance.  Not  many  years  ago,  a  gifted  English  writer 
presented  us  with  a  history  of  ancient  Christianity.  To  his 
eye  the  early  Church  presented  one  great  idea,  almost  only 
one.  He  saw  corruption  written  everywhere.  In  the  his- 
tory of  the  ascetics,  of  the  nuns,  of  the  hermits,  of  the  early 
bishops,  he  saw  nothing  noble,  nothing  aspiring.  Every- 
where the  one  dark  spectacle  of  the  Man  of  Sin.  In  public 
and  in  private  life,  in  theology  and  practice,  within  and  with- 
out, everywhere  pollution.  Another  historian,  a  foreigner, 
has  written  the  history  of  the  same  times,  with  an  intellect 
as  piercing  to  discover  the  very  first  germ  of  error,  but  with 
a  calm,  large  heart,  which  saw  the  good  out  of  which  the  er- 
ror sprung,  and  loved  to  dwell  upon  it,  delighting  to  trace 
the  lineaments  of  God,  and  discern  His  Spirit  working  where 
another  could  see  only  the  spirit  of  the  devil.  And  you  rise 
from  the  two  books  with  different  views  of  the  world  ;  from 
the  one,  considering  the  world  as  a  devil's  world,  corrupting 
towards  destruction;  from  the  other,  notwithstanding  all, 


The  Pre-eminence  of  Charity.  785 

feeling  triumphantly  that  it  is  God's  world,  and  that  His 
Spirit  works  gloriously  below  it  all.  You  rise  from  the  study 
with  different  feelings  :  from  the  one,  inclined  to  despise  your 
species  ;  from  the  other,  able  joyfully  to  understand  in  part 
why  God  so  loved  the  world,  and  what  there  is  in  man  to 
love,  and  what  there  is,  even  in  the  lost,  to  seek  and  save. 

Now  that  is  the  "  charity  which  covereth  a  multitude  of 
sins." 

It  understands  by  sympathy.  It  is  that  glorious  nature 
which  has  affinity  with  good  under  all  forms,  and  loves  to 
find  it,  to  believe  in  it,  and  to  see  it.  And  therefore  such 
men — God's  rare  and  best  ones — learn  to  make  allowances ; 
not  from  weak  sentiment,  which  calls  wrong  right,  but  from 
that  heavenly  charity  which  sees  right  lying  at  the  root  of 
wrong.  So  the  Apostle  Paul  learned  to  be  candid  even  to- 
wards himself.  "  I  obtained  mercy,  because  I  did  it  igno- 
rantly,  in  unbelief."  His  very  bigotry  and  persecuting  spirit 
could  be  justified  by  God,  and  by  men  who  see  like  God.  It 
was  wrong,  very  wrong ;  he  did  not  palliate  it ;  he  felt  that  it 
had  made  him  "  the  chief  of  sinners,"  but  he  discerned  that  his 
had  been  zeal  directed  wrongly — not  hate,  but  inverted  love. 

So  too,  over  the  dark  grave  of  Saul  the  suicide,  the  love 
of  friendship  could  shed  one  ray  of  hope.  He  who  remem- 
bered of  Saul  only  his  nobler  nature  and  his  earlier  days, 
when  his  desolate  character  was  less  ambiguous — the  man 
after  God's  own  heart — whose  love  refused  to  part  with  the 
conviction  that  that  light  which  was  from  God  was  not 
quenched  forever,  though  it  had  set  in  clouds  and  thick  dark- 
ness— dared  to  say, "Saul  and  Jonathan  were  lovely  in  their 
lives,  and  in  their  deaths  they  were  not  divided."  Would 
you  or  I  have  dared  to  hope  over  a  grave  like  Saul's?  So, 
too,  over  the  grave  of  the  prophet  whose  last  act  was  disobe- 
dience, love  still  dared  to  hope,  and  the  surviving  prophet 
remembered  only  that  he  had  shared  the  gift  of  prophecy 
with  himself.  "Alas,  my  brother  /"  A  sinner,  who  had  died 
in  sin,  but  as  our  own  burial  service  nobly  dares  to  say,  in 
the  hope  of  intense  charity,  "  To  rest  in  Thee,  as  our  hope  w 
this  our  brother  doth."  And  so,  lastly,  in  the  blackest  guilt 
the  earth  has  seen — in  memory  of  which  we,  in  our  Christian 
sharity,  after  eighteen  hundred  years,  brand  the  descendant 
Tews  with  a  curse,  which  is  only  slowly  disappearing  from 
our  minds — there  was  one  Eye  which  could  discern  a  ground 
on  which  to  make  allowance, "Father,  forgive  them;  for  they 
know  not  what  they  do." 

Let  us  dismiss  from  our  minds  one  false  suspicion.  The 
man  who  can  be  most  charitable  is  not  the  man  who  is  mm- 


786  The  Pre-eminence  of  Charity. 

self  most  lax.  Deep  knowledge  of  human  nature  tells  us  \\ 
is  exactly  the  reverse.  He  who  shows  the  rough  and  thorn)1 
road  to  heaven  is  he  who  treads  the  primrose  path  himself. 
Be  sure  that  it  is  the  severe  and  pitiless  judge  and  censor  of 
others1  faults  on  whom,  at  a  venture,  you  may  most  safely  fix 
the  charge, "  Thou  art  the  man  !"  I  know  not  why,  but  un- 
relenting severity  proves  guilt  rather  than  innocence.  How 
much  purity  was  proved  by  David's  sentence  of  an  imagin- 
ary criminal  to  death  ?  How  much  by  the  desire  of  those 
Pharisees  to  stone  the  woman  taken  in  adultery  ?  Convicted 
by  their  own  consciences,  they  went  out  one  by  one;  yet 
they  had  longed  to  stone  her.  No :  be  sure  you  must  be 
free  from  sin  in  proportion  as  you  would  judge  with  the  al- 
lowance and  the  charity  of  Christ  Jesus.  "  Tempted  in  all 
points,  yet  without  sin."  "  Wherefore  also,  He  is  a  merciful 
High-priest." 

3.  Lastly,  charity  can  tolerate  even  intolerance.  Let  no 
man  think  that  he  can  be  tolerant  or  charitable  as  a  matter 
of  self-indulgence.  For  real  charity  and  real  toleration  he 
must  pay  a  price.  So  long  as  they  are  merely  negative — so 
long  as  they  mean  only  the  permission  to  every  one  to  think 
his  own  thoughts  and  go  his  own  way — the  world  will  bear 
them.  But  so  soon  as  charity  becomes  action,  and  toleration 
becomes  earnest,  basing  themselves  on  a  principle,  even  this 
— the  conviction  that  at  the  root  of  many  an  error  there  lies 
a  truth,  and  within  much  evil  a  central  heart  of  goodness, 
and  below  unwise  and  even  opposite  forms,  the  same  essen- 
tial meaning — so  soon  charity  and  toleration  exasperate  the 
world  secular,  or  so-called  religious. 

For  instance,  if,  with  St.  Paul,  you  affirm,  "  He  that  ob- 
eerveth  the  day,  observeth  it  to  the  Lord  ;  and  he  that  ob- 
serveth  not  the  day,  to  the  Lord  he  observeth  it  not,"  toler- 
ating both  the  observance  and  the  non-observance,  when  you 
perceive  the  desire  of  doing  God's  will  existing  in  both,  you 
can  not  avoid  the  charge  of  being  careless  about  the  question 
of  the  sanctities  of  a  day  of  rest.  Or  if,  with  St.  Paul,  you  say 
of  some  superstitious  idolatry,  that  men  ignorantly  worship 
God  in  it,  their  worship  being  true,  their  form  false — you  can 
not  avoid  the  stigma  of  seeming  for  the  time  to  be  tending 
to  that  idolatry.  Or  if,  with  the  Son  of  God,  you  recognize 
ihe  enthusiasm  of  nature,  which  passion  had  led  astray  in  de 
vious  paths,  you  can  not  escape  the  imputation  of  being  "  a 
friend  of  publicans  and  sinners."  This  is  the  price  which  a 
man  must  pay  for  charity.  His  Master  could  not  escape  the 
price,  nor  can  he. 

And  then  comes  the  last  and  most  difficult  lesson  of  love 


T/ie  Unjiist  Steward.  787 

to  make  allowances  even  for  the  uncharitable.  For  surely 
below  all  that  uncharitableness  Avhich  is  so  common,  there  is 
often  a  germ  of  the  life  of  love ;  and  beneath  that  intoler- 
ance, which  may  often  wound  ourselves,  a  loving  and  a  can 
did  eye  may  discern  zeal  for  God.  Therefore  St.  Paul  saw 
even  in  the  Jews,  his  bitterest  foes,  that  "  they  had  a  zeal  for 
God,  but  not  "according  to  knowledge."  And  therefore  St. 
Stephen  prayed,  with  his  last  breath,  "  Lord,  lay  not  this  sin 
to  their  charge."  Earth  has  not  a  spectacle  more  glorious 
or  more  fair  to  show  than  this — love  tolerating  intolerance ; 
charity  covering,  as  with  a  veil,  even  the  sin  of  the  lack  of 
charity. 


XXII. 
•THE  UNJUST  STEWARD. 

"  And  the  lord  commended  the  unjust  steward  because  he  had  done  wisely : 
for  the  children  of  this  world  are  in  their  generation  wiser  than  the  children 
of  light.  And  I  say  unto  you, 'Make  to  yourselves  friends  of  the  mammon 
of  unrighteousness  ;  that,  when  ye  fail,  they  may  receive  you  into  everlasting 
habitations." — Lukexvi.  8,  9. 

THERE  is  at  first  sight  a  difficulty  in  the  interpretation 
of  this  parable  ;  apparently  there  is  a  commendation  of  evil 
by  Christ.  We  see  a  bad  man  is  held  up  for  Christian  imita- 
tion. Now  let  us  read  the  parable. 

"And  He  said  also  unto  his  disciples,  There  was  a  certain 
rich  man,  which  had  a  steward;  and  the  same  was  accused 
unto  him  that  he  had  wasted  his  goods.  And  he  called  him, 
and  said  unto  him,  How  is  it  that  I  hear  this  of  thee  ?  give 
an  account  of  thy  stewardship  ;  for  thou  mayest  be  no  longer 
steward.  Then  the  steward  said  within  himself,  What  shall 
I  do?  for  my  lord  taketh  away  from  me  the  stewardship  :  I 
can  not  dig ;  to  beg  I  am  ashamed.  I  am  resolved  what  to 
do,  that,  when  I  am  put  out  of  the  stewardship,  they  may  re- 
ceive me  into  their  houses.  So  he  called  every  one  of  his 
lord's  debtors  unto  him,  and  said  unto  the  first,  How  much 
owest  thou  unto  my  lord?  And  he  said,  A  hundred  meas 
ures  of  oil.  And  he  said  unto  him,  Take  thy  bill,  and  sit 
down  quickly,  and  write  fifty.  Then  said  he  to  another,  And 
how  much  owest  thou?  And  he  said,  A  hundred  measures 
of  wheat.  And  he  said  unto  him,  Take  thy  bill,  and  write 
fourscore.  And  the  lord  commended  the  unjust  steward  be- 
cause he  had  done  wisely  :  for  the  children  of  this  world  are 
in  their  generation  wiser  than  the  children  of  light." 


788  The  Unjust  Steward. 

The  difficulty  we  have  spoken  of  passes  away  when  we 
have  learned  to  distinguish  the  essential  aim  of  the  parable 
from  its  ornament  or  drapery.  There  is  in  every  parable  the 
main  scope,  and  the  ornament  or  drapery.  Sometimes,  if  we 
press  too  closely  the  drapery  in  which  the  aim  and  intention 
of  the  parable  is  clothed,  we  get  quite  the  contrary  of  our 
Redeemer's  meaning.  For  example,  in  the  parable  of  the  un- 
just judge  there  is  the  similarity,  that  both  God  and  the  un- 
just judge  yield  to  importunate  prayer ;  but  there  is  this 
difference,  that  the  judge  does  it  from  weariness,  and  God 
from  love.  The  judge  grants  the  widow's  request,  lest,  he 
says,  "  by  her  continual  coining  she.  weary  me  ;" — and  God 
answers  the  petitions  of  His  people  from,  love  :  and  encour- 
ages earnestness  and  sincerity  in  prayer  because  it  brings 
nan  nearer  to  Him,  elevating  and  ennobling  him,  while  it 
makes  him  feel  his  entire  dependence  on  God. 

So  here  in  this  parable :  it  is  the  lord — it  is  not  Christ,  but 
the  master — who  commended  the  unjust  steward.  And  he 
did  so,  not  because  he  had  acted  honorably,  faithfully,  grate- 
fully, but  because  he  had  acted  wisely.  He  takes  the  single 
point  of  prudence,  foresight,  forecast. 

Let  us  consider  the  possibility  of  detaching  a  single  quali- 
ty from  a  character,  and  viewing  it  separately. 

So  do  we  speak  in  everyday  life.  We  quote  a  passage  ad- 
miringly, from  an  infidel  writer — for  example,  Gibbon  ;  but 
thereby  we  do  not  approve  his  infidelity.  We  may  admire 
the  manly  bearing  of  a  prisoner  in  the  dock  or  on  the  scaffold, 
while  we  reprobate  the  crime  which  brought  him  there.  We 
may  speak  enthusiastically  of  a  great  philosopher ;  we  do  not 
therefore  say  he  is  a  great  man,  or  a  good  man.  Perhaps  we 
are  charmed  by  a  tale  of  successful  robbery ;  we  wonder  at 
its  ingenuity,  its  contrivance,  feel  even  a  kind  of  respect  for 
the  man  who  could  so  contrive  it :  but  no  man  who  thus  re- 
lates it  is  understood  to  recommend  felony.  We  admire  the 
dexterity  of  a  juggler  as  dexterity. 

So  it  was  with  "this  parable  of  Christ.  He  fastened  on  a 
single  point,  excluding  all  other  considerations.  The  man 
had  planned,  he  had  seen  difficulties,  overcome  them,  marked 
out  his  path,  held  to  it  steadily,  crowned  himself  with  suc- 
cess. So  far  he  is  an  example.  The  way  in  which  he  used 
his  power  of  forecasting  may  have  been  bad  ;  but  forecast  it- 
self is  good.  Our  subject  to-day  includes : 

I.  The  wisdom  of  this  world. 
II.  The  pattern  of  Christian  consistency. 

I  The   wisdom  of  this  world.      There  are  three  classes 


The  Unjust  Steward.  789 

of  men.  Those  who  believe  that  one  thing  is  needful,  and 
choose  the  better  part,  who  believe  in  and  live  for  eternity ; 
— these  are  not  mentioned  here  :  those  who  believe  in  the 
world  and  live  for  it ;  and  those  who  believe  in  eternity,  and 
half  live  for  the  world. 

Forethought  for  self  made  the  steward  ask  himself,  "What 
shall  I  do  ?"  Here  is  the  thoughtful,  contriving,  sagacious 
man  of  the  world.  In  the  affairs  of  this  world,  the  man  who 
does  not  provide  for  self,  if  he  enter  into  competition  with 
the  world  on  the  world's  principles,  soon  finds  himself  thrust 
aside  ;  he  will  be  put  out.  It  becomes  necessary  to  jostle 
and  struggle  in  the  great  crowd  if  he  would  thrive.  With 
him  it  is  not,  first  the  kingdom  of  God ;  but  first,  what  he 
shall  eat,  and  what  he  shall  drink,  and  wherewithal  shall  he 
be  clothed. 

Note  the  kind  of  superiority  in  this  character  that  is  com- 
mended. There  are  certain  qualities  which  really  do  elevate 
a  man  in  the  scale  of  being.  He  who  pursues  a  plan  steadi- 
ly is  higher  than  he  who  lives  by  the  hour.  You  can  not  but 
respect  such  a  one.  The  value  of  self-command  and  self-de- 
nial is  exemplified  in  the  cases  of  the  diplomatist  who  mas- 
ters his  features  while  listening  ;  the  man  of  pleasure  who  is 
prudent  in  his  pleasures ;  the  man  of  the  world  wrho  keeps  his 
temper  and  guards  his  lips.  How  often,  after  speaking  hastily 
the  thought  which  was  uppermost,  and  feeling  the  cheek 
burn,  you  have  looked  back  in  admiration  on  some  one  who 
held  his  tongue  even  though  under  great  provocation  to  speak. 

Look  at  some  hard-headed,  hard-hearted  man,  with  a  front 
of  brass,  carrying  out  his  worldly  schemes  with  a  settled  plan, 
and  a  perseverance  which  you  perforce  must  admire.  There 
may  be  nothing  very  exalted  in  his  aim,  but  there  is  some- 
thing very  marvellous  in  the  enduring,  patient,  steady  pur- 
suit of  his  object. 

You  see  energies  of  the  highest  order  are  brought  into  play. 
It  is  not  a  being  of  mean  powers  that  the  world  has  beguiled, 
but  a  mind  far-reaching,  vast ;  throwing  immortal  powers  on 
things  of  time;  on  a  scheme,  perhaps,  which  breaks  up  like  a 
cloud-phantom  or  melts  like  an  ice-palace. 

It  is  a  marvellous  spectacle — a  man  reaching  forward  to  se- 
cure a  habitation,  a  home,  that  will  last.  A  man  counting  his 
freehold  more  his  own  than  the  pension  for  life :  sagacious, 
meeting  with  entire  success :  the  success  which  always  attends 
consistency  in  any  pursuit.  If  a  tradesman  resolve  to  save 
and  be  frugal,  barring  accidents,  he  will  realize  a  competency 
or  a  fortune.  If  you  make  it  your  business  to  please,  you 
will  be  welcome  in  society.  So  we  find  it  in  this  parable, 


790  The  Unjust  Steward. 

This  man,  one  of  the  world,  contrived  to  secure  for  himself  fi 
home.  And  the  children  of  this  world  are  consistent,  and 
force  the  world  to  yield  them  a  home.  It  is  no  use  saying 
the  people  of  the  world  are  not  happy. 

I  shall  now  endeavor  to  explain  this  parable.  The  term 
"  steward  "  is  not  to  be  taken  exactly  in  its  modern  meaning. 
The  tenants  paid  their  rents,  not  in  money,  but  in  kind,  that 
is,  in  produce,  and  the  rent  was  a  certain  proportion  of  the 
crop,  and  would  therefore  vary  according  to  the  harvest. 
Say,  for  illustration,  the  landlord — here  called  "  the  lord  " — 
received  as  rent  the  tenth  part  of  the  crop ;  then,  if  the 
produce  of  an  olive-yard  was  a  thousand  measures  of  oil, 
"  the  lord  "  was  entitled  to  a  hundred  measures.  And  sim- 
ilavly  in  the  case  of  an  arable  farm,  a  rent  of  a  hundred  meas- 
ures of  wheat  would  represent  a  crop  of  a  thousand  measures. 
According  to  the  parable,  it  appears  that  it  depended  on  the 
good  faith  of  the  tenant  to  state  truly  the  amount  gathered 
in  ;  and  against  false  returns  the  chief  check  was  provided  in 
the  steward.  If  he  acquiesced  in  the  deception,  there  was 
generally  no  detection  or  check.  We  read  in  this  case  he 
permitted  the  bill  to  be  taken,  and  an  account  given,  in  the 
one  instance  of  eight  hundred,  in  the  other,  of  five  hundred 
instead  of  a  thousand  measures.  Thus  he  got  gratitude  from 
the  tenants,  who  considered  him  a  benevolent  man,  and  count- 
ed his  expulsion  an  injustice.  We  have  here  a  specimen  of 
the  world's  benevolence  and  the  world's  gratitude.  Let  us 
do  the  world  justice.  Gratitude  is  given  profusely.  Help 
a  man  to  build  his  fortune,  and  you  will  win  gratitude. 

The  steward  got  commendation  from  his  lord  for  his  world- 
ly wisdom.  Such  is  the  wisdom  of  this  world — wise  in  its 
contriving  selfishness;  wise  in  its  masterly  superiority;  wise 
in  its  adaptation  of  means  to  ends ;  wise  in  its  entire  success. 

But  the  success  is  only  in  their  generation,  ana  their  wis- 
dom is  only  for  their  generation.  If  this  world  be  all,  it  is 
wise  to  contrive  for  it  and  live  for  it.  But  if  not,  then  con- 
sider — the  word  is,  "  Thou  fool,  this  night  thy  soul  shall  be 
required  of  thee ;  then  whose  shall  those  things  be  that  thou 
bast  gotten  ?" 

II.  In  contrast  with  the  wisdom  of  the  children  of  this 
world,  the  Redeemer  shows  the  inconsistencies  of  the  chil- 
dren of  light.  "The  children  of  this  world  are  wiser  in  their 
generation  than  the  children  of  light." 

This  is  evidently  not  true  of  all.  There  have  been  men 
who  have  given  their  bodies  to  be  burned  for  the  truth's  sake ; 
men  who  have  freely  sacrificed  this  present  world  for  the 


The  Unjust  Steward.  791 

next.  To  say  that  the  wisest  of  the  sons  of  this  world  is  half 
as  wise  as  they,  were  an  insult  to  the  sanctifying  Spirit. 

But  "  children  of  light "  is  a  wide  term.  There  is  a  dif- 
ference between  life  and  light.  To  have  light  is  to  perceive 
truth  and  know  duly.  To  have  life  is  to  be  able  to  live  out 
truth  and  to  perform  duty.  Many  a  man  has  clear  light  who 
has  not  taken  hold  of  life.  Many  a  man  is  the  child  of  light 
who  does  not  walk  as  the  child  of  life. 

So  far  as  a  man  feels  that  eternity  is  long,  time  short,  so 
far  he  is  a  child  of  light.  So  far  as  he  believes  the  body  noth- 
ing in  comparison  with  the  soul,  the  present  in  comparison 
with  the  future ;  so  far  as  he  has  felt  the  power  of  sin,  and 
the  sanctifying  power  of  the  death  of  Christ ;  so  far  as  he 
comprehends  the  character  of  God  as  exhibited  in  Jesus 
Christ — he  is  a  child  of  light. 

Now  the  accusation  is,  that  in  his  generation  he  does  not 
walk  so  wisely  as  the  child  of  the  world  does  in  his.  The 
children  of  the  world  believe  that  this  world  is  of  vast  im- 
portance. They  are  consistent  with  their  belief,  and  live  for 
it.  Out  of  it  they  manage  to  extract  happiness.  In  it  they 
contrive  to  find  a  home. 

To  be  a  child  of  light  implies  duty  as  well  as  privilege. 
It  is  not  enough  to  have  the  light,  if  we  do  not  "  walk  in  the 
light."  "  If  we  say  we  have  fellowship  with  Him,  and  walk 
in  darkness,  we  lie,  and  do  not  the  truth."  . 

And  to  hold  high  principles  and  live  on  low  ones  is  Chris- 
tian inconsistency.  We  are  all  more  or  less  inconsistent. 
There  is  no  man  whose  practice  is  not  worse  than  Ins  pro- 
fession. No  one  who  does  not  live  below  his  own  standard. 
But  absolute  inconsistency  is,  when  a  man's  life,  taken  as  a 
whole,  is  in  opposition  tc  his  acknowledged  views  and  prin- 
ciples. If  a  man  say  that  'it  is  more  blessed  to  give  than  to 
receive,"  and  is  forever  receiving,  scarcely  ever  giving,  he  is 
inconsistent.  If  he  profess  that  to  please  God  is  the  only 
thing  worth  living  for,  and  his  plans,  and  aims,  and  contriv- 
ances are  all  to  please  men,  he  is  wise  for  the  generation  of 
the  children  of  the  world  ;  for  the  generation  of  the  "  chil- 
dren of  light"  he  is  not  wise.  See,  then,  the  contrast. 

The  wisdom  of  the  steward  consisted  in  forecasting.  He 
felt  that  his  time  was  short,  and  he  lost  not  a  moment. 
Every  time  he  crossed  a  field  it  was  with  the  feeling,  This  is 
no  longer  mine.  Every  time  he  left  his  house  he  felt,  I  shall 
soon  leave  it  to  come  back  no  more.  Every  time  he  went 
into  a  tenant's  cottage  he  felt,  The  present  is  all  that  may  be 
given  me  to  make  use  of  this  opportunity.  Therefore,  he 
Bays  with  dispatch,  "Take  thy  bi)!3  and  write  down," 


79-  The  Unjust  Steward. 

Now  the  want  of  Christian  wisdom  consists  in  this,  that 
our  stewardship  is  drawing  to  a  close,  and  no  provision  if 
made  for  an  eternal  future.  We  are  all  stewards.  Every 
day,  every  age  of  life,  every  year,  gives  us  superintendence 
over  something  which  we  have  to  use,  and  the  use  of  which 
tells  for  good  or  evil  on  eternity. 

Childhood  and  manhood  pass.  The  day  passes :  and,  as  its 
close  draws  near,  the  Master's  voice  is  heard — "Thou  mayest 
be  no  longer  steward."  And  what  are  all  these  outward 
symbols  but  types  and  reminders  of  the  darker,  longer  night 
that  is  at  hand?  One  by  one,  we  are  turned  out  of  all  oui 
homes.  The  summons  comes.  The  man  lies  down  on  his 
bed  for  the  last  time;  and  then  comes  that  awful  moment, 
the  putting  down  the  extinguisher  on  the  light,  and  the  grand 
rush  of  darkness  on  the  spirit. 

Let  us  now  consider  our  Saviour's  application  of  this  parable. 

"  And  I  say  unto  you,  Make  to  yourselves  friends  of  the 
mammon  of  unrighteousness ;  that,  when  ye  fail,  they  may 
receive  you  into  everlasting  habitations.  He  that  is  faithful 
in  that  which  is  least  is  faithful  also  in  much :  and  he  that  is 
unjust  in  the  least  is  unjust  also  in  much.  If  therefore  ye 
have  not  been  faithful  in  the  unrighteous  mammon,  who  will 
commit  to  your  trust  the  true  riches  ?  And  if  ye  have  not 
been  faithful  in  that  which  is  another  man's,  who  shall  give 
you  that  which  is  your  own  ?" 

There  are  two  expressions  to  be  explained. 

1.  "  Mammon  of  unrighteousness."     Mammon  is  the  name 
of  n  Syrian  god,  who  presided  over  wealth.     Mammon  of  un- 
righteous**  ss  means  the  god  whom  the  unrighteous  worship 
— wealth. 

It  is  not  necessarily  gold.  Any  wealth  ;  wealth  being 
weal  or  well-being.  Time,  talents,  opportunity,  and  author- 
ity, all  are  wealth.  Here  the  steward  had  influence. 

It  is  called  the  mammon  of  unrighteousness,  because  it  is 
ordinarily  used,  not  well,  but  ill.  Power  corrupts  men. 
Riches  harden  more  than  misfortune. 

2.  "  Make  friends  of."     This  is  an  ambiguous  expression. 
Those  who  know  it  to  be  so  scarcely  are  aware  how  widely 
it  is  misunderstood.     To  make  friends  of,  has,  in  English,  two 
meanings.     To  make  friends  of  a  man,  in  our  idiom,  is  to  con- 
vert him  into  our  ally.     We  meet  with  those  .who  imagine 
that  the  command  is  to  make  riches  our  friends  instead  of 
our  enemies. 

But  the  other  meaning  is  "  of,"  i.  e.,  out  of,  by  the  use  of, 
to  create  friends— in  a  word,  to  use  these  goods  of  time  in 
such  a  way  as  to  secure  eternal  well-being. 


The  Unjust  Steward.  793 

"Make  to  yourselves  friends."  I  will  explain  "friends" 
as  a  home.  There  may  seem  to  be  great  legality  in  this  in 
junction. 

Yet  on  this  subject  the  words  of  Scripture  are  very  strong. 
"  Sell  that  thou  hast,  and  give  unto  the  poor,  and  thou  shalt 
have  treasure  in  heaven ;"  "Provide  yourselves  bags  that  wax 
not  old ;  a  treasure  in  the  heavens,  that  fadeth  not  away ;" 
"Lay.  up  for  yourselves  treasure  in  heaven,  where  neither 
moth  nor  rust  doth  corrupt,  and  where  thieves  do  not  break 
through  and  steal."  Do  not  be  afraid  of  the  expression. 
Let  itT  stand  in  all  its  bold  truthfulness.  Goodness  done  in 
Christ  secures  blessedness.  A  cup  of  cold  water,  given  in 
the  name  of  Christ,  shall  not  lose  its  reward. 

Merit  in  these  things  there  is  none.  Oh,  the  man  who 
knows  the  torment  of  an  evil  heart,  and  the  man  who  is 
striving  to  use  his  powers  wisely,  is  not  the  man  to  talk  of 
merit  in  the  sight  of  God.  There  is  no  truth  more  dear  to 
our  hearts  than  this — not  by  merit,  but  by  grace,  does  heaven 
become  ours. 

But  let  us  put  it  in  another  way.  Wise  acts,  holy  and  un- 
selfish deeds,  secure  friends.  Wherever  the  steward  went 
he  found  a  friend.  The  acts  of  his  beneficence  were  spread 
over  the  whole  of  his  master's  estate.  Go  where  he  would, 
he  would  receive  a  welcome.  In  this  way  our  good  actions 
become  our  friends. 

And  if  it  be  no  dream  which  holy  men  have  entertained, 
that  on  this  regenerated  earth  the  risen  spirits  shall  live 
again  in  glorified  bodies,  then  it  were  a  thing  of  sublime  an- 
ticipation, to  know  that  every  spot  hallowed  by  the  recol- 
lection of  a  deed  done  for  Christ,  contains  a  recollection 
which  would  be  a  friend.  Just  as  the  patriarchs  erected  an 
altar  when  they  felt  God  to  be  near,  till  Palestine  became 
dotted  with  these  memorials,  so  would  earth  be  marked  by  a 
good  man's  life  with  those  holiest  of  all  friends,  the  remem- 
brance of  ten  thousand  little  nameless  acts  of  piety  and  love. 

Lastly,  they  are  everlasting  habitations. 

If  the  children  of  the  world  be  right,  it  is  not  all  well  with 
them;  but  if  the  children  of  light'be  right,  it  is  well  ever- 
lastingly. 

Nothing  is  eternal  but  that  which  is  done  for  God  and 
others.  That  which  is  done  for  self  dies.  Perhaps  it  is  not 
wrong:  but  it  perishes.  You  say  it  is  pleasure,  well — enjoy 
it.  But  joyous  recollection  is  no  longer  joy.  That  which 
ends  in  self  is  mortal ;  that  alone  which  goes  out  of  self  into 
God  lasts  forever. 


794  The  Orphanage  of  Moses. 


XXIII. 
THE  ORPHANAGE  OF  MOSES. 

A  SERMON  PREACHED  ON  BEHALF  OF  THE  ORPHAN  SOCIETY. 

"  And  when  she  had  opened  it,  she  saw  the  child :  and,  behold,  the  babe 
wept.  And  she  had  compassion  on  him,  and  said,  This  is  one  of  the  Hebrews' 
children.  Then  said  his  sister  to  Pharaoh's  daughter,  Shall  I  go  and  call  to 
thee  a  nurse  of  the  Hebrew  women,  that  she  may  nurse  the  child  for  thee? 
And  Pharaoh's  daughter  said  to  her,  Go.  And  the  maid  went  and  called  tha 
child's  mother.  And  Pharaoh's  daughter  said  unto  her,  Take  this  child  away, 
and  nurse  it  for  me,  and  I  will  give  thee  thy  wages.  And  the  woman  took 
the  child,  and  nursed  it." — Exod.  ii.  G-9. 

THIS  is  the  account  given  of  the  discovery  of  a  foundling 
orphan.  Moses •  was  an  orphan  —  o/o^avoc,  bereaved;  ordi- 
narily it  means  one  bereaved  by  death.  But  it  matters  not 
whether  it  is  by  death  or  otherwise ;  it  is  truly  an  orphan 
if  it  be  in  any  manner  deprived  of  a  parent's  care.  Here 
the  child  Moses  was  not  bereaved  by  death,  but  by  political 
circumstances. 

In  the  book  from  whence  our  text  is  taken,  we  are  told  that 
three  laws  were  enacted  against  the  liberties  of  Israel: 

1.  To  keep    down   the  population  the  political   economy 
of  those  days  devised,  as  a  preventive  check,  the  slaughter 
of  the  males. 

2.  To   prevent  their  acquiring  any  political  importance, 
the  officers  set  over  them  were  Egyptians.     No  Israelite  was 
eligible  to  any  office — not  even  as  a  taskmaster. 

3.  To  prevent  their  acquiring  knowledge,  they  were  pro- 
hibited from    the   slightest  leisure :  their  lives  were  made 
bitter  with  hard  bondage,  in  brick  and  mortar. 

No  penal  statutes  were  ever  more  complete  than  these, 
If  any  penal  statutes  could  have  prevented  the  growth  of 
this  injured  nation,  these  must  have  succeeded.  Numerically 
limited,  rendered  politically  insignificant,  and  intellectually 
feeble,  the  slavery  of  Israel  Avas  complete. 

But  wherever  governments  enact  penal  laws  which  are 
against  the  laws  of  God,  those  governments  or  nations  are, 
by  the  sure  and  inevitable  process  of  revolution,  preparing 
for  themselves  destruction.  As  when  you  compress  yielding 
water,  it  burst  at  last. 

Pharaoh's  laws  were   against  all  the  laws   of  Nature,  or, 


77te  Orphanage  of  Moses.  795 

more  properly  speaking,  against  the  laws  of  God :  and  Na- 
ture was  slowly  working  against  Pharaoh.  He  had  made 
God  his  enemy. 

Against  these  laws  of  Pharaoh  a  mother's  heart  revolted. 
She  hid  her  child  for  three  months.  Disobedience  to  this 
Egyptian  law,  we  read,  was  faith  in  God — so  says  the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews.  "  By  faith  Moses,  when  he  was  born,  was 
hid  three  months  of  his  parents,  because  they  saw  he  was  a 
proper  child ;  and  they  were  not  afraid  of  the  king's  com- 
mandment." 

At  last  concealment  was  no  longer  possible,  and  the 
mother  placed  her  child  in  an  ark  among  the  reeds  of  the 
river  Nile.  And  there  a  foundling  orphan  he  lay,  who  was 
to  be  the  future  emancipator  and  lawgiver  of  Israel. 

In  order  to  understand  these  verses,  I  divide  them  into 
two  branches : 

I.  The  claims  of  the  orphan. 
II.  The  orphan's  education. 

And  first.  By  apparent  accident,  if  there  be  such  a  thing 
in  this  world  of  God's,  the  daughter  of  Pharaoh  came  down 
to  the  river  to  wash,  and,  among  the  reeds  she  saw  the  chest 
in  which  lay  the  child. 

Now  the  first  claim  put  forward  on  her  compassion  was 
the  claim  of  infancy. 

The  chest  was  opened.  The  princess  "saw  the  child." 
That  single  sentence  contains  an  argument.  It  was  an 
appeal  to  the  woman's  heart.  "  It  mattered  not  that  she  was 
a  princess,  nor  that  she  belonged  to  the  proudest  class  of  the 
most  exclusive  nation  in  the  world.  Rank, caste,  nationality, 
all  melted  before  the  great  fact  of  womanhood.  She  was  a 
woman,  and  before  her  lay  an  outcast  child. 

Now,  let  us  observe,  that  feeling  wrhich  arose  here  was 
spontaneous.  She  did  not  feel  compassion  because  it  was 
ner  duty  so  to  feel,  but  because  it  was  her  nature.  The  law 
'of  Egypt  forbade  her  to  feel  so  for  a  Hebrew  child. 

We  commit  a  capital  error  when  we  make  feeling  a  matter 
of  command.  To  make  feelings  a  subject  of  law  destroys 
their  beauty  and  spontaneity. 

When  we  say  ought — that  a  woman  ought  to  feel  so  and 
BO — we  state  a  fact,  not  a  command.  We  say  that  it  is  her 
nature,  and  that  she  is  unnatural  if  she  does  not.  There  is 
something  wrong — her  nature  is  perverted.  But  no  com- 
mand can  make  her  feel  thus  or  thus.  Law,  applied  to  feel- 
ing, only  makes  hypocrites. 

God  has  provided  for  humanity  by  a  plan  more  infallible 


796  The  Orphanage  of  Moses. 

than  system,  by  implanting  feeling  in  our  natures.  It  was  a 
heathen  felt  thus. 

Do  not  fancy  that  Christianity  created  these  feelings  of 
tenderness  and  compassion  by  commanding  them.  Chris- 
tianity declares  them,  commands  them,  and  sanctions  them, 
because  they  belong  to  man's  unadulterated  nature.  Chris* 
tianity  acknowledges  them,  stamps  them  with  the  divine 
seal;  but  they  existed  before,  and  were  found  even  among 
the  Egyptians  and  Assyrians.  What  Christianity  did  for  all 
these  feelings  was  exactly  what  the  creation  of  the  sun,  as 
given  in  the  Mosaic  account,  did  for  the  light  then  existing. 
There  was  light  before,  but  the  creation  of  the  sun  was  the 
gathering  all  the  scattered  rays  of  light  into  one  focus. 
Christian  institutions,  asylums,  hospitals,  are  only  the  reduc- 
tion into  form  of  feelings  that  existed  before. 

So  it  is,  that  all  that  heathenism  held  of  good  and  godlike, 
Christianity  acknowledges  and  adopts — centralizes.  It  is 
human — Christian — ours. 

2.  Consider  the  degiadation  of  this  child's  origin.     "This 
is  one  of  the  Hebrews'  children."     The  exclusiveness  of  the 
Egyptian  social  system  was  as  strong  as  that  of  the  Hindoo. 
There  was  no  intermixture  between  caste  and  caste — between 
priest  and  merchant.     This  child  was,  moreover,  a  Hebrew — 
a   slave — an  alien — reckoned  a  hereditary  enemy,  and  to  be 
crushed. 

In  these  rigid  feelings  of  caste  distinction  the  princess 
was  brought  up.  The  voice  of  society  said,  It  is  but  a 
Hebrew.  The  mightier  voice  of  nature — no,  of  God — spake 
within  her,  and  said,  It  is  a  human  being — bone  of  your 
bone,  and  sharing  the  same  life. 

That  moment  the  princess  of  Egypt  escaped  from  the 
trammels  of  time-distinctions  and  temporary  narrowness, 
and  stood  upon  the  rock  of  the  Eternal.  So  long  as  the 
feeling  lasted,  she  breathed  the  spirit  of  that  kingdom  in 
which  there  is  "  neither  Jew  nor  Gentile,  barbarian,  Scythian, 
bond,  nor  free."  So  long  as  the  feeling  lasted,  she  breathed 
the  atmosphere  of  Him  who  "  came  not  to  be  ministered  unto 
but  to  minister." 

She  was  animated  by  His  Spirit  who  came  to  raise  the 
abject,  to  break  the  bond  of  the  oppressor.  She  felt  as  He 
felt,  when  she  recognized  that  the  very  degradation  of  the 
child  was  a  claim  upon  her  royal  compassion. 

3.  The  last  reason  we  find  for  this  claim  was  its  unpro- 
tected state  —  it  wept.     Those   tears  told   of  a   conscious 
want — the  felt  want  of  a  mother's   arms.     But  they  sug- 
gested   to   the   Egyptian   princess   the    remembrance   of  a 


The  Orphanage  of  Moses.  797 

danger  of  which  the  child  was  unconscious — helpless  ex< 
posure  to  worse  evils — famine ;  the  Nile  flood  ;  the  croco- 
dile. And  the  want  of  which  the  exposed  child  was  con< 
scious  was  far  less  than  the  danger  of  which  it  was  uncon« 
scions. 

Such  is  the  state  of  orphanage.  Because  it  is  unprotected, 
it  is  therefore  exposed  to  terrible  evils.  There  are  worse 
evils  than  the  Nile,  the  crocodile,  or  starvation. 

Suppose  the  child  had  lived.  Then,  as  a  boy  in  the  hands 
of  a  taskmaster  or  slave-driver,  he  would  have  become  cal- 
lous, hard,  and  vicious,  with  every  feeling  of  tenderness  dried 
up.  Nothing  can  replace  a  parent's  tenderness.  It  is  not 
for  physical  support  merely  that  parents  are  given  us,  but 
for  the  formation  of  the  heart.  He  wept  now;  but  the 
fountain  of  the  orphan's  tears  would  have  been  withered  and 
drie^i  up,  and  instead  of  the  tender  man  which  he  afterwards 
became,  he  would  have  become  a  hard-hearted  slave. 

Let  us  suppose,  again,  the  case  of  a  girl  orphaned.  Then 
you  have  the  danger  infinitely  multiplied.  There  would  have 
been  no  one  in  all  the  land  of  Egypt  to  redress  the  wrongs 
done  to  a  Hebrew  maiden.  There  are  men  in  this  world  to 
whom,  putting  religion  out  of  the  question  even,  the  very  fact 
of  wanting  protection  is  cause  sufficient  for  them  to  render 
protection.  There  are  men  to  whom  defenselessness  is  its 
own  all-sufficient  plea :  there  are  men  in  whose  presence  the 
woman  and  the  orphan,  just  because  they  are  unshielded  by 
any  care,  are  protected  more  than  they  could  be  by  any 
laws. 

But  remember,  I  pray  you,  that  there  is  another  spirit  in 
the  world — the  spirit  of  oppression,  and  even  worse ;  the 
spirit  against  which  Jewish  prophets  rose  to  the  height  of  a 
divine  eloquence  when  they  pleaded  the  cause  of  the  father- 
less and  the  widow;  that  spirit  which  in  our  own  day  makes 
the  daughter  of  the  poor  man  less  safe  than  the  daughter  of 
the  rich ;  that  spirit  of  seduction,  than  which  there  is  nothing 
more  cowardly,  more  selfish,  more  damnable.  For  alas!  it 
is  true  that  to  say  that  a  girl  is  unprotected,  fatherless,  and 
poor,  is  almost  equivalent  to  saying  that  she  will  fall  into  sin. 

II.  We  pass  on  now  to  consider  the  orphan's  education; 
and  first  I  notice  that  it  was  a  suggestion  from  another. 

The  princess  felt  compassion,  and  so  far  was  in  the  state 
of  one  who  has  warm  feelings,  but  does  not  know  how  to  do 
good.  Brought  up  in  a  court,  born  to  be  waited  on,  nursed 
in  luxury,  ignorant  of  life  and  how  the  poor  lived,  those  feeL 
ings  might  have  remained  helpless  feelings. 


798  The  Orphanage  of  Moses. 

Then,  in  the  providence  of  God,  one  stood  by  who  offered 
a  suggestion  how  she  might  benefit  the  child,  "  Shall  I  go  and 
call  a  nurse  ?"  In  other  words,  she  suggested  that  it  would 
be  a  princely  and  noble  thing  for  Pharaoh's  daughter  to 
adopt  and  educate  it. 

And  now  observe  the  value  of  such  a  suggestion :  what 
we  want  is  not  feeling — emotions  are  common,  feelings  super- 
abound.  In  the  educated  classes,  feeling  is  extremely  refined, 
but  is  much  occupied  with  imaginary  and  unreal  troubles; 
and  the  reason  why,  with  such  warm  feelings  so  little  good  is 
done,  is  that  we  want  the  suggestion  how  to  do  it. 

Observe  how  differently  the  Bible  treats  this,  from  what 
the  painter  or  the  novelist  would  have  done.  A  painter 
would  have  shown  the  majesty  and  beauty  of  the  royal 
actor.  A  romance  would  have  given  a  touching  history  of 
womanly  sentiment.  But  the  Bible,  being  a  real  book,  s^ays 
little  of  the  emotion — merely  mentions  it — and  passes  on  to 
the  act  to  which  the  feeling  was  meant  to  lead. 

Brethren,  we  often  make  a  mistake  here ;  we  are  proud  of 
our  emotions,  of  our  refined  feeling,  of  our  quick  sensibilities ; 
but  remember,  I  pray  you,  feeling  by  itself  is  worthless — it  is 
meant  to  lead  to  action,  and  if  it  fails  to  do  this  it  is  a  danger 
rather  than  a  blessing ;  for  excited  feeling  that  stops  short 
of  deeds  is  the  precursor  of  callousness  and  hardness  of  heart. 
Your  sensibility  is  well — but  what  has  it  done? 

We  feel  the  orphan's  claims,  and  now  comes  the  question, 
how  shall  we  do  them  good  ? 

Let  us  observe  that  Moses  was  nursed  by  a  Hebrew  matron. 
She  was  one  of  his  own  grade.  It  would  have  been  a  capital 
error  to  have  given  him  to  an  Egyptian  nurse.  Probably, 
the  princess  left  to  herself  would  have  done  so.  But  then 
he  would  have  been  weaned  from  his  own  race.  In  heart, 
sympathies,  feelings,  he  would  have  been  an  Egyptian.  Nay, 
he  would  have  been  more  exclusive;  for  the  hardest  are 
almost  always  those  who  have  been  raised  above  their  for- 
mer position.  The  slave's  hardest  taskmaster  is  a  negro.  The 
one  who  is  most  exclusive  in  his  sympathies  is  usually  the 
raised  merchant,  or  the  one  recently  ennobled. 

This  great  thing  is  to  emancipate  the  degraded  through 
their  own  class.  Only  through  their  own  class  can  they  be 
effectually  delivered;  the  mere  patronage  of  the  great  and 
rich  injures  character. 

So  it  was  with  Judaism;  so  it  was  with  Christianity. 
The  Redeemer  was  made  of  a  woman — "  born  under  the  law 
to  redeem  them  that  were  under  the  law."  He  who  came 
**'  Breach  tne  Gospel  to  the  Door,  was  born  of  a  poor  woman, 


The  Orphanage  of  Moses.  799 

But  it  was  not  only  a  Hebrew  nurse  to  whom  Moses  was 
given,  it  was  a  mother — his  own  mother — who  nursed  him  ; 
and  from  her  he  heard  the  story  of  his  people's  history. 
From  her  he  learned  to  feel  his  country's  wrongs  to  be  his 
own.  In  the  splendor  of  Pharaoh's  court  he  never  could 
forget  that  his  mother  was  a  slave,  and  that  his  father  was 
working  in  brick  and  mortar,  under  cruel  taskmasters. 

From  the  princess  he  gained  the  wisdom  of  Egypt — he 
was  taught  legislative  science.  From  hardship  he  learned 
endurance  and  patience.  Instruction  ends  in  the  school-room, 
but  education  ends  only  with  life.  A  child  is  given  to  the 
universe  to  educate. 

Now  let  us  see  the  results  of  this  training  on  his  intellect- 
ual and  moral  nature. 

1.  Intellectually.     We  will  only  notice  the  spirit  of  inquiry 
and   habit   of  observation.     To   ask  "  Why  ?"   is   the   best 
Christian  lesson  for  a  child.     Not  the  "  why "  which  is  the 
language  of  disobedience,  but  that  "  why "  which  demands 
for  all  phenomena  a  cause.     It  was  this  which  led  Moses  on 
Mount  Horeb  to  say,  "I  will  turn  aside  and  see  this  great 
sight,  why  the  bush  is  not  burned."     So  it  was  that  Moses 
found  out  God. 

2.  In  the  moral  part  of  his  character  we  note  his  hatred  of 
injustice   and  cruelty;  ever  was  he   found   ranged   against 
oppression   in  whatever  form  it   might   appear.     He  stood 
ever  on  the  side  of  right  against  might,  whether  it  was  to 
avenge   the  wrong   done   by   the   Egyptian   to   one   of  his 
Hebrew  brethren,  or  to  rescue  the  daughter  of  the  priest  of 
Midian  from  the  oppressing  shepherds.     He  became,  too,  a 
peacemaker.     Thus   we   get   a   glimpse   of  the   moral   and 
intellectual  nature  of  the  man  who  afterwards  led  Israel  out 
of  Egyptian  bondage,  and  who,  but  for  the  education  he  had 
received,  might  have  become   as   degraded   as   any  of  the 
nation  he  freed  from  slavery. 

At  the  present  day,  that  child  who  might  have  become  so 
degraded,  stands  second  but  to  One  in  dignity  and  influence 
in  the  annals  of  the  human  race.  Take,  for  one  example,  the 
Jewish  sabbath.  Thousands  upon  thousands  of  that  nation, 
fond  of  gain  and  mammon  as  they  proverbially  are  said  to  be, 
yet  gave  up  their  gains  yesterday,  and  voluntarily  surren- 
dered that  one  day  in  addition  to  this  day  which,  by  the  law 
of  the  land,  they  are  obliged  to  keep  holy.  And  all  this  in 
obedience  to  the  enactments  of  that  orphan  child,  who  three 
thousand  years  ago  commanded  the  sabbath-day  to  be  kept 
holy.  In  those  days  the  Pharaohs  of  Egypt  raised  theii 
memorials  in  the  enduring  stone  of  the  pyramids,  which  still 


8oo  The  Orphanage  of  Moses. 

remain  almost  untouched  by  time.  A  princess  of  Egypt 
raised  her  memorial  in  a  human  spirit,  and  just  so  far  as  spirit 
is  more  enduring  than  stone,  just  so  far  is  the  work  of  that 
princess  more  enduring  than  the  work  of  the  Pharaohs ;  for 
when  the  day  comes  when  those  pyramids  shall  have  crum- 
bled into  nothingness  and  ruin,  then  shall  the  spirit  of  the 
laws  of  Moses  still  remain  interwoven  with  the  most  hallowed 
of  human  institutions.  So  long  as  the  spirit  of  Moses  influ- 
ences this  world,  so  long  shall  her  work  endure,  the  work  of 
that  royal-hearted  lady  who  adopted  this  Hebrew  orphan 
child. 

It  now  only  remains  for  me  to  say  a  word  on  the  claims 
of  that  institution  for  which  I  am  to  plead  to-day — the  Fe- 
male Orphan  Asylum  in  this  town.  It  was  established  in 
1823,  and  for  years  its  funds  flourished;  lately  they  have 
fallen  off  considerably,  and  that  not  in  consequence  of  fault 
in  the  institution  itself,  but  simply  for  this  cause,  that  of 
those  who  took  it  up  warmly  once,  many  have  been  removed 
by  death,  and  many  have  altered  their  place  of  residence,  and 
also  because  many  fresh  calls  and  institutions  have  come  for- 
ward, and  thus  have  excluded  this  one.  The  consequence 
has  been  a  sad  falling  off  of  funds.  Last  year  the  expend- 
iture exceeded  the  receipts  by  one  hundred  pounds. 

Within  the  walls  of  that  institution,  now  almost  dilapida- 
ted and  falling  into  decay,  there  are  twenty-four  female  or- 
phan children,  received  from  the  age  of  six  to  sixteen ;  not 
educated  above  their  station,  but  educated  simply  to  enable 
them  "to  do  their  duty  in  that  state  of  life  to  which  it  has 
pleased  God  to  call  them." 

And  now  I  earnestly  desire  to  appeal  to  you  for  this  object 
by  the  thoughts  that  have  to-day  been  brought  before  you. 
Because  they  are  children,  I  make  an  appeal  to  every  moth- 
er's and  woman's  heart ;  because  they  are  females,  young 
and  unprotected,  I  make  an  appeal  to  the  heart  of  every  man 
who  knows  and  feels  the  evils  of  society ;  because  they  be- 
long to  the  lowest  class,  I  make  an  appeal  to  all  who  have 
ever  felt  the  infinite  preciousness  of  the  fact  that  the  Saviour 
of  this  world  was  born  a  poor  man's  child. 

My  beloved  Christian  brethren,  let  us  not  be  content  witb 
feeling ;  give,  I  pray  you,  as  God  has  prospered  you. 


Christianity  and  Hindooism.  80 1 


XXIV. 
CHRISTIANITY  AND  HINDOOISM. 

A  FRAGMENT  OF  AN  ADVENT  LECTURE. 

"  Hear,  O  Israel :  The  Lord  our  God  is  one  Lord :  And  thou  shalt  love 
the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thine  heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul,  and  with  all  thy 
might." — Deut.  vi.  4,  5. 

IT  is  ray  intention,  in  giving  the  present  course  of  lectures, 
to  consider  the  advent  of  our  Lord  in  connection  with  the 
cause  of  missionary  labors.  This  connection  is  clear.  His 
advent  is  the  reign  of  God  in  the  hearts  of  men  ;  and  it  is 
the  aim  of  the  missionary  to  set  up  that  kingdom  in  men's 
hearts.  There  is  also  a  more  indirect  connection  between 
the  two,  because  at  this  time  the  Church  Missionary  Society 
is  celebrating  its  jubilee.  It  is  now  fifty  years  since  the  first 
mission  was  established  at  Sierra  Leone,  where,  although 
they  who  composed  that  little  band  were  swept  oif  one 
after  another  by  jungle  fever — their  groans  unheard,  them- 
selves unwept,  and  almost  unhonored — yet  there  rose  up 
other  laborers  after  them  ;  and  a  firm  footing  was  at  length 
gained  in  that  dark  heathen  land. 

On  the  Epiphany  of  next  year  we  are  to  celebrate  this  ju- 
bilee in  Brighton ;  and  it  has  seemed  to  me  a  good  prepara- 
tion, that  we  should  occupy,  in  thought,  some  field  of  mis- 
sionary exertion,  and  look  at  the  difficulties  which  those 
have  had  to  contend  against,  who  have  gone  out  in  that 
work.  There  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  which  shall  be  first  cho- 
sen for  our  contemplation.  India,  with  its  vast  territories 
and  millions  of  people,  comes  first,  both  as  being  one  of  our 
own  possessions,  and  by  the  heavy  responsibilities  attaching 
to  us  on  account  of  it. 

We  propose,  therefore,  to  give  some  account  of  Hindoo 
superstition  ;  and  here  I  would  remark,  there  are  three  v.  ays 
of  looking  at  idolatry. 

I.  There  is  the  way  of  the  mere  scholar — that  of  men  who 
read  about  it  as  the  school-boy  does,  as  a  thing  past — a  cu- 
rious but  worn-out  system.  This  scholastic  spirit  is  the 
worst ;  for  it  treats  the  question  of  religious  worship  as  a 
piece  of  rmtiquariariism,  of  no  vital  consequence,  but  just  cu- 
rious and  amusing. 

34* 


8o2  Christianity  and  Hindoo  ism. 

II.  There  is  the   view  taken  by   the   religious  partisan. 
There  are  some  men  who,  thinking  their  religion  right,  de- 
termine therefore  that  every  one  who  differs  from  tnem  is 
wrong.     They  look  with  scorn  and  contempt  on  the  religion 
of  the  Hindoo,  and  only  think  how  they  may  force  theirs 
upon  him.     In  this  spirit,  the  world  can  never  be  evangel- 
ized.    A  man  may  say  to  another,  "  I  can  not  understand 
your  believing  such  folly,"  but  he  will  not  convince  him  so 
of  his  error.     It  is  only  by  entering  into  the  mind  and  difi> 
culties  of  the  heathen  that  we  can  learn  how  to  meet  them 
and  treat  them  effectually. 

III.  There  is  the  way  of  enlightened  Christianity.     In  this 
spirit  stood  St.  Paul  on  the  hill  at  Athens.     The  beauty  of 
Greek  worship  was  nothing  to  him.     To  him  it  was  still  idol- 
atry, though    it   was   enlightened  ;    but    he    was   not  hard 
enough  not  to  be  able  to  feel  for  them.     He  did  not  denounce 
it  to  them  as  damnable;  he  showed   them  that  they  were 
feeling  after  God,  but  blindly,  ignorantly,  wrongly.     "  Whom 
ye  ignorantly  worship,  Him  declare  I  unto  you." 

The  religion  on  which  we  are  going  to  dwell  to-day  is 
one  of  the  most  subtle  the  world  has  ever  received.  It  has 
stood  the  test  of  long  ages  and  of  great  changes.  The  land 
has  in  turn  submitted  to  the  Macedonian,  the  Saracen,  the 
Mohammedan  conqueror;  yet  its  civilization,  and  its  ways 
of  thinking,  have  remained  always  the  same — in  stagnation. 
We  marvel  how  it  has  happened  that  their  religion  has  re- 
mained sufficient  for  them.  Let  us  look  at  it. 

L  We  take,  as  the  first  branch  of  our  subject,  the  Hin- 
doo conception  of  Divinity.  We  start  with  the  assertion, 
that  the  god  whom  a  man  worships  is  but  the  reflection  of 
himself.  Tell  us  what  a  man's  mind  is,  and  we  will  tell  you 
what  his  god  is.  Thus,  amongst  the  Africans,  the  lowest 
and  most  degraded  of  mankind,  forms  of  horror  are  rever- 
enced. The  frightful,  black,  shapeless  god,  who  can  be 
frightened  by  the  noise  of  a  drum,  is  their  object  of  worship. 

Our  Scandinavian  forefathers,  whose  delight  was  in  the 
battle  and  the  sea-fight,  worshipped  warlike  gods,  whose 
names  still  descend  to  us  in  the  names  given  to  the  days  of 
the  week ;  they  expected  after  death  the  conqueror's  feast  in 
Walhalla,  the  flowing  cup,  and  the  victor's  wreath. 

Look  at  Christianity  itself.  Wre  profess  to  worship  the 
Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  but  we  do  not  all  worship 
the  same  God.  The  God  of  the  child  is  not  the  God  of  the 
man.  He  is  a  beneficent  being — an  enlarged  representation 
(to  him)  of  his  own  lather.  The  man  whose  mind  is  cast  ia 


Christianity  and  Hindooism.  803 

a  #tern  mould  worships  a  God  who  sits  above  to  administer 
justice  and  punishment.  The  man  who  shrinks  from  the 
idea  of  suffering  worships  a  placable  God,  who  combines  the 
greatest  possible  amount  of  happiness  for  the  race  with  the 
least  possible  amount  of  pain. 

[Now,  consider  the  man  who  worships  God  as  He  appears 
in  Jesus  Christ.]  • 

There  are  two  things  distinctly  marked  in  the  Hindoo  re- 
ligion :  The  love  of  physical  repose ;  and  mental  activity^ 
restlessness,  and  subtlety.  Theirs  are  ideas  passing  through 
trains  of  thought  which  leave  our  European  minds  marvel- 
ling in  astonishment. 

Their  first  principle  is  that  of  God's  unity.  We  are  told 
by  some  that  they  have  many  gods,  but  all  those  who  have 
deeply  studied  the  subject  agree  in  this — that  they  really 
have  but  one.  This  Hindoo  deity  is  capable  of  two  states — 
1.  Inaction;  2.  Action.  The  first  state  is  that  of  a  dream- 
less sleep,  unconscious  of  its  own  existence  ;  all  attributes 
have  passed  away — it  is  infinite  nothing.  We  remark  in  men 
generally  a  desire  for  rest ;  in  the  Hindoo  it  is  a  desire  mere- 
ly for  indolence.  Far  deeper  lodged  in  the  human  breast 
than  the  desire  of  honor  or  riches  is  seated  the  desire  for 
rest :  there  are,  doubtless,  eager,  earnest  spirits,  who  may 
scorn  pleasure,  but,  nevertheless,  they  long  for  rest.  Well 
and  rightly  has  the  Hindoo  thrown  this  idea  on  God ;  but 
he  has  erred  in  the  character  of  that  repose. 

There  are  two  kinds  of  rest:  1st.  There  is  the  rest  de- 
sired by  the  world.  2d.  There  is  the  rest  we  find  in  Christ. 
The  active  mind,  if  out  of  its  proper  sphere,  corrodes  itself, 
and  frets  itself  with  plans  and  projects,  finding  no  rest.  The 
rest  of  Christ  is  not  that  of  torpor,  but  harmony  ;  it  is  not 
refusing  the  struggle,  but  conquering  in  it ;  not  resting  from, 
duty,  but  finding  rest  in  duty. 

The  sabbaths  of  eternity  have  kept  the  Supreme  Mind  in 
infinite  blessedness :  on  our  restless,  unquiet,  throbbing 
hearts,  God  has  been  looking  down,  serene  and  calm.  When 
chaos  took  lovely  form  and  shape,  then  that  rest  began — 
not  in  the  torpor  of  inaction,  but  in  harmonious  work.  "  My 
Father  worketh  hitherto."  God  works  in  all  the  smallest 
objects  of  creation,  as  well  as  in  the  largest.  Even  in  mid- 
night stillness  harmonious  action  is  the  law ;  when  every 
thing  seems  to  slumber,  all  is  really  at  work,  for  the  spirit  of 
life  and  the  spirit  of  death  are  weaving  and  unweaving  for- 
ever. 

We  remark  that  to  this  god  of  Hindostan  there  rises  no 


804  Christianity  and  Hindooism. 

temple  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land.  If 
you  ask  in  astonishment,  why  is  this?  the  Hindoo  replies, 
"  Pure,  unmixed  Deity  is  mind,  and  can  not  be  confined  to 
place ;"  and  well  does  he  here  teach  us  that  God  is  a  Spirit : 
but  in  his  idea  there  is  an  exhibition  of  a  god  without  quali- 
ties—a deity  whom  man  may  meditate  on,  and  be  absorbed 
in,  but  not  one  to  be  loved  or  adored.  • 

Here  is  his  first  error ;  here  we  can  teach  him  something 
—that  God  is  a  personal  Being. 

Personality  is  made  up  of  three  attributes — consciousness, 
character,  will.  Without  the  union  of  these  three,  the  idea 
is  imperfect.  Personality  the  Hindoo  Deity  has  none  ;  there- 
fore he  can  not  be  loved. 

Now  when  we  look  at  God  as  revealed  in  Jesus  Christ, 
He  appears  to  us  as  having  a  mind  like  ours ;  the  ideas  of 
number,  of  right  and  wrong,  of  sanctity,  are  to  God  precisely 
what  they  are  to  man.  Conceive  a  mind  without  these,  ana 
it  may  be  a  high  and  lofty  one,  but  there  can  be  no  com- 
munion with  it.  But  when  Christ  speaks  of  love,  of  purity, 
of  holiness,  we  feel  that  it  is  no  abstraction  we  worship. 

II.  We  shall  consider  as  the  second  branch  of  our  subject 
the  Hindoo  theory  of  creation. 

We  have  spoken  of  the  Hindoo  Deity  as  capable  of  two 
states — that  of  perfection,  or  rest ;  that  of  imperfection,  or 
unrest.  The  Hindoo  thinks  that  a  time  arrives  when  rest 
becomes  action,  and  slumber  becomes  life  ;  and  when,  not 
willing  to  be  alone,  feeling  solitary  in  his  awaking,  God 
wishes  to  impart  life ;  therefore  He  creates. 

Here  again,  we  recognize  a  partial  truth.  In  the  Scrip- 
tures we  never  read  of  a  time  when  God  was  alone.  What 
is  love  but  this,  to  find  ourselves  again  in  another?  The 
"  Word,"  we  read,  "  was  with  God  "  before  the  world  began. 
What  the  word  is  to  the  thought,  that  is  Christ  to  God. 
Creation  was  one  expression  of  this — of  His  inmost  feelings 
of  beauty  and  loveliness  ;  whether  it  be  the  doleful  sighings 
of  the  night-wind,  or  the  flower  that  nestles  in  the  grass, 
they  tell  alike  of  love.  So  has  He  also  shown  that  love  on 
earth,  in  the  outward  manifestation  of  the  life  of  Christ — not 
only  in  the  translated  Word  which  we  have — beautiful  as  it 
is,  but  in  the  living  Word.  Read  without  this,  history  is  a 
dark,  tangled  web,  philosophy  a  disappointing  thing.  With- 
out this  light  society  is  imperfect,  and  the  greatest  men  small 
and  insignificant.  From  all  these  we  turn  to  Christ ;  here  is 
that  perfect  Word  to  which  our  hearts  echo,  where  no  one 
syllable  is  wrong. 


Christianity  and  Hindooism.  805 

There  are  two  Hindoo  theories  of  creation  :  the  gross 
view  held  by  the  many  ;  the  refined  one  held  by  the  philoso- 
pher and  the  Brahmin.  Yet  these  two  so  mix  and  intermin- 
gle that  it  is  difficult  to  give  to  European  minds  a  clear  no- 
tion of  either  of  them  separately.  We  will  leave  the  popular 
view  for  another  time,  and  we  will  try  to  deal  now  with  the 
metaphysical  and  transcendental  one.  It  is  this — creation 
is  illusion — the  Deity  awaking  from  sleep.  The  universe  is 
God:  God  is  the  universe;  therefore  He  can  not  create. 
The  Hindoo  says,  You,  and  I,  and  all  men,  are  but  gods — 
ourselves  in  a  wretched  state  of  dream  and  illusion.  We 
must  try  to  explain  this  in  part  by  our  own  records  of  times 
which  we  can  all  remember,  when  we  have  lain  in  a  state 
between  dreaming  and  waking — a  phantasmagoric  state, 
changing,  combining,  altering,  like  the  kaleidoscope,  so  that 
we  hardly  knew  realities  from  unrealities.  "  Such,"  says  the 
Hindoo,  "  is  your  life — a  delusion."  I  merely  tell  of  this  be- 
cause it  colors  all  Hindoo  existence ;  the  practical  results  we 
shall  consider  another  time.  For  this  the  visionary  con- 
templator  of  Brahm,  and  the  Fakeer,  sit  beneath  the  tree, 
scarcely  eating,  speaking,  or  thinking ;  hoping  at  length  to 
become  absorbed  into  that  calm,  dreamless,  passive  state 
which  to  them  represents  perfection. 

One  truth  we  tind  acknowledged  in  this  theory  is  the  un- 
reality of  this  world.  Nobly  has  the  Hindoo  set  forth  the 
truth  that  the  world  is  less  real  than  the  spirit.  "What  is 
your  life  ?  it  is  even  a  vapor."  Ask  you  what  we  are  to  live 
for  ?  The  child,  on  whose  young  face  the  mother  now  gazes 
so  tenderly,  changes  with  years  into  the  man  with  furrowed 
brow  and  silvered  hair ;  constitutions  are  formed  and  broken, 
friendships  pass,  love  decays,  who  can  say  he  possesses  the 
same  now  that  blessed  him  in  his  early  life  ?  All  passes 
whilst  we  look  upon  it.  A  most  unreal,  imaginative  life. 
The  spirit  of  life  ever  weaving — the  spirit  of  death  ever  un- 
weaving; all  things  putting  on  change. 

In  conclusion,  we  observe  here  a  great  truth — the  evil  of 
self-consciousness.  This  self-consciousness  is  all  evil.  He 
who  can  dwell  on  this  and  that  symptom  of  his  moral  nature 
is  already  diseased.  We  are  too  much  haunted  by  ourselves ; 
we  project  the  spectral  shadow  of  ourselves  on  every  thing 
around  us.  And  then  comes  in  the  Gospel  to  rescue  us  from 
this  selfishness.  Redemption  is  this — to  forget  self  in  God. 
Does  not  the  mother  forget  herself  for  a  time  in  the  child ; 
the  loyal  man  in  his  strong  feelings  of  devotion  for  his  sover 
eign  ?  So  does  the  Christian  forget  himself  in  the  feeling  that 
he  has  to  live  here  for  the  performance  of  the  will  of  God. 


806  Rest. 

[And  now  contrast  the  Hindoo  religion  with  the  Chris 
tian.] 

The  Hindoo  tells  us  the  remedy  for  this  unreality  is  to  be 
found  in  the  long  unbroken  sleep.  The  Christian  tells  us  the 
remedy  is  this,  that  this  broken  dream  of  life  shall  end  in  a 
higher  life.  Life  is  but  a  sleep,  a  dream,  and  death  is  the 
real  awaking. 


XXV. 

REST. 

"Come  unto  me,  all  ye  that  labor  and  are  heavy  laden,  and  I  will  give 
you  rest.  Take  my  yoke  upon  you,  and  learn  of  me :  for  I  am  meek  and 
lowly  in  heart:  and  ye  shall  find  rest  unto  your  souls.'' — Matt.  xi.  28,  29. 

No  one,  perhaps,  ever  read  these  words  of  Christ  without 
being  struck  with  their  singular  adaptation  to  the  necessities 
of  our  nature.  We  have  read  them  again  and  again,  and  we 
have  found  them  ever  fresh,  beautiful,  and  new.  No  man 
could  ever  read  them  without  being  conscious  that  they  rea- 
lized the  very  deepest  and  inmost  want  of  his  being.  We 
feel  it  is  a  convincing  proof  of  His  divine  mission  that  He 
has  thus  struck  the  key-note  of  our  nature,  in  offering  us  rest. 

Ancient  systems  were  busy  in  the  pursuit  after  happiness. 
Our  modern  systems  of  philosophy,  science,  ay,  even  of  theol- 
ogy, occupy  themselves  with  the  same  thought ;  telling  us 
alike  that  "  happiness  is  our  being's  end  and  aim."  But  it  is 
not  so  that  the  Redeemer  teaches.  His  doctrine  is  in  words 
such  as  these  :  "  In  the  world  ye  shall  have  " — not  happiness, 
but — "  tribulation  ;  but  be  of  good  cheer,  I  have  overcome 
the  world ;"  "  In  Me  ye  shall  have  peace."  Not  happiness 
— the  outward  well-being  so  called  in  the  world — but  the  in- 
ward rest  which  cometh  from  above.  And  He  alone  who 
made  this  promise  had  a  right  to  say,  "  Take  my  yoke  upon 
you,  and  learn  of  Me,  for  I  am  meek  and  lowly  in  heart ;  and 
re  shall  find  rest  unto  your  souls."  He  had  that  rest  in  Him- 
self, and  therefore  could  impart  it;  but  it  is  often  offered  by 
'*H'ii  who  have  it  not  themselves.  There  are  some,  high  pro- 
fe  -sors  of  religion  too,  who  have  never  known  this  real  rest, 
un  1  who  at  fifty,  sixty,  seventy  years  of  age,  are  as  much 
slives  of  the  world,  as  when  they  began,  desiring  still  the 
honors,  the  riches,  or  the  pleasures  it  has  to  give,  and  utterly 
neglecting  the  life  which  is  to  come. 


Rest.  807 

we  turn  to  the  history  of  Christ  we  find  this  repose 
characterizing  His  whole  existence.  For  example,  first,  in 
the  marriage-feast  at  Cana,  in  Galilee.  He  looked  not  upon 
that  festivity  with  cynical  asperity ;  He  frowned  not  upon 
the  innocent  joys  of  life  :  He  made  the  wine  to  give  enjoy- 
ment, and  yet  singularly  contrasted  was  His  human  and  His 
Divine  joy.  His  mother  came  to  Him  full  of  consternation, 
and  said,  "  They  have  no  wine :"  and  the  Redeemer,  with 
calm  self-possession,  replied,  "  Woman,  what  have  I  to  do 
with  thee  ?  mine  hour  is  not  yet  come."  He  felt  not  the  de- 
ficiency which  He  supplied. 

We  pass  from  the  marriage-feast  to  the  scene  of  grief  at 
Bethany,  and  still  there  we  find  that  singular  repose.  Those 
words  which  we  have  seen  to  possess  an  almost  magical 
charm  in  soothing  the  grief  of  mourners  congregated  round 
the  coffin  of  the  clead — "  I  am  the  resurrection  and  the  life  : 
he  that  believeth  in  Me,  though  he  were  dead,  yet  shall  he 
live  ;  and  whosoever  liveth  and  believeth  in  Me  shall  never 
die  " — speak  they  not  of  repose  ?  But  in  the  requirements  of 
these  great  matters  many  men  are  not  found  wanting ;  it  is 
when  we  come  to  the  domesticities  of  their  existence  that 
we  see  fretting  anxiety  comes  upon  their  soul.  Therefore  it 
is  that  we  gladly  turn  to  that  home  at  Bethany  where  He 
had  gone  for  quiet  rest.  Let  us  hear  his  words  on  the  sub- 
ject of  everyday  cares :  "  Martha,  Martha,  thou  art  careful 
and  troubled  about  many  things ;  but  one  thing  is  needful." 

We  pass  on  from  that  to  the  state  in  which  a  man  is  tried 
the  most :  and  if  ever  we  can  pardon  words  of  restlessness 
and  petulance,  it  is  when  friends  are  unfaithful.  Yet  even 
here  there  is  perfect  calmness.  Looking  steadfastly  into  the 
future,  He  says,  "Do  ye  now  believe?  Behold,  the  hour 
eometh,  yea,  is  now  come,  that  ye  shall  be  scattered,  every 
man  to  his  own,  and  shall  leave  Me  alone  :  and  yet  I  am  not 
alone,  because  the  Father  is  with  Me." 

Once  more,  we  turn  to  the  Redeemer's  prayers.  They 
are  characterized  by  a  calmness  singularly  contrasted  with 
the  vehemence  which  we  sometimes  see  endeavoring  to  lash 
itself  into  a  greater  fervor  of  devotion.  The  model  prayer 
has  no  eloquence  in  it ;  it  is  calm,  simple,  full  of  repose. 

We  find  this  again  in  the  17th  chapter  of  St.  John.  If  a 
man  feels  himself  artificial  and  worldly,  if  a  man  feels  rest- 
less, we  would  recommend  him  to  take  up  that  chapter  as 
his  best  cure.  For  at  least  one  moment,  as  he  read  it,  he 
would  feel  in  his  soul  calmness  and  repose ;  it  would  seem 
almost  as  if  he  were  listening  to  the  grave  and  solemn  words 
of  a  divine  soliloquy.  This  was  the  mind  of  Him  who  gave 


8o8  Rest. 

this  gracious  promise,  u  Come  unto  Me  all  ye  that  labor  and 
are  heavy  laden,  and  I  will  give  you  rest."  We  repeat  these 
words  as  a  matter  of  course  ;  but  I  ask,  Has  that  repose  been 
found  ? — has  this  peace  come  to  us  ?  for  it  is  not  by  merely 
repeating  them  over  and  over  again  that  we  can  enter  into 
the  deep  rest  of  Christ. 

Our  subject  this  day  will  be  to  consider,  in  the  first  place, 
the  false  systems  of  rest  which  the  world  holds  out,  and  to 
contrast  them  with  the  true  rest  of  Christ.  The  first  false 
system  proposed  is  the  expectation  of  repose  in  the  grave. 
When  the  spirit  has  parted  from  the  body  after  long- 
protracted  sufferings,  we  often  hear  it  said  that  the  release 
was  a  happy  one ;  that  there  is  a  repose  in  the  grave ;  that 
there  "  the  wicked  cease  from  troubling  and  the  weary  are 
at  rest."  ^ay,  at  times,  perhaps,  we  find  ourselves  hazard- 
ing a  wish  that  our  own  particular  current  of  existence  had 
come  to  that  point,  when  it  should  mingle  with  the  vast 
ocean  of  eternity. 

There  is  in  all  this  a  kind  of  spurious  Pantheism,  a  sort  of 
feeling  that  God  is  alike  in  every  heart,  that  every  man  is 
to  be  blessed  at  last,  that  death  is  but  a  mere  transition  to  a 
blessed  sleep,  that  in  the  grave  there  is  nothing  but  quiet, 
and  that  there  is  no  misery  beyond  it.  And  yet  one  of  the 
deepest  thinkers  of  our  nation  suggests  that  there  may  be 
dreams  even  in  the  sleep  of  death.  There  is  an  illusion 
often  in  the  way  in  which  we  think  of  death.  The  counte- 
nance, after  the  spirit  has  departed,  is  so  strangely  calm 
and  meek  that  it  produces  the  feeling  of  repose  within  us, 
and  we  transfer  our  feelings  to  that  of  the  departed  spirit, 
and  we  fancy  that  body  no  longer  convulsed  with  pain,  those 
features  so  serene  and  full  of  peace,  do  but  figure  the  rest 
which  the  spirit  is  enjoying  ;  and  yet,  perhaps  that  soul,  a 
few  hours  ago,  was  full  of  worldliness,  full  of  pride,  full  of 
self-love.  Think  you  that  now  that  spirit  is  at  rest — that  it 
has  entered  into  the  rest  of  Christ  ?  The  repose  that  be- 
longs to  the  grave  is  not  even  a  rest  of  the  atoms  composing 
our  material  form. 

There  is  another  fallacious  system  of  rest  which  would 
place  it  in  the  absence  of  outward  trial.  This  is  the  world's 
peace.  The  world's  peace  ever  consists  in  plans  for  the  re- 
moval of  outward  trials.  There  lies  at  the  bottom  of  all 
false  systems  of  peace,  the  fallacy  that  if  we  can  but  produce 
a  perfect  set  of  circumstances,  then  we  shall  have  the  perfect 
man  ;  if  we  remove  temptation,  we  shall  have  a  holy  being: 
and  so  the  world's  rest  comes  to  this — merely  happiness  and 
outward  enjoyment.  Ay,  my  Christian  brethren,  we  carry 


Rest.  809 

these  anticipations  beyond  the  grave,  and  we  think  the 
heaven  of  God  is  but  like  the  Mohammedan  paradise  —  a 
place  in  which  the  rain  shall  beat  on  us  no  longer,  and  the 
sun  pour  his  burning  rays  upon  us  no  more.  Very  often  it 
is  only  a  little  less  sensual,  but  quite  as  ignoble  as  that  fabled 
by  Mohammed. 

The  Redeemer  throws  all  this  aside  at  once  as  mere  illu- 
sion. He  teaches  just  the  contrary.  He  says,  "  Not  as  the 
world  giveth,  give  I  unto  you."  The  world  proposes  a  rest 
by  the  removal  of  a  burden.  The  Redeemer  gives  rest  by 
giving  us  the  spirit  and  power  to  bear  the  burden.  "Take 
my  yoke  upon  you,  and  learn  of  Me,  and  ye  shall  find  rest 
unto  your  souls."  Christ  does  not  promise  a  rest  of  inaction, 
neither  that  the  thorns  shall  be  converted  into  roses,  nor  that 
the  trials  of  life  shall  be  removed. 

To  the  man  who  takes  this  yoke  up  in  Christ's  spirit, 
labor  becomes  blessedness — rest  of  soul  and  rest  of  body. 

It  matters  not  in  what  circumstances  men  are,  whether 
high  or  low,  never  shall  the  rest  of  Christ  be  found  in  ease 
and  self-gratification  ;  never,  throughout  eternity,  will  there 
be  rest  found  in  a  life  of  freedom  from  duty  :  the  paradise 
of  the  sluggard,  where  there  is  no  exertion ;  the  heaven  of 
the  coward,  where  there  is  no  difficulty  to  be  opposed,  is  not 
the  rest  of  Christ.  "  Take  my  yoke  upon  you."  Nay,  more 
— if  God  could  give  us  a  heaven  like  that,  it  would  be  but 
misery  ;  there  can  be  no  joy  in  indolent  inaction.  The  curse 
on  this  world  is  labor ;  but  to  him  who  labors  earnestly  and 
truly  it  t^irns  to  blessedness.  It  is  a  curse  only  to  him  who 
tries  to  escape  from  the  work  allotted  to  him,  who  endeavors 
to  make  a  compromise  with  duty.  To  him  who  takes  Christ's 
yoke,  not  in  a  spirit  of  selfish  ease  and  acquiescence  in  evil, 
but  in  strife  and  stern  battle  with  it  the  rest  of  Christ 
streams  in  upon  his  soul. 

Many  of  us  are  drifting  away  from  our  moorings  ;  we  are 
quitting  the  old  forms  of  thought,  and  faith,  and  life,  and  are 
seeking  for  something  other  than  what  satisfied  the  last  gen- 
eration :  and  this  in  a  vain  search  for  rest. 

Many  are  the  different  systems  of  repose  offered  to  us, 
and  foremost  is  that  proposed  by  the  Church  of  Rome.  Let 
us  do  her  the  justice,  at  all  events,  to  allow  that  she  follows 
the  Redeemer  in  this — it  is  not  happiness  she  promises,  she 
promises  rest.  The  great  strength  of  Romanism  lies  in  this, 
that  she  professes  to  answer  and  satisfy  the  deep  want  of 
human  nature  for  rest.  She  speaks  of  an  infallibility  on 
which  she  would  persuade  men,  weary  of  the  strain  of  doubt, 
to  rest.  It  is  not  to  the  tales  of  miracles,  and  of  the  per- 


8 10  Rest. 

sonal  interference  of  God  Himself;  but  to  the  promise  of  an 
impossibility  of  error  to  those  within  her  pale,  that  she  owes 
her  influence.  And  we  say,  better  far  to  face  doubt  and 
perplexity  manfully;  to  bear  any  yoke  of  Christ's  than  be 
content  with  the  rest  of  a  Church's  infallibility. 

There  is  another  error  among  many  Dissenters ;  in  a  dif- 
ferent form  we  find  the  same  promise  held  out.  One  says, 
that  if  we  will  but  rely  on  God's  promise  of  election  our 
soul  must  find  repose.  Another  system  tells  us  that  the 
penalty  has  fallen  upon  Christ,  and  that  if  we  believe  we 
shall  no  longer  suffer.  Narrowing  their  doctrines  into  one, 
as  if  all  the  want  of  the  soul  wras  to  escape  from  punishment, 
they  place  before  us  this  doctrine,  and  say,  believe  that,  and 
your  sdul  shall  find  repose. 

We  have  seen  earnest  men  anxiously  turning  from  view 
to  view,  and  yet  finding  their  souls  as  far  from  rest  as  ever. 
They  remind  us  of  the  struggles  of  a  man  in  fever,  finding  no 
rest,  tossing  from  side  to  side,  in  vain  seeking  a  cool  spot  on 
his  pillow,  and  forgetting  that  the  fever  is  within  himself. 
And  so  it  is  with  us;  the  unrest  is  within  us:  we  foolishly 
expect  to  find  that  tranquillity  in  outward  doctrine  which 
alone  can  come  from  the  calmness  of  the  soul. 

We  will  not  deny  that  there  is  a  kind  of  rest  to  be  found 
in  doctrine  for  a  time :  for  instance,  when  a  man,  whose  only 
idea  of  evil  is  its  penalty,  has  received  the  consoling  doctrine 
that  there  is  no  suffering  for  him  to  bear:  but  the  unrest 
comes  again.  Doubtless,  the  Pharisees  and  Sadducees,  when 
they  wrent  to  the  baptism  of  John,  found  something  of  repose 
there  ;  but  think  you  that  they  went  back  to  their  daily  life 
with  the  rest  of  Christ  ?  We  expect  some  outward  change 
will  do  that  which  nothing  but  the  inward  life  can  do — it  is 
the  life  of  Christ  within  the  soul  which  alone  can  give  repose. 
There  have  been  men  in  the  Church  of  Rome  and  in  the 
ranks  of  dissent  who  have  indeed  erred  grievously,  but  yet 
have  lived  a  life  of  godliness.  There  have  been  men  in  the 
true  Church — as  Judas,  who  was  a  member  of  the  true 
Church — who  yet,  step  by  step,  have  formed  in  themselves 
the  devil's  nature  :  the  rest  of  Christ  pertains  not  to  any  one 
outward  communion. 

Before  we  go  farther,  let  us  understand  what  is  meant  by 
this  rest ;  let  us  look  to  those  symbols  about  us  in  the  world 
of  nature  by  which  it  is  suggested.  It  is  not  the  lake  locked 
in  ice  that  suggests  repose,  but  the  river  moving  on  calmly 
and  rapidly  in  silent  majesty  and  strength.  It  is  not  the 
cattle  lying  in  the  sun,  but  the  eagle  cleaving  the  air  with 
fixed  pinions,  that  gives  you  the  idea  of  repose  combined  with 


Rest.  811 

strength  and  motion.  In  creation,  the  rest  of  God  is  exhibit- 
ed as  a  sense  of  power  which  nothing  wearies.  When  chaos 
burst  into  harmony,  so  to  speak,  God  had  rest. 

There  are  two  deep  principles  in  nature  in  apparent  con- 
tradiction— one,  the  aspiration  after  perfection  ;  the  other, 
the  longing  after  repose.  In  the  harmony  of  these  lies  the 
rest  of  the  soul  of  man.  There  have  been  times  when  we 
have  experienced  this.  Then  the  winds  have  been  hushed, 
and  the  throb  and  the  tumult  of  the  passions  have  been  blot- 
ted out  of  our  bosoms.  That  was  a  moment  when  we  were 
in  harmony  with  all  around,  reconciled  to  ourselves  and  to 
our  God ;  when  we  sympathized  with  all  that  was  pure,  all 
that  was  beautiful,  all  that  was  lovely. 

This  was  not  stagnation,  it  was  fullness  of  life — life  in  its 
most  expanded  form,  such  as  nature  witnessed  in  her  first 
hour.  This  is  life  in  that  form  of  benevolence  which  expands 
into  the  mind  of  Christ.  And  when  this  is  working  in  the 
soul,  it  is  marvellous  how.  it'distills  into  a  man's  words  and 
countenance.  Strange  and  magical  is  the  power  of  that  col- 
lect wherein  we  pray  to  God,  "  Who  alone  can  order  the  un- 
ruly wills  and  affections  of  sinful  men,  to  grant  unto  His 
people  that  they  may  love  the  thing  which  He  commands, 
and  desire  that  which  He  promises;  that  so  among  the 
sundry  and  manifold  changes  of  the  world,  our  hearts  may 
surely  there  be  fixed  where  true  joys  are  to  be  found." 
There  is  a  wondrous  melody  in  that  rhythm ;  the  words  are 
the  echoes  of  the  thought.  The  mind  of  the  man  who  wrote 
them  was  in  repose — all  is  ringing  of  rest.  We  do  not  won- 
der when  Moses  came  down  from  the  mount  on  which  he 
had  been  bowing  in  adoration  before  the  harmony  of  God, 
that  his  face  was  shining  with  a  brightness  too  dazzling  to 
look  upon. 

Our  blessed  Redeemer  refers  this  rest  to  meekness  and  low- 
liness. There  are  three  causes  in  men  producing  unrest:  1. 
Suspicion  of  God.  2.  Inward  discord.  3.  Dissatisfaction 
with  outward  circumstances.  For  all  these  meekness  is  the 
cure.  For  the  difficulty  of  understanding  this  world,  the 
secret  is  in  meokness.  There  is  no  mystery  in  God's  deal- 
ings to  the  meek  man,  for  "the  secret  of  the  Lord  is  with 
them  that  fear  Him,  and  He  will  show  them  His  covenant ;" 
there  is  no  dread  of  God's  judgments  when,  our  souls  are 
meek. 

The  second  cause  of  unrest  is  inward  discord.  We  are 
going  on  in  our  selfishness.  We  stand,  as  Balaam  stood, 
against  the  angel  of  the  Lord,  pressing  on  whilst  the  angel 
of  love  stands  against  us.  «tust  as  the  dove  struggling 


812  Rest. 

against  the  storm,  feeble  and  tired,  is  almost  spent,  until 
gradually,  as  if  by  inspiration,  it  has  descended  to  the  lower 
atmosphere,  and  so  avoided  the  buffeting  of  the  tempest* 
above,  and  is  then  borne  on  by  the  wind  of  heaven  in  entire 
repose:  like  that  is  the  rest  of  the  soul.  While  we  are  un- 
reconciled, the  love  of  God  stands  against  us,  and,  by  His 
will,  as  lon<*  as  man  refuses  to  take  up  that  yoke  of  His,  he 
is  full  of  discord;  he  is  like  the  dove  struggling  with  the 
elements  aloft,  as  yet  unconscious  of  the  calm  there  is  below. 
And  you  must  make  no  compromise  in  taking  up  the  burden 
of  the  Lord. 

Lastly,  unrest  comes  from  dissatisfaction  with  outward 
circumstances.  Part,  perhaps  the  greater  part,  of  our  misery 
here  comes  from  over-estimation  of  ourselves.  We  are  slaves 
to  vanity  and  pride.  We  think  we  are  not  in  the  right  sta- 
tion ;  our  genius  has  been  misunderstood ;  we  have  been 
slighted,  we  have  been  passed  by,  we  have  not  been  reward- 
ed as  we  ought  to  have  been.  So  long  as  we  have  this  false 
opinion  of  ourselves,  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  realize  true 
rest. 

Sinners,  in  a  world  of  love,  encircling  you  round  on  every 
side,  with  blessings  infinite  upon  infinite,  and  that  again  mul- 
tiplied by  infinity :  God  loves  you  :  God  fills  you  with  en- 
joyment !  Unjustly,  unfairly  treated  in  this  world  of  love  ! 
Once  let  a  man  knowr  for  himself  what  God  is,  and  then  in 
that  he  will  find  peace.  It  will  be  the  dawn  of  an  everlast- 
ing day  of  calmness  and  serenity.  I  speak  to  some  who 
have  felt  the  darkness,  the  clouds,  and  the  dreariness  of  life, 
whose  affections  have  been  blighted,  who  feel  a  discord  and 
confusion  in  their  being.  To  some  to  whom  the  world, 
lovely  though  it  be,  is  such  that  they  are  obliged  to  say,  "I 
see,  I  do  not  feel,  how7  beautiful  it  is." 

Brother  men,  there  is  rest  in  Christ,  because  He  is  love ; 
because  His  are  the  everlasting  verities  of  humanity.  God 
does  not  cease  to  be  the  God  of  love  because  men  are  low, 
sad,  and  desponding.  In  the  performance  of  duty,  in  meek- 
ness, in  trust  in  God,  is  our  rest — our  only  rest.  It  is  not  in 
understanding  a  set  of  doctrines ;  not  in  an  outward  compre- 
hension of  the  "  scheme  of  salvation,"  that  rest  and  peace  are 
to  be  found,  but  in  taking  up,  in  all  lowliness  and  meekness, 
the  yoke  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

"For  thus  saith  the  high  and  lofty  One  that  inhabiteth 
eternity,  whose  name  is  Holy;  I  dwell  in  the  high  and  hoi) 
place,  with  him  also  that  is  of  a  contrite  and  humble  spirit, 
to  revive  the  spirit  of  the  humble,  and  to  revive  the  heart  of 
the  contrite  ones." 


The  Humane  ^uuty.  813 


XXVI. 
THE    HUMANE    SOCIETY. 

A   SERMON   PREACHED  ON  ITS   BEHALF. 

"While  he  yet  spake,  there  came  from  the  ruler  of  the  synagogue's  house 
certain  which  said,  Thy  daughter  is  dead ;  why  troubles!  them  the  Master 
any  further?  As  soon  as  Jesus  heard  the  word  that  was  spoken,  he  saith 
unto  the  ruler  of  the  synagogue,  Be  not  afraid,  only  believe.  And  he  suffered 
no  man  to  follow  him,  save  Peter,  and  James,  and  John  the  brother  of  James. 
And  he  cometh  to  the  house  of  the  ruler  of  the  synagogue,  and  seeth  the 
tumult,  and  them  that  wept  and  wailed  greatly.  And  when  he  was  come  in, 
he  saith  unto  them,  Why  make  ye  this  ado,  and  weep?  the  damsel  is  not 
dead,  but  sleepeth.  And  they  laughed  him  to  scorn.  But  when  he  had  put 
them  all  out,  he  taketh  the  father  and  the  mother  of  the  damsel,  and  them  that 
•were  with  him,  and  entereth  in  where  the  damsel  was  lying.  And  he  took 
the  damsel  by  the  hand,  and  said  unto  her,  Talitha  cumi ;  which  is,  being 
interpreted,  Damsel,  (I  say  unto  thee,)  arise.  And  straightway  the  damsel 
arose,  and  walked;  for  she  was  of  the  age  of  twelve  years.  And  they  were 
astonished  with  a  great  astonishnient. .  And  IIP  charged  them  straitly  that 
no  man  should  know  it ;  and  commanded  thr.t  something  should  be  given  her 
to  eat."— Mark  v.  35-43. 

I  PLEAD  to-day  for  a  society  whose  cause  has  not  been  ad- 
vocated in  this  chapel  for  many  years.  It  is  now  exactly  ten 
years  since  a  collection  was  made  in  Trinity  Chapel  for  the 
Humane  Society. 

Its  general  objects,  as  every  body  knows,  are  the  preser- 
vation of  the  life  of  drowning  persons,  by  precautions  pre- 
viously taken,  and  by  subsequent  remedies.  But  this  vague 
statement  being  insufficient  to  awaken  the  interest  which  the 
society  deserves,  I  propose  to  consider  it  in  its  details,  and 
to  view  these — as  in  the  pulpit  we  are  bound  to  do — from 
the  peculiar  Christian  point  of  view. 

It  is  remarkable  that  there  is  a  Scripture  passage  which, 
point  by  point,  offers  a  parallel  to  the  work  of  this  Society, 
and  a  special  sanction  and  a  precedent,  both  for  its  peculiar 
work  and  the  spirit  in  which  it  is  to  be  done.  I  shall  con- 
sider— 

I.  This  particular  form  of  the  Redeemer's  work. 
II.  The  spirit  of  the  Redeemer's  work. 

I.  We  find  among  the  many  forms  of  His  work — 
1.  Restoration  from  a  special  form  of  death.     I  can  not 
class  this  case  with  that  of  Lazarus. 


8 14  The  Humane  Society. 

The  narrative  seems  to  distinguish  this  from  the  other  mir- 
acle. Christ  says,  "  She  is  not  dead,  but  sleepeth."  Hence 
this  particular  case  was  one  of  restoration  from  apparent 
death.  The  other  case  was  that  of  restoration  from  real 
death. 

Here,  then,  is  our  first  point  of  resemblance. 

Before  this  society  was  formed,  persons  apparently  suffo- 
cated were  left  to  perish.  Myriads, doubtless,  have  died  who 
might  have  been  saved.  But  the  idea  of  restoration  was  as 
far  from  them  as  from  the  friends  of  Jairus.  They  would 
have  laughed  the  proposer  "  to  scorn."  But,  Christlike,  this 
society  came  into  the  world  with  a  strange  message — re- 
vealed by  science,  but  vitalized  by  love — a  Christlike  mes- 
sage :  "  Be  not  afraid  :  he  is  not  dead,  but  sleepeth." 

Now  the  sphere  of  the  society's  operations  is  thus  defined  : 
"  To  preserve  from  premature  death  persons  apparently 
dead  from  either  drowning,  hanging,  lightning,  cold,  heat, 
noxious  vapors,  apoplexy,  or  intoxication."  They  are,  con- 
sequently, large,  taking  cognizance  not  merely  of  cases  of 
drowning  only,  but  all  of  the  same  generic  character — sus- 
pended animation,  apparent  deatji,  asphyxia. 

[Causes — foul  air,  in  drains  and  brewers'  vats,  accidental 
hanging,  mines,  cellars,  wells.] 

In  England  their  causes  are  more  peculiarly  extensive,  be- 
cause of  our  sea-girt  shores,  and  because  of  the  variable 
climate,  which  to-day  leaves  the  ice  firm  and  to-morrow  has 
made  it  rotten  and  unsafe. 

2.  Here  was  the  recognition  of  the  value  of  life.  The  force 
of  the  whole  petition  lay  in  one  single  consideration — "  she 
shall  live." 

It  has  been  often  said  that  Christianity  has  enhanced  the 
value  of  life,  and  our  charitable  societies  are  alleged  in  evi- 
dence ;  our  hospitals ;  the  increased  average  of  human  life, 
which  has  been  the  result  of  sanitary  regulations  and  im- 
provements in  medical  treatment.  But  this  statement  needs 
some  qualification. 

The  value  attached  to  life  by  the  ancient  Egyptian  was 
quite  as  great  as  that  attributed  to  it  by  the  modern  English- 
man. When  Abraham  went  into  Egypt  he  found  a  people 
whose  feeling  of  the  sacredness  of  life  was  so  great  that  they 
saw  God  wherever  life  was ;  and  venerated  the  bull,  and  the 
fish,  and  the  crocodile.  To  slay  one  of  them  was  like  mur- 
der. 

And  again  :  it  could  not  be  said  that  we  owe  to  Christian- 
ity the  recognition  of  the  honor  due  to  one  who  saves  life. 


The  Humane  Society.  8 1 5 

The  most  honorable  of  crowns  was  that  presented  to  one  who 
had  saved  the  life  of  a  Roman  citizen. 

Nay  more:  instead  of  peculiarly  exalting  the  value  of  life, 
there  is  a  sense  in  which  Christianity  depreciates  it.  "  If  a 
man  hate  not  his  own  life  he  can  not  be  my  disciple.''  The 
Son  of  Man  came  to  be  a  sacrifice  :  and  it  is  the  peculiar  dig- 
nity of  the  Christian  that  he  has  a  life  to  (jive. 

Therefore  we  must  distinguish. 

It  is  not  mere  life  on  which  Christianity  has  shed  a  richer 
value.  It  is  by  ennobling  the  purpose  to  which  life  is  to  be 
dedicated  that  it  has  made  life  more  precious.  A  crowded 
metropolis,  looked  at  merely  as  a  mass  of  living  beings,  is  no 
more  dignified,  and  far  more  disgusting,  than  an  ant-hill  with 
its  innumerable  creeping  lives.  Looked  on  as  a  place  in 
which  each  individual  is  a  temple  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and 
every  pang  and  joy  of  whom  has  in  it  something  of  infinitude, 
it  becomes  almost  priceless  in  its  value. 

And  again :  Christianity  differs  from  heathenism  in  this, 
that  it  has  declared  the  dignity  of  the  life  of  man — not  mere- 
ly that  of  certain  classes.  It  has  not  "  saved  citizens,"  but 
saved  'men. 

[Consider  the  worth  of  a  single  soul.] 

Hence  this  is  appropriately  called  the  Humane  Society, 
that  word  originally  "meaning  human.  It  is  no  Brahminical 
association,  abstaining  from  shedding  animal  blood  and  living 
on  no  animal  food,  but  it  recognizes  the  worth  of  a  life  in 
which  God  moves,  and  which  Christ  has  redeemed. 

It  is  human  life,  not  animal,  that  it  cares  for.  The  life  of 
man  as  man,  not  of  some  peculiar  class  of  men. 

3.  We  consider  the  Saviour's  direction  respecting  the 
means  of  effecting  complete  recovery.  He  "  commanded  that 
something  should  be  given  her  to  eat." 

Observe  His  reverential  submission  to  the  laws  of  nature. 
He  did  not  suspend  those  laws.  It  did  not  seem  to  Him  that 
where  law  was,  God  was  not ;  or  that  the  proof  of  God's 
agency  was  to  be  found  only  in  the  abrogation  of  law.  He 
recognized  the  sanctity  of  those  laws  which  make  certain 
remedies  and  certain  treatment  indispensable  to  health. 

[Sanitary  regulations  are  as  religious  as  a  miracle.] 

And  in  doing  this  He  furnished  a  precedent  singularly  close 
for  the  operations  of  this  society.  It  is  one  great  part  of  the 
object  of  its  existence  to  spread  a  knowledge  of  the  right 
methods  of  treatment  in  case  of  suspended  animation.  It 
has  compiled  and  published  rules  for  the  treatment  of  the 


816  The  Humane  Society. 

drowned,  the  apparently  suffocated,  and  those  struck  by  sud 
den  apoplexy. 

And  consider  the  indirect  results  of  this,  as  well  as  the 
direct. 

Such  cases  occur  unexpectedly.  No  medical  aid  is  near. 
Friends  are  alarmed.  Presence  of  mind  is  lost.  The  vulgar 
means  resorted  to  from  superstition  and  ignorance  are  almost 
incredible.  But  gradually  the  knowledge  is  spread  through 
the  country  of  what  to  do  in  cases  of  emergency.  Many 
here  would  be  prepared  to  act  if  a  need  arose.  I  have  been 
present  at  such  a  case,  and  have  seen  life  saved  by  arresting 
the  rough  treatment  of  ignorance  acting  traditionally.  But 
in  that  and  most  cases,  the  knowledge  had  been  gained  from 
the  publications  of  this  society. 

An  immense  step  is  gained  by  the  systematic  direction  of 
attention  to  these  matters.  Every  one  ought  to  know  what 
to  do  on  a  sudden  emergency,  a  case  of  strangulation,  of  suf- 
focation, or  of  apoplexy ;  and  yet,  this  forming  no  definite 
part  of  the  general  plan  of  education,  there  are  comparative- 
ly few  who  have  the  least  idea  what  should  be  done  before 
medical  aid  can  be  obtained.  Probably  thousands  would  be 
helpless  as  a  child,  and  human  life  would  be  sacrificed. 

IL  We  consider  the  spirit  of  the  Redeemer's  work. 

1.  It  was  love. 

It  was  not  reward — not  even  the  reward  of  applause — 
which  was  the  spring  of  beneficence  in  the  Son  of  Man.  He 
desired  that  it  should  be  unknown.  He  did  good  because  it 
was  good.  He  relieved  because  it  was  the  expressu  n  of  His 
own  exuberant  loving-kindness. 

2.  It  was  a  spirit  of  retiring  modesty. 

He  did  not  wish  that  it  should  be  known.  But  his  disciples 
have  made  it  known  to  the  world. 

Now  observe,  first,  the  evidence  here  afforded  of  His  real 
humanity.  Why  did  Christ  wish  to  conceal,  and  the  apostles 
wish  to  publish  abroad  his  miracles  ?  Take  the  simple  view, 
and  all  is  plain.  Christ,  the  man,  with  unaffected  modesty, 
shrank  from  publicity  and  applause.  The  apostles,  with 
genuine  human  admiration,  record  the  deed.  But  seek  for 
some  deeper  and  more  mysterious  reason,  and  at  once  the 
whole  becomes  a  pantomime,  an  unreal  transaction  acted  on 
this  world's  stage  for  effect,  as  though  we  should  say  that  He 
was  wishing  to  have  it  known,  but  for  certain  reasons  He 
made  as  if  He  wished  it  to  be  concealed.  Here,  as  usual,  the 
simple  is  the  sublime  and  true. 

Observe,  however,  secondly  :  That  publication  by  the  apos- 


The  Humane  Society.  817 

ties  sanctions  and  explains  another  part  of  this  society's 
operations.  Its  office  is  to  observe,  to  record,  and  to  reward 
acts  of  self-devotion.  Certain  scales  of  reward  are  given  to 
one  who  risks  his  life  to  save  life,  to  the  surgeon  whose  skill 
restores  life,  to  the  publican  who  opens  his  house  to  receive 
the  apparently  dead  body.  And  every  year  lists  of  names 
are  published  of  those  who  have  been  thus  distinguished  by 
their  humanity.  The  eyes  of  the  society  are  over  all  Eng- 
land, and  no  heroic  act  can  pass  unnoticed  or  unhonored  by 
them. 

Now  distinctly  understand  on  what  principle  this  is  done. 
It  is  an  apostolic  office.  It  is  precisely  the  principle  on  which 
the  apostles  were  appointed  by  God  to  record  the  acts  and 
life  of  Christ.  Was  this  for  Christ's  sake?  Nay,  it  was  for 
the  world's  good.  That  sacrifice  of  Christ  recorded,  pro- 
nounced Divine,  has  been  the  spring  and  life  of  innumerable 
sacrifices  and  unknown  self-devotion. 

And  so  the  rewards  given  by  this  society  are  not  given  as 
recompense.  Think  you  that  a  medal  can  pay  self-devo- 
tion ?  or  a  few  pounds  liquidate  the  debt  due  to  generosity  ? 
or  even,  that  the  thought  of  the  reward  would  lead  a  man  to 
plunge  into  the  water  to  save  life,  who  would  not  have 
plunged  in  without  any  hope  of  reward  ?  No  !  But  it  is 
good  for  the  world  to  hear  of  what  is  generous  and  good. 
It  is  good  to  appropriate  rewards  to  such  acts,  in  order  to 
set  the  standard.  It  is  right  that,  in  a  country  where  enor- 
mous  subscriptions  are  collected,  and  monuments  are  erected 
to  men  who  have  made  fortunes  by  speculation,  there  should 
be  some  visible,  tangible  recognition  of  the  worth  and  value 
of  more  generous  deeds. 

The  medal  over  the  fire-place  of  the  poor  fisherman  is  to 
him  a  title  /  and,  truer  than  most  titles,  it  tells  what  has  been 
clone.  It  descends  an  heirloom  to  the  family,  saying  to  the 
children,  Be  brave,  self-sacrificing,  as  your  father  was. 

3.  It  was  a  spirit  of  perseverance. 

They  laughed  Him  to  scorn,  yet  He  persisted.  Slow,  calm 
perseverance  amidst  ridicule. 

In  the  progress  of  this  society  we  find,  again,  a  parallel. 
When  the  idea  of  resuscitation  was  first  promulgated,  it  was 
met  with  incredulity  and  ridicule.  Even  in  1773,  when  Dr. 
Hawes  laid  the  first  foundation  of  the  Humane  Society,  it 
was  with  difficulty  he  could  overcome  the  prejudice  which 
existed  against  the  idea,  and  he  had  to  bear  the  whole  cost 
of  demonstrating  the  practicability  of  his  theory.  For  one 
whole  year  he  paid  all  the  rewards  and  expenses  himself,  and 
then,  attracted  by  the  self-sacrificing  ardor  with  which  he 

35 


818         Three  Times  in  a  Nations  History. 

had  given  himself  up  to  the  idea  of  rescuing  human  life, 
thirty -two  gentlemen,  his  own  and  Dr.  Cogan's  friends, 
united  together  in  furtherance  of  this  benevolent  design,  and 
thus  laid  the  foundation  of  the  Humane  Society. 

Here  note  the  attractive  power  of  self-denying  work;  the 
Redeemer's  life  and  death  has  been  the  living  power  of  the 
world's  work,  of  the  world's  life. 


XXVII. 
THREE  TIMES  IN  A  NATION'S  HISTORY. 

"  Ant1  >vhen  he  v,ras  come  near,  he  beheld  the  city,  and  wept  over  it,  say- 
ing, If  thou  hadst  known,  even  thou,  at  least  in  this  thy  day,  the  things  which 
belong  unto  thy  peace !  but  now  they  are  hid  from  thine  eyes.  For  the  days 
shall  come  upon  thee,  that  thine  enemies  shall  cast  a  trench  about  thee,  and 
compass  thee  round,  and  keep  thee  in  on  every  side,  and  shall  lay  thee  even 
with  the  ground,  and  thy  children  within  thee ;  and  they  shall  not  leave  in 
thee  one  stone  upon  another  •  because  thou  knewest  not  the  time  of  thy  vis- 
itation."— Luke  xix.  41-44. 

THE  event  of  which  we  have  just  read  took  place  in  the 
last  year  of  our  Redeemer's  life.  For  nearly  four  years  He 
had  been  preaching  the  Gospel.  His  pilgrim  life  was  draw- 
ing to  a  close ;  yet  no  one  looking  at  the  outward  circum- 
stances of  that  journey  would  have  imagined  that  He  was 
on  His  way  to  die.  It  was  far  more  like  a  triumphal  journey, 
for  a  rejoicing  multitude  heralded  His  way  to  Jerusalem  with 
shouts — "  Hosanna  to  the  Son  of  David  !"  He  trod,  too,  a 
road  green  with  palm  branches,  and  strewn  with  their  gar- 
ments ;  and  yet  in  the  midst  of  all  this  joy,  as  if  rejoicing 
were  not  for  Him,  the  Man  of  Sorrows  paused  to  weep. 

There  is  something  significant  and  characteristic  in  that 
peculiar  tone  of  melancholy  which  pervaded  the  Redeemer's 
intercourse  with  man.  We  read  of  but  one  occasion  on 
which  He  rejoiced,-  and  then  only  in  spirit.  He  did  not 
shrink  from  occasions  of  human  joy,  for  He  attended  the 
marriage-feast;  yet  even  there  the  solemn  remark,  appa- 
rently out  of  place,  was  heard — "  Mine  hour  is  not  yet  come." 
There  was  in  Him  that  peculiarity  which  we  find  more  or 
less  in  all  the  purest,  most  thoughtful  minds — a  shade  of 
melancholy  ;  much  of  sadness  ;  though  none  of  austerity. 
For,  after  all,  when  we  come  to  look  at  this  life  of  ours,  what- 
ever may  be  its  outward  appearance,  in  the  depths  of  it  there 
is  great  seriousness;  the  externalities  of  it  may  seem  to  be 


Three  Times  in  a  Nations  History.        819 

joy  and  brightness, but  in  the  deep  beneath  there  is  a  strange, 
stern  aspect.  It  may  be  that  the  human  race  is  on  its  way 
to  good,  but  the  victory  hitherto  gained  is  so  small  that  we 
can  scarcely  rejoice  over  it.  It  may  be  that  human  nature 
is  progressing,  but  that  progress  has  been  but  slowly  mak- 
ing, through  years  and  centuries  of  blood.  And  therefore 
contemplating  all  this,  and  penetrating  beyond  the  time  of 
the  present  joy,  the  Redeemer  wept,  not  for  Himself,  but  for 
that  devoted  city. 

He  was  then  on  the  Mount  of  Olives  ;  beneath  Him  there 
lay  the  metropolis  of  Judea,  with  the  Temple  in  full  sight ; 
the  towers  and  the  walls  of  Jerusalem  flashing  back  the 
brightness  of  an  Oriental  sky.  The  Redeemer  knew  that  she 
was  doomed,  and  therefore  with  tears  He  pronounced  her 
corning  fate  :  "  The  days  shall  come  that  thine  enemies  shall 
cast  a  trench  about  thee,  and  shall  not  leave  in  thee  one 
stone  upon  another."  These  words,  which  rang  the  funeral 
knell  of  Jerusalem,  tell  out  in  our  ears  this  day  a  solemn  les- 
son ;  they  tell  us  that  in  the  history  of  nations,  and  also,  it 
may  be,  in  the  personal  history  of  individuals,  there  are  three 
times — a  time  of  grace,  a  time  of  blindness,  and  a  time  of 
judgment. 

This  then,  is  our  subject — the  three  times  in  a  nation's 
history.  When  the  Redeemer  spake,  it  was  for  Jerusalem 
the  time  of  blindness ;  the  time  of  grace  was  past ;  that  of 
judgment  was  to  come. 

We  Uke  these  three  in  order:  first,  the  time  of  grace. 
We  find  it  expressed  here  in  three  different  modes:  first, 
"  in  this  thy  day  ;"  then,  "  the  things  which  belong  to  thy 
peace  ;"  and  thirdly, "  the  time  of  thy  visitation."1-" And  from 
this  we  understand  the  meaning  of  a  time  of  grace ;  it  was 
Jerusalem's  time  of  opportunity.  The  time  in  which  the  Re- 
deemer appeared  was  that  in  which  faith  was  almost  worn 
out.  He  found  men  with  their  faces  turned  backward  to  the 
past,  instead  of  forward  to  the  future.  They  were  as  chil- 
dren clinging  to  the  garments  of  a  relation  they  have  lost ; 
life  there  was  not,  faith  there  was  not — only  the  garments 
of  a  past  belief.  He  found  them  groaning  under  the  domin- 
ion of  Rome ;  rising  up  against  it,  and  thinking  it  their 
worst  evil. 

The  coldest  hour  of  all  the  night  is  that  which  immediately 
precedes  the  dawn,  and  in  that  darkest  hour  of  Jerusalem's 
night  her  light  beamed  forth ;  her  wisest  and  greatest  came 
in  the  midst  of  her,  almost  unknown,  born  under  the  law,  to 
emancipate  those  who  were  groaning  under  the  law.  His  life, 
the  day  of  His  preaching,  was  Jerusalem's  time  of  grace. 


820         Three  Times  in  a  Nation  s  History. 

During  that  time  the  Redeemer  spake  the  tilings  which  be 
longed  to  her  peace :  those  things  were  few  and  simple.  He 
found  her  people  mourning  under  political  degradation.  He 
told  them  that  political  degradation  does  not  degrade  the 
man ;  the  only  thing  that  can  degrade  a  man  is  slavery  to 
sin.  He  told  men  who  were  looking  merely  to  the  past,  no 
longer  to  look  thither  and  say  that  Abraham  was  their  father, 
for  that  God  could  raise  up  out  of  those  stones  children  to 
.Abraham,  and  a  greater  than  Abraham  was  there.  He  told 
them  also  not  to  look  for  some  future  deliverer,  for  deliver- 
ance was  already  come.  They  asked  Him  when  the  king- 
dom of  God  should  come ;  He  told  them  they  were  not  to 
cry,  Lo  here  !  or,lo  there  I  for  the  kingdom  of  God  was  with- 
in ;  that  they  were  to  begin  the  kingdom  of  God  now,  by 
each  man  becoming  individually  more  holy,  that  if  each  man 
so  reformed  his  own  soul,,  the  reformation  of  the  kingdom 
would  soon  spread  around  them.  They  came  to  Him  com- 
plaining of  the  Roman  tribute ;  He  asked  for  a  piece  of 
money,  and  said,  "•  Render  unto  Caesar  the  things  that  be 
Caesar's,  ami  to  God  the  things  that  be  God's;" — plainly  tell- 
ing them  that  the  bondage  from  which  men  were  to  be  de- 
livered was  not  an  earthly,  bat  a  spiritual  bondage.  He 
drew  the  distinction  sharply  between  happiness  and  blessed- 
ness— the  two  things  are  opposite,  although  not  necessarily 
contrary.  He  told  them,  ""  Blessed  are  the  meek  1  Blessed 
are  the  poor  in  spirit  !'*  The  mourning  man,  and  the  poor 
man,  and  the  persecuted  man — these  were  not  happy,  if  hap^ 
piness  consists  in  the  gratification  of  all  our  desires;  but  they 
were  blessed  beyond  all  earthly  blessedness,  for  happiness  is 
but  the  contentment  of  desire,  while  blessedness  is  the  satis- 
faction of  those  aspirations  which  have  God  alone  for  their 
«>nd  and  aim. 

All  these  things  were  rejected  by  the  nation.  They  were 
rejected  first  by  the  priests.  They  knew  not  that  the  mind 
of  the  age  in  which  they  lived  was  in  advance  of  the  tra- 
ditional Judaism,  and,  therefore,  they  looked  upon  the  Re 
deemer  as  an  irreverent,  ungodly  man,  a  sabbath-breaker. 
He  was  rejected  by  the  rulers,  who  did  not  understand  that 
in  righteousness  alone  are  governments  to  subsist,  and,  there 
fore,  when  He  demanded  of  them  justice,  mercy,  truth,  they 
looked  repon  Him  as  a  revofutionizer.  He  was  rejected  like- 
wise by  the  people — that  people  ever  ready  to  listen  to  any 
demagogue  promising  them  earthly  grandeur.  They  who  on 
this  occasion  called  out,  "Hosanna  to  the  Son  of  David,"  and 
were  content  to  do  so,  so  long  as  they  believed  He  intended 
to  lead  them  to  personal  comfort  and  enjoyment,  afterwards 


Three  Times  in  a  Nations  History.        821 

cried  out,  "  Crucify  Him  !  crucify  Him  !"  "  His  blood  be  on 
us,  and  on  our  children  ;"  so  that  His  rejection  was  the  act 
of  the  whole  nation.  Now,  respecting  this  day  of  grace  we 
have  two  remarks  to  make. 

First :  in  this  advent  of  the  Redeemer  there  was  nothing 
outwardly  remarkable  to  the  men  of  that  day.  It  was  al- 
most nothing.  Of  all  the  historians  of  that  period,  few  in- 
deed are  found  to  mention  it.  This  is  a  thing  which  we  at 
this  day  can  scarcely  understand  ;  for  to  us  the  blessed  advent 
of  our  Lord  is  the  brightest  page  in  the  world's  history  :  but 
to  them  it  was  far  otherwise.  Remember,  for  one  moment, 
what  the  advent  of  our  Lord  was  to  all  outward  appearance. 
He  seemed,  let  it  be  said  reverently,  to  the  rulers  of  those 
days,  a  fanatical  freethinker.  They  heard  of  His  miracles, 
but  they  appeared  nothing  remarkable  to  them ;  there  was 
nothing  there  on  which  to  fasten  their  attention.  They  heard 
that  some  of  the  populace  had  been  led  away,  and  now  and 
then,  it  may  be,  some  of  His  words  reached  their  ears,  but  to 
them  they  were  hard  to  be  understood — full  of  mystery,  or 
else  they  roused  every  evil  passion  in  their  hearts,  so  stern 
and  uncompromising  was  the  morality  they  taught.  They 
put  aside  these  words  in  that  brief  period,  and  the  day  of 
grace  passed. 

And  just  such  as  this  is  God's  visitation  to  us.  Generally, 
the  day  of  God's  visitation  is  not  a  day  very  remarkable  out- 
wardly. Bereavements,  sorrows  —  no  doubt,  in  these  God 
speaks  ;  but  there  are  other  occasions  far  more  quiet  and  un- 
obtrusive, but  which  are  yet  plainly  days  of  grace.  A  scruple 
which  others  do  not  see,  a  doubt  coming  into  the  mind  re- 
specting some  views  held  sacred  by  the  popular  creed,  a  sense 
of  heart-loneliness  and  solitariness,  a  feeling  of  awful  misgiving 
when  the  future  lies  open  before  us,  the  dread  feeling  of  an 
eternal  godlessness,  for  men  who  are  living  godless  lives  now 
— these  silent  moments  unmarked,  these  are  the  moments  in 
which  the  Eternal  is  speaking  to  our  souls. 

Once  more  :  that  day  of  Jerusalem's  visitation — her  day 
of  grace — was  short.  It  was  narrowed  up  into  the  short 
space  of  three  years  and  a  half.  After  that,  God  still  plead- 
ed with  individuals ;  but  the  national  cause,  as  a  cause,  wa? 
gone.  Jerusalem's  doom  was  sealed  when  He  pronounced 
those  words.  Again,  there  is  a  lesson,  a  principle  for  us  :  God'? 
day  of  visitation  is  frequently  short.  A  few  actions  often 
decide  the  destiny  of  individuals,  because  they  give  a  desti- 
nation and  form  to  habits ;  they  settle  the  tone  and  form  of 
the  mind  from  which  there  will  be  in  this  life  no  alteration. 
So  it  is  in  the  earliest  history  of  our  species.  In  those  rnys- 


822         Three  Times  in  a  Nations  History. 

terious  chapters  at  the  commencement  of  the  book  of  Gene- 
sis, we  are  told  that  it  was  one  act  which  sealed  the  destiny 
of  Adam  and  of  all  the  human  race.  What  was  it  but  a  very 
few  actions,  done  in  a  very  short  time,  that  settled  the  destiny 
of  those  nations  through  which  the  children  of  Israel  passed 
on  their  way  to  Canaan  ?  The  question  for  them  was  simply, 
whether  they  would  show  Israel  mercy  or  not ;  this  was  all. 

Once  more :  we  see  it  again  in  the  case  of  Saul.  One  cir- 
cumstance, at  the  most,  two,  marked  out  his  destiny.  Then 
came  those  solemn  words, "  The  strength  of  Israel  can  not  lie 
nor  repent.  The  Lord  hath  rent  the  kingdom  from  thee  this 
day."  From  that  hour  his  course  was  downward,  his  day 
of  grace  was  past. 

Brethren,  the  truth  is  plain.  The  day  of  visitation  is  aw- 
fully short.  We  say  not  that  God  never  pleads  a  long  time, 
but  we  say  this,  that  sometimes  God  speaks  to  a  nation  or  to 
a  man  but  once.  If  not  heard  then,  His  voice  is  heard  no 
more. 

We  pass  on  now  to  consider  Israel's  day  of  blindness.  Ju- 
dicial blindness  is  of  a  twofold  character.  It  may  be  pro- 
duced by  removing  the  light,  or  by  incapacitating  the  eye  to 
receive  that  light.  Sometimes  men  do  not  see  because  there 
is  no  light  for  them  to  see ;  and  this  was  what  was  done  to 
Israel — the  Saviour  was  taken  away  from  her.  The  voice  of 
the  apostles  declared  this  truth  :  "  It  was  necessary  that  the 
word  should  first  have  been  spoken  to  you ;  but  seeing  ye 
put  it  from  you,  and  judge  yourselves  unworthy  of  everlast- 
ing life,  lo,  we  turn  to  the  Gentiles." 

There  is  a  way  of  blindness  by  hardening  the 'heart.  Let 
us  not  conceal  this  truth  from  ourselves.  God  blinds  the  eye, 
but  it  is  in  the  appointed  course  of  His  providential  dealings. 
If  a  man  will  not  see,  the  law  is  he  shall  not  see  ;  if  he  will 
not  do  what  is  right  when  he  knows  the  right,  then  right 
shall  become  to  him  wrong,  and  wrong  shall  seem  to  be  right. 
We  read  that  God  hardened  Pharaoh's  heart ;  that  He  blind- 
ed Israel.  It  is  impossible  to  look  at  these  cases  of  blindness 
without  perceiving  in  them  something  of  Divine  action. 
Even  at  the  moment  when  the  Romans  were  at  their  gates, 
Jerusalem  still  dreamed  of  security;  and  when  the  battering* 
ram  was  at  the  tower  of  Antonia,  the  priests  were  celebrating, 
in  fancied  safety,  their  daily  sacrifices.  From  the  moment 
when  our  Master  spake,  there  was  deep  stillness  over  her 
until  her  destruction  ;  like  the  strange  and  unnatural  stillness 
before  the  thunder-storm,  when  every  breath  seems  hushed, 
and  every  leaf  may  be  almost  heard  moving  in  the  motion- 
less air ;  and  all  this  calm  and  stillness  is  but  the  prelude  lo 


Three  Times  in  a  Nations  History.        823 

the  moment  when  the  east  and  west  are  lighted  up  with  the 
red  flashes,  and  the  whole  creation  seems  to  reel.  Such  was 
the  blindness  of  that  nation  which  would  not  know  the  day 
of  her  visitation. 

We  pass  on  now  to  consider,  lastly,  her  day  of  judgment. 
Her  beautiful  morning  was  clouded,  her  sun  had  gone  down 
in  gloom,  and  she  was  left  in  darkness.  The  account  of  the 
siege  is  one  of  the  darkest  passages  in  Roman  history.  In 
the  providence  of  God,  the  history  of  that  belongs,  not  to  a 
Christian,  but  to  a  Jew.  We  all  know  the  account  that  he 
has  given  us  of  the  eleven  hundred  thousand  who  perished 
in  that  siege,  of  the  thousands  crucified  along  the  sea-shore. 
We  have  all  heard  of  the  two  factions  that  divided  the  city, 
of  the  intense  hatred  that  made  the  cruelty  of  Jew  towards 
Jew  more  terrible  than  even  the  vengeance  of  the  Romans. 
This  was  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem — the  day  of  her  ruin. 

And  now,  brethren,  let  us  observe,  this  judgment  came  in 
the  way  of  natural  consequences.  We  make  a  great  mistake 
respecting  judgments.  God's  judgments  are  not  arbitrary, 
but  the  results  of  natural  laws.  The  historians  tell  us  that 
Jerusalem  owed  her  ruin  to  the  fanaticism  and  obstinate 
blindness  of  her  citizens ;  from  all  of  which  her  Redeemer 
came  to  emancipate  her.  Had  they  understood,  "  Blessed 
are  the  poor  in  spirit,"  "  Blessed  are  the  meek,"  and  "  Blessed 
are  the  peacemakers ;"  had  they  understood  that,  Jerusalem's 
day  of  ruin  might  never  have  come. 

Now  let  us  apply  this  to  the  day  we  are  at  present  cele- 
brating. We  all  know  that  this  destruction  of  Jerusalem  is 
connected  with  the  second  coming  of  Christ.  In  St.  Matthew 
the  two  advents  are  so  blended  together  that  it  is  hard  to 
separate  one  from  the  other ;  nay,  rather,  it  is  impossible,  be- 
cause we  have  our  Master's  words,  "  Verily,  I  say  unto  you, 
this  generation  shall  not  pass  till  all  be  fulfilled."  Therefore 
this  prophecy,  in  all  its  fullness,  came  to  pass  in  the  destruc- 
tion of  Jerusalem.  But  it  is  impossible  to  look  at  it  without 
perceiving  there  is  also  something  farther  included ;  we  shall 
understand  it  by  turning  to  the  elucidation  given  by  our 
Lord  Himself.  When  the  apostles  asked,  Where  shall  all 
these  things  be  ?  Hi*  reply  was,  in  effect,  this :  Ask  you 
where  ?  T  tell  you,  nowhere  in  particular,  or  rather,  every- 
where ;  for  wheresoever  there  is  corruption,  there  will  be 
destruction — "  where  the  carcass  is,  thither  will  the  eagles  be 
gathered  together."  So  that  this  first  coming  of  the  Son  of 
Man  to  judgment  was  the  type,  the  specimen  of  what  shall 
be  hereafter. 

And  now,  brethren,  let  us  apply  this  subject  still   more 


824         Three  Times  in  a  Nation  s  History. 

home.  Is 'there  no  such  thing  as  blindness  among  our- 
selves? May  not  this  be  our  day  of  visitation  ?  First,  there 
is  among  us  priestly  blindness ;  the  blindness  of  men  who 
know  not  that  the  demands  of  this  age  are  in  advance  of 
those  that  have  gone  before.  There  is  no  blindness  greater 
than  that  of  those  who  think  that  the  panacea  for  the  evils 
of  a  country  is  to  be  found  in  ecclesiastical  union.  But  let 
us  not  be  mistaken :  it  is  not  here,  we  think,  that  the  great 
danger  lies.  We  dread  not  Rome.  Xo  man  can  understand 
the  signs  of  the  times,  wrho  does  not  feel  that  the  day  of 
Rome  is  passing  away,  as  that  of  Jerusalem  once  did.  But 
the  danger  lies  in  this  consideration — we  find  that  wrhere  the 
doctrines  of  Rome  have  been  at  all  successful,  it  has  been 
among  the  clergy  and  upper  classes ;  while,  when  presented 
to  the  middle  and  lower  classes,  they  have  been  at  once  re- 
jected. There  is,  then,  apparently,  a  gulf  between  the  two. 
If  there  be  added  to  the  difference  of  position  a  still  further 
and  deeper  difference  of  religion,  then  who  shall  dare  to  say 
what  the  end  shall  be  ? 

Once  more :  we  look  at  the  blindness  of  men  talking  of 
intellectual  enlightenment.  It  is  true  that  we  have  more 
enlightened  civilization  and  comfort.  What  then  ?  will  that 
retard  our  day  of  judgment?  Jerusalem  was  becoming 
more  enlightened,  and  Rome  wras  at  its  most  civilized  point, 
when  the  destroyer  was  at  their  gates. 

Therefore,  let  us  know  the  day  of  our  visitation.  It  is  not 
the  day  of  refinement,  nor  of  political  liberty,  nor  of  advan- 
cing intellect.  We  must  go  again  in  the  old,  old  way ;  we 
must  return  to  simpler  manners  and  to  a  purer  life.  We 
want  more  faith,  more  love.  The  life  of  Christ  and  the 
death  of  Christ  must  be  made  the  law  of  our  life.  Reject 
that,  and  we  reject  our  own  salvation  ;  and,  in  rejecting  that, 
we  bring  on  in  rapid  steps,  for  the  nation  and  for  ourselves, 
th«  day  of  judgment  and  of  ruin. 


Inspiration.  825 


XXVIII. 

INSPIRATION. 

"We  then  that  are  strong  ought  to  bear  the  infirmities  of  the  weak,  and! 
not  to  please  ourselves.  Let  every  one  of  us  please  his  neighbor  for  his  good 
to  edification.  For  even  Christ  pleased  not  himself;  but,  as  it  is  written, 
The  reproaches  of  them  that  reproached  thee  fell  on  me.  For  whatsoever 
things  were  written  aforetime  were  written  for  our  learning,  that  we  through 
patience  and  comfort  of  the  Scriptures  might  have  hope." — Rom.  xv.  1-4. 

WE  will  endeavor,  brethren,  to  search  the  connection  be- 
tween the  different  parts  of  these  verses. 

First,  the  apostle  lays  down  a  Christian's  duty — "Let 
every  one  of  us  please  his  neighbor  for  his  good  to  edifica- 
tion." After  that  he  brings  forward  as  the  sanction  of  that 
duty,  the  spirit  of  the  life  of  Christ  —  "For  even  Christ 
.  pleased  not  Himself."  Next,  he  adds  an  illustration  of  that 
principle  by  a  quotation  from  Psalm.  Ixix  :  "It  is  written, 
The  reproaches  of  them  that  reproached  thee  fell  on  me." 
Lastly,  he  explains  and  defends  that  application  of  the 
psalm,  as  if  he  had  said,  u  I  am  perfectly  justified  in  apply- 
ing that  passage  to  Christ,  for  '  whatsoever  things  were 
written  aforetime  were  written  for  our  learning.' " 

So  that  in  this  quotation,  and  the  defense  of  it  as  con- 
tained in  these  verses,  we  have  the  principle  of  apostolical 
interpretation ;  we  have  the  principle  upon  which  the  apos- 
tles used  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures,  and  we  are  enabled 
to  understand  their  view  of  inspiration.  -This  is  one  of  the 
most  important  considerations  upon  which  we  can  be  at  this 
moment  engaged.  It  is  the  deepest  question  of  our  day : 
the  one  which  lies  beneath  all  others,  and  in  comparison  of 
which  the  questions  just  now  agitating  the  popular  mind — 
whether  of  Papal  jurisdiction  or  varieties  of  Church  doc- 
trine in  our  own  communion — are  but  superficial :  it  is  this 
ffgrand  question  of  inspiration  which  is  given  to  this  age  to 
solve. 

Our  subject  will  break  itself  up  into  questions  such  as 
these :  What  the  Bible  is,  and  what  the  Bible  is  not  ? 
What  is  meant  by  inspiration  ?  Whether  inspiration  is  the 
same  thing  as  infallibility?  When  God  inspired  the  minds, 
did  He  dictate  the  words  ?  Does  the  inspiration  of  men 
mean  the  infallibility  of  their  words  ?  Is  inspiration  the 
Bame  as  dictation  ?  Whether,  granting  that  we  have  the 

.35* 


826  Inspiration. 

Word  of  God,  we  have  also  the  words  of  God  ?  Are  the  op- 
erations of  the  Holy  Spirit,  inspiring  men,  compatible  with 
partial  error,  as  His  operations  in  sanctifying  them  are  com- 
patible with  partial  evil  ?  How  are  we  to  interpret  and  ap- 
ply the  Scriptures  ?  Is  Scripture,  as  the  Komanists  say,  so 
unintelligible  and  obsciire  that  we  can  not  understand  it 
without  having  the  guidance  of  an  infallible  Church  ?  Or  is 
jit,  as  some  fanciful  Protestants  will  tell  us,  a  book  upon 
^which  all  ingenuity  may  be  used  to  find  Christ  in  every  sen- 
tence ?  Upon  these  things  there  are  many  views,  some  of 
them  false,  some  superstitious ;  but  it  is  not  our  business 
now  to  deal  with  these ;  our  way  is  rather  to  teach  positive- 
ly than  negatively :  we  will  try  to  set  up  the  truth,  and 
error  may  fall  before  it. 

The  collect  for  this  day  leads  us  to  the  special  considera-, 
tion  of  Holy  Scripture  ;  We  shall  therefore  take  this  for  our 
subject,  and  endeavor  to  understand  what  was  the  apostoli- 
cal principle  of  interpretation. 

In  the  text  we  find  two  principles :  first,  that  Scripture  is 
of  universal  application ; 

And  second,  that  aH  the  lines  of  Scripture  converge  to- 
wards Jesus  Christ. 

First,  then,  there  is  here  a  universal  application  of  Scrip- 
ture. This  passage  quoted  by  the  apostle  is  from  the  sixty- 
ninth  Psalm.  That  was  evidently  spoken  by  David  of  him- 
self. From  first  to  last,  no  unprejudiced  mind  can  detect  a 
conception  in  the  writer's  mind  of  an  application  to  Christ, 
or  to  any  other  person  after  him ;  the  psalmist  is  there  full 
of  himself  and  his  own  sorrows.  It  is  a  natural  and  touching 
exposition  of  human  grief  and  a  good  man's  trust.  Never- 
theless, you  will  observe  that  St.  Paul  extends  the  use  of 
these  words,  and  applies  them  to  Jesus  Christ.  Nay,  more 
than  that,  he  uses  them  as  belonging  to  all  Christians ;  for, 
he  says,  "  Whatsoever  things  were  written  aforetime,  were 
written  for  our  learning."  Now  this  principle  will  be  more 
evident  if  we  state  it  in  the  words  of  Scripture,  "  Knowing 
that  no  prophecy  of  Scripture  is  of  any  private  interpreta- 
tion:" those  holy  men  spake  not  their  own  limited  individual 
feelings,  but  as  feeling  that  they  wrere  inspired  by  the  Spirit 
of  God.  Their  words  belonged*  to  the  whole  of  our  common 
humanity.  No  prophecy  of  the  Scriptures  is  of  any  private 
interpretation.  Bear  in  mind  that  the  word  prophecy  does 
not  mean  what  we  now  understand  by  it — merely  prediction 
of  future  events — in  the  Scriptures  it  signifies  inspired  teach- 
ing. The  teaching  of  the  prophets  was  by  no  means  always 
prediction.  Bearing  this  in  mind,  let  us  remember  that  the 


Inspiration.  8?  7 

ftpostle  says  it  is  of  no  private  interpretation.  Had  the  Psalm 
applied  only  to  David,  then  it  would  have  been  of  private 
interpretation — it  would  have  been  special,  limited,  particu- 
lar ;  it  would  have  belonged  to  an  individual ;  instead  of 
which,  it  belongs  to  humanity.  Take  again  the  subject  of 
which  we  spoke  last  Sunday — the  prophecy  of  the  destruc- 
tion of  Jerusalem.  Manifestly  that  was  spoken  originally  at 
Jerusalem ;  in  a  manner  it  seemed  limited  to  Jerusalem,  for 
its  very  name  was  mentioned ;  and  besides,  as  we  read  this 
morning,  our  Saviour  says,  "  This  generation  shall  not  pass 
until  all  be  fulfilled." 

But  had  the  prophecy  ended  there,  then  you  would  still 
have  had  prophecy,  but  it  would  have  been  of  private — that 
is,  peculiar,  limited — interpretation  ;  whereas  our  Redeemer's 
principle  was  this  :  that  this  doom  pronounced  on  Jerusalem 
was  universally  applicable,  that  it  was  but  a  style  and  speci- 
men of  God's  judgments.  The  judgment-coming  of  the  Son 
of  Man  takes  place  wherever  there  is  evil  grown  ripe,  when- 
ever corruption  is  complete.  And  the  gathering  of  the 
Roman  eagles  is  but  a  specimen  of  the  way  in  which 
judgment  at  last  overtakes  every  city,  every  country  and 
every  man  in  whom  evil  has  reached  the  point  where  there 
is  no  possibility  of  cure. 

So  that  the  prophecy  belongs  to  all  ages,  from  the  de- 
struction of  Jerusalem  to  the  end  of  the  world.  The  words 
of  St.  Matthew  are  universally  applicable.  For  Scripture 
deals  with  principles ;  not  with  individuals,  but  rather  with 
states  of  humanity.  Promises  and  threatenings  are  made 
to  individuals,  because  they  are  in  a  particular  state  of 
character ;  but  they  belong  to  all  who  are  in  that  state,  for 
"  God  is  no  respecter  of  persons." 

First,  we  will  take  an  instance  of  the  state  of  blessing. 

There  was  blessing  pronounced  to  Abraham,  in  which  it 
will  be  seen  how  large  a  grasp  on  humanity  this  view  of 
Scripture  gave  to  St.  Paul.  The  whole  argument  in  the 
Epistle  to  the  Romans  is,  that  the  promises  made  to  Abra- 
ham were  not  to  his  person,  but  to  his  faith  ;  and  thus  the 
apostle  says,  "They  who  are  of  faith,  are  blessed  with  faith- 
c-.il  Abraham." 

We  will  now  take  the  case  of  curse  or  threatening.  Jonah, 
by  Divine  command,  went  through  Nineveh,  proclaiming  its 
destruction ;  but  that  prophecy  belonged  to  the  state  in 
which  Nineveh  was ;  it  was  true  only  while  it  remained  in 
that  state  ;  arid  therefore,  as  they  repented,  and  their  state 
was  thus  changed,  the  prophecy  was  left  unfulfilled.  From 
this  we  perceive  the  largeness  and  grandeur  of  Scripture  in* 


828  Inspiration. 

terpretation.  In  the  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  we  find  the 
apostle  telling  of  the  state  of  the  Jews  in  their  passage  to- 
wards the  promised  land,  their  state  of  idolatry  and  glut- 
tony, and  then  he  proceeds  to  pronounce  the  judgments 
that  fell  upon  them,  adding  that  he  tells  us  this  not  merely 
as  a  matter  of  history,  but  rather  as  an  illustration  of  a  prin- 
ciple. They  are  specimens  of  eternal,  unalterable  law.  So 
that  whosoever  shall  be  in  the  state  of  these  Jews,  whosoever 
shall  imitate  them,  the  same  judgments  must  fall  upon  them, 
the  same  satiety  and  weariness,  the  same  creeping  of  the 
inward  serpent  polluting  all  their  feelings ;  and  therefore  he 
says, "All  these  things  happened  unto  them  for  ensamples." 
Again,  he  uses  the  same  principle,  not  as  a  private,  but  a 
general  application ;  for  he  says, "  There  hath  no  temptation 
taken  you  but  such  as  is  common  to  man." 

We  will  take  now  another  case,  applied  not  to  nations, 
but  to  individuals.  In  Hebrews  xiii.  we  find  these  words 
from  the  Old  Testament,  "  I  will  never  leave  thee  nor  for- 
sake thee ;"  and  there  the  apostle's  inference  is  that  we  may 
boldly  say,  "The  Lord  is  my  helper,  I  will  not  fear  what 
men  shall  do  unto  me."  Now,  when  we  refer  to  Scripture, 
we  shall  find  that  this  was  a  promise  originally  made  to 
Jacob.  The  apostle  does  not  hesitate  to  take  that  promise 
and  appropriate  it  to  all  Christians ;  for  it  was  made,  not  to 
Jacob  as  a  person,  but  to  the  state  in  which  Jacob  was ;  it 
was  made  to  all  who,  like  Jacob,  are  wanderers  and  pilgrims 
in  the  world  ;  it  was  made  to  all  whom  sin  has  rendered  out- 
casts and  who  are  longing  to  return.  The  promises  made  to 
the  meek  belong  to  meekness ;  the  promises  made  to  the 
humble  belong  to  humility. 

And  this  it  is  which  makes  this  Bible,  not  only  a  blessed 
book,  but  our  book.  It  is  this  universal  applicability  of 
Scripture  which  has  made  the  influence  of  the  Bible  uni- 
versal :  this  book  has  held  spell-bound  the  hearts  of  nations, 
in  a  way  in  which  no  single  book  has  ever  held  men  before. 
Remember,  too,  in  order  to  enhance  the  marvellousness  of 
this,  that  the  nation  from  which  it  emanated  was  a  despised 
people.  For  the  last  eighteen  hundred  years  the  Jews  have 
been  proverbially  a  by-word  and  a  reproach.  But  that  con- 
tempt for  Israel  is  nothing  new  to  the  world,  for  before  even 
the  Roman  despised  them,  the  Assyrian  and  Egyptian  re- 
garded them  with  scorn.  Yet  the  words  which  came  from 
Israel's  prophets  have  been  the  life-blood  of  the  world's  de- 
votions. And  the  teachers,  the  psalmists,  the  prophets,  and 
the  lawgivers  of  this  despised  nation  spoke  out  truths  that 
have  struck  the  key-note  of  the  heart  of  man  ;  and  this,  not 


Inspiration.  829 

because  they  were  of  Jewish,  but  just  because  they  were  of 
universal  application. 

This  collection  of  books  has  been  to  the  world  what  no 
other  book  has  ever  been  to  a  nation.  States  have  been 
founded  on  its  principles.  Kings  rule  by  a  compact  based  on 
it.  Men  hold  the  Bible  in  their  hands  when  they  prepare  to 
give  solemn  evidence  affecting  life,  death,  or  property ;  the 
sick  man  is  almost  afraid  to  die  unless  the  book  be  within 
reach  of  his  hands ;  the  battle-ship  goes  into  action  with 
one  on  board  whose  office  is  to  expound  it ;  its  prayers, 
its  psalms  are  the  language  which  we  use  when  we  speak  to 
God ;  eighteen  centuries  have  found  no  holier,  no  diviner 
language.  If  ever  there  has  been  a  prayer  or  a  hymn 
enshrined  in  the  heart  of  a  nation,  you  are  sure  to  find  its 
basis  in  the  Bible.  There  is  no  new  religious  idea  given 
to  the  world,  but  it  is  merely  the  development  of  something 
given  in  the  Bible.  The  very  translation  of  it  has  fixed 
language  and  settled  the  idioms  of  speech.  Germany  and 
England  speak  as  they  speak  because  the  Bible  was  trans- 
lated. It  has  made  the  most  illiterate  peasant  more  familiar 
with  the  history,  customs,  and  geography  of  ancient  Palestine 
than  with  the  localities  of  his  own  country.  Men  who  know 
nothing  of  the  Grampians,  of  Sriowden,  or  of  Skiddaw,  are 
at  home  in  Zion,  the  Lake  of  Gennesareth,  or  among  the  rills 
of  Carmel.  People  who  know  little  about  London,  know 
by  heart  the  places  in  Jerusalem  where  those  blessed  feet 
trod  which  were  nailed  to  the  cross.  Men  who  know  noth- 
ing of  the  architecture  of  a  Christian  cathedral,  can  yet  tell 
you  all  about  the  pattern  of  the  holy  temple.  Even  this 
shows  us  the  influence  of  the  Bible.  The  orator  holds  a 
thousand  men  for  half  an  hour  breathless — a  thousand  men 
as  one,  listening  to  his  single  word.  But  this  Word  of  God 
has  held  a  thousand  nations  for  thrice  a  thousand  years  spell- 
bound ;  held  them  by  an  abiding  power,  even  the  universal! 
ty  of  its  truth ;  and  we  feel  it  to  be  no  more  a  collection  of 
books,  but  the  book. 

We  pass  on  now  to  consider  the  second  principle  contained 
in  these  words,  which  is,  that  all  Scripture  bears  towards 
Jesus  Christ.  St.  Paul  quotes  these  Jewish  words  as  fulfilled 
in  Christ.  Jesus  of  Nazareth  is  the  central  point  in  which 
all  the  converging  lines  of  Scripture  meet.  Again  we  state 
this  principle  in  Scripture  language :  in  the  book  ot  Revela- 
tjon  we  find  it  written,  "  The  testimony  of  Jesus  is  the  spirit 
of  prophecy,"  that  is,  the  sum  and  substance  of  prophecy, 
the  very  spirit  of  Scripture  is  to  bear  testimony  to  Jesus 
Christ.  We  must  often  have  been  surprised  and  perplexed 


830  Inspiration. 

at  the  way  in  which  the  apostles  quote  passages  in  reference 
to  Christ  which  originally  had  no  reference  to  Him.  In  our 
text,  for  instance,  David  speaks  only  of  himself,  and  yet 
St.  Paul  refers  it  to  Christ.  Let  us  understand  this.  We 
have  already  said  that  Scripture  deals  not  with  individuals, 
but  with  states  and  principles.  Promises  belong  to  persons 
only  so  far  as  they  are  what  they  are  taken  to  be ;  and  con- 
sequently all  unlimited  promises  made  to  individuals,  so  far 
as  they  are  referred  merely  to  those  individuals,  are  necessa- 
rily exaggerated  and  hyperbolical.  They  can  only  be  true 
of  One  in  w^hom  that  is  fulfilled  which  was  unfulfilled  in 
them. 

We  will  take  an  instance.  We  are  all  familiar  with  the 
well-known  prophecy  of  Balaam.  We  all  remember  the 
magnificent  destinies  he  promised  to  the  people  whom  he 
was  called  to  curse.  Those  promises  have  never  been  fulfill- 
ed,  neither  from  the  whole  appearance  of  things  does  it  seem 
likely  that  they  ever  will  be  fulfilled  in  their  literal  sense. 
To  whom,  then,  are  they  made  ?  To  Israel  ?  Yes ;  so  far  as 
they  developed  God's  own  conception.  Balaam  says,  "God 
hath  not  beheld  iniquity  in  Jacob,  neither  hath  He  seen  per 
verseness  in  Israel."  Is  this  the  character  of  Israel,  an  idol- 
atrous and  rebellious  nation  ?  Spoken  of  the  literal  Israel, 
this  prophecy  is  false ;  but  it  was  not  false  of  that  spotless- 
ness  and  purity  of  which  Israel  was  the  temporal  and  imper- 
fect type.  If  one  can  be  found  of  whom  that  description  is 
true,  of  whom  we  can  say,  the  Lord  hath  not  beheld  iniquity 
in  him,  to  him  then  that  prophecy  belongs. 

Brethren,  Jesus  of  Nazareth  is  that  pure  and  spotless  One. 
Christ  is  perfectly,  all  that  every  saint  was  partially.  To 
Him  belongs  all :  all  that  description  of  a  perfect  character 
which  would  be  exaggeration  if  spoken  of  others,  and  to  this 
character  the  blessing  belongs ;  hence  it  is  that  all  the  frag- 
mentary representations  of  character  collect  and  centre  in 
Him  alone.  Therefore, tho  apostle  says,  "It  was  added  until 
the  seed  should  come  to  whom  the  promise  was  made." 
Consequently  St.  Paul  would  not  read  the  Psalm  as  spoken 
only  of  David.  Were  the  lofty  aspirations,  the  purity  and 
humbleness  expressed  in  the  text,  true  of  him,  poor,  sinful,  err- 
ing David?  These  were  the  expressions  of  the  Christ  within 
his  heart — the  longing  of  the  Spirit  of  God  within  Him  ;  but 
they  were  no  proper  representation  of  the  spirit  of  his  life, 
for  there  is  a  marvellous  difference  between  a  man's  ideal 
and  his  actual — between  the  man  and  the  book  he  writes — a 
difference  between  the  aspirations  within  the  man  and  the 
character  which  is  realized  by  his  daily  life.  The  promises 


Inspiration.  831 

are  to  the  Christ  within  David ;  therefore  they  are  applied  to 
the  Christ  when  He  comes.  Now,  let  us  extract  from  that 
this  application. 

Brethren,  Scripture  is  full  of  Christ.  From  Genesis  to 
Revelation  every  thing  breathes  of  Him,  not  every  letter  of 
every  sentence,  but  the  spirit  of  every  chapter.  It  is  full  of 
Christ,  but  not  in  the  way  that  some  suppose ;  for  there  is 
nothing  more  miserable,  as  specimens  of  perverted  ingenuity, 
than  the  attempts  of  certain  commentators  and  preachers  to 
find  remote,  and  recondite,  and  intended  allusions  to  Christ 
everywhere.  For  example,  they  chance  to  find  in  the  con- 
struction of  the  temple  the  fusion  of  two  metals,  and  this 
they  conceive  is  meant  to  show  the  union  of  Divinity  with 
Humanity  in  Christ.  If  they  read  of  coverings  to  the*  taber- 
nacle, they  find  implied  the  doctrine  of  imputed  righteous- 
ness. If  it  chance  that  one  of  the  curtains  of  the  tabernacle 
be  red,  they  see  in  that  the  prophecy  of  the  blood  of  Christ. 
If  they  are  told  that  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  a  pearl  of  great 
price,  they  will  see  it  in  the  allusion — that,  as  a  pearl  is  the 
production  of  animal  suffering,  so  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is 
produced  by  the  sufferings  of  the  Redeemer.  I  mention  this 
perverted  mode  of  comment,  because  it  is  not  merely  harm- 
less, idle,  and  useless ;  it  is  positively  dangerous.  This  is  to 
make  the  Holy  Spirit  speak  riddles  and  conundrums,  and  the 
interpretation  of  Scripture  but  clever  riddle-guessing.  Put- 
ting aside  all  this  childishness,  we  say  that  the  Bible  is  full 
of  Christ.  Every  unfulfilled  aspiration  of  humanity  in  the 
past;  all  partial  representation  of  perfect  character;  all  sac- 
rifices, nay  even  those  of  idolatry,  point  to  the  fulfillment  of 
what  we  want,  the  answer  to  every  longing — the  type  of 
perfect  humanity,  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

Get  the  habit — a  glorious  one — of  referring  all  to  Christ. 
How  did  He  feel  ?— think  ?— act  ?  So  then  must  I  feel,  and 
think,  and  act.  Observe  how  Christ  was  a  living  reality  in 
St.  Paul's  mind.  "Should  I  please  myself?"  "For  even 
Christ  pleased  not  Himself;"  "It  is  more  blessed  to  give 
than  to  receive." 


832  The  Last  Utterances  of  Christ* 


XXIX. 
THE  LAST  UTTERANCES  OF  CHRIST. 

"When  Jesus  therefore  had  received  the  vinegar,  he  said,  It  is  finishscU 
ind  he  bowed  his  head,  and  gave  up  the  ghost." — John  xix.  30. 

THERE  are  seven  dying  sentences  of  our  Lord's  recorded 
\\\  the  Gospels;  one  recorded  conjointly  by  St.  Matthew  and 
St.  Mark,  three  recorded  by  St.  Luke,  and  three  by  St.  John. 
That  recorded  by  the  first  two  evangelists  is,  "My  God,  my 
God,  why  hast  thoa  forsaken  me  ?"  Those  preserved  by  St. 
Luke  only  are, "  Verily,  I  say  unto  thee,  to-day  shalt  thou  be 
with  me  in  paradise;"  "  Father,  forgive  them,  for  they  know 
not  what  they  do ;"  and,  "  Father,  into  Thy  hands  I  com- 
mend my  Spirit."  The  three  recorded  by  St.  John  are  these : 
"  I  thirst ;"  "  Behold  thy  mother  ;  behold  thy  son  ;"  and 
lastly,  "  It  is  finished."  And  these  seven  group  themselves 
into  two  divisions:  we  perceive  that  some  of  them  are  the 
utterances  of  personal  feeling,  and  others  are  the  utterances 


of  sympathy  for  others. 
These  are, 


therefore,  the  two  divisions  of  our  subject  to 
day — 

I.  The  natural  exclamations  of  the  Man. 
II.  The-utterances  of  the  Saviour. 

The  first  of  those  which  we  class  under  the  exclamations 
of  the  Man,  referring  to  His  personal  feelings,  is,"  I  thirst;" 
in  answer  to  which  they  gave  Him  vinegar  to  drink.  Now 
upon  first  reading  this,  we  are  often  tempted  to  suppose,  from 
the  unnatural  character  of  the  draught,  that  an  insult  was 
intended;  and  therefore  we  rank  this  among  the  taunts  and 
fearful  sufferings  which  He  endured  at  His  crucifixion.  But 
as  we  become  acquainted  wTith  Oriental  history,  we  discover 
:hat  this  vinegar  was  the  common  drink  of  the  Roman  arm;  . 
their  wine,  and  therefore  was  the  most  likely  to  be  at  hanu 
when  in  the  company  of  soldiers,  as  He  then  was.  Let  it  be 
borne  in  mind  that  a  draught  was  twice  offered  to  him:  once 
it  was  accepted,  once  it  was  refused.  That  which  was  re- 
fused was  the  medicated  potion — wine  mingled  with  myrrh 
— the  intention  of  which  was  to  deaden  pain,  and  therefore 
when  it  was  presented  to  the  Saviour  it  was  rejected.  And 
the  reason  commonly  assigned  for  that  seems  to  be  the  true 


The  Last  Utterances  of  Christ.  833 

one  :  the  Son  of  Man  would  not  meet  death  in  a  state  of  stu- 
pefaction, He  chose  to  meet  His  God  awake. 

There  are  two  modes  in  which  pain  may  be  struggled  with 
— through  the  flesh,  and  through  the  spirit;  the  one  is  the 
office  of  the  physician,  the  other  that  of  the  Christian.  The 
physician's  care  is  at  once  to  deaden  pain  either  by  insensi- 
bility or  specifics;  the  Christian's  object  is  to  deaden  pain 
by  patience.  We  dispute  not  the  value  of  the  physician's 
remedies,  in  their  way  they  are  permissible  and  valuable ;  but 
yet  let  it  be  observed  that  in  these  there  is  nothing  moral ; 
they  may  take  away  the  venom  of  the  serpent's  sting,  but 
they  do  not  give  the  courage  to  plant  the  foot  upon  the  ser- 
pent's head,  and  to  bear  the  pain  without  flinching.  There- 
fore the  Redeemer  refused,  because  it  was  not  through  the 
flesh,  but  through  the  Spirit,  that  He  would  conquer ;  to 
have  accepted  the  anodyne  would  have  been  to  escape  from 
suffering,  but  not  to  conquer  it.  But  the  vinegar  or  sour 
wine  was  accepted  as  a  refreshing  draught,  for  it  would  seem 
that  He  did  not  look  upon  the  value  of  the  suffering  as  con- 
sisting in  this,  that  He  should  make  it  as  exquisite  as  possible, 
but  rather  that  He  should  not  suffer  one  drop  of  the  cup  of 
agony  which  His  Father  had  put  into  His  hand  to  trickle 
down  the  side  untasted.  Neither  would  He  make  to  Him- 
self one  drop  more  of  suffering  than  His  Father  had  given. 

There  are  books  on  the  value  of  pain;  they  tell  us  that  if 
of  two  kinds  of  food  the  one  is  pleasant  and  the  other  nau- 
seous, we  are  to  choose  the  nauseous  one.  Let  a  lesson  on 
this  subject  be  learnt  from  the  Divine  example  of  our  Master. 

To  suffer  pain  for  others  without  flinching,  that  is  our 
Master's  example  ;  but  pain  for  the  mere  sake  of  pain,  that  is 
not  Christian  ;  to  accept  poverty  in  order  to  do  good  for  oth- 
ers, that  is  our  Saviour's  principle ;  but  to  become  poor  for 
the  sake  and  the  merit  of  being  poor,  is  but  selfishness  after 
all.  Our  Lord  refused  the  anodyne  that  would  have  made 
the  cup  untasted  which  His  Father  had  put  into  His  hand 
to  drink,  but  He  would  not  taste  one  drop  more  than  His 
Father  gave  him.  Yet  He  did  not  refuse  the  natural  solace 
which  His  Father's  hand  had  placed  before  Him. 

There  are  some  who  urge  most  erroneously  the  doctrine 
of  discipline  and  self-denial.  If  of  two  ways  one  is  disagree- 
able, they  will  choose  it,  just  because  it  is  disagreeable;  be- 
cause food  is  pleasant  and  needful,  they  will  fast.  There  is 
in  this  a  great  mistake.  To  deny  self  for  the  sake  of  duty  is 
right — to  sacrifice  life  and  interests  rather  than  principle  is 
right;  but  self-denial  for  the  mere  sake  of  self-denial,  torture 
for  torture's  sake,  is  neither  good  nor  Christlike.  Remem- 


834  7^  Last  Utterances  of  Christ. 

ber,  He  drank  the  cooling  beverage  in  the  very  moment  of 
the  sacrifice  ;  the  value  of  which  did  not  consist  in  its  being 
made  as  intensely  painful  as  possible,  but  in  His  not  flinching 
from  the  pain,  when  love  and  duty  said,  Endure. 

His  second  exclamation  was, "  My  God,  my  God,  why  hast 
Thou  forsaken  me  ?"  We  will  not  dive  into  the  deep  mysteries 
of  that  expression — we  will  not  pretend  to  be  wiser  than 
what  is  written,  endeavoring  to  comprehend  where  the  human 
is  mingled  with  the  Divine — we  will  take  the  matter  simply 
as  it  stands.  It  is  plain  from  this  expression  that  the  Son  of 
God  felt  as  if  He  had  been  deserted  by  His  Father.  We 
know  that  He  was  not  deserted  by  Him,  or  else  God  had 
denied  Himself,  after  saying, "  This  is  my  beloved  Son,  in 
whom  I  am  well  pleased."  And  they  who  maintain  that 
this  was  real  desertion,  attribute  that  to  the  Lord  of  Love 
which  can  alone  belong  to  Judas — the  desertion  of  innocence 
— therefore  we  conclude  that  it  arose  from  the  infirmities  of 
our  Master's  innocent  human  nature.  It  was  the  darkening 
of  His  human  soul,  not  the  hiding  of  God's  countenance.  He 
was  worn,  faint,  and  exhausted  ;  His  body  was  hanging  from 
four  lacerated  w^ounds;  and  more  than  that,  there  was  much 
to  perplex  the  Redeemer's  human  feelings,  for  He  was  suffer- 
ing there,  the  innocent  for  the  guilty.  For  once  God's  law 
seemed  reversed  ;  and  then  came  the  human  cry, "  My  God, 
my  God,  why  hast  Thou  forsaken  me  ?" 

And  now,  brethren,  observe  in  this,  that  it  arose  apparently 
from  the  connection  of  the  Redeemer's  death  with  sin.  When 
the  death-struggle  of  the  flesh  begins,  and  wre  first  become 
aware  of  the  frailty  of  our  humanity,  then  the  controversy  of 
God  with  the  soul  is  felt  to  be  real  by  reason  of  our  con- 
sciousness of  sin ;  then  is  felt,  as  it  were,  the  immense  gulf 
that  separates  between  the  pure  and  the  impure.  In  the 
case  of  the  Son  of  Man  this  was,  of  course,  impossible  ;  con- 
sciousness of  sin  He  had  none,  for  He  had  no  sin  ;  but  there 
was  a  connection,  so  to  speak,  between  the  death  of  Christ 
and  sin,  for  the  apostle  says,  "  In  that  He  died,  He  died  unto 
sin  once."  "  He  died  unto  sin  ;"  there  wras  a  connection  be- 
tween His  death  and  sin,  though  it  was  not  His  own  sin,  but 
the  sin  of  the  whole  world.  In  that  moment  of  the  apparent 
victory  of  evil,  the  Redeemer's  spirit,  as  it  would  appear,  felt 
a  darkness  similar  to  ours  when  sin  has  hidden  our  conscious- 
ness of  God.  When  death  is  merely  natural,  we  can  fee1 
that  the  hand  of  God  is  there;  but  when  man  interferes,  and 
the  hand  of  God  is  invisible,  and  that  of  man  is  alone  seen, 
then  all  seems  dark  and  uncertain.  The  despondency  of 
the  Redeemer  was  not  supernatural,  but  most  natural  dark- 


The  Last  Utterances  of  Christ.  835 

ness.  The  words  He  used  were  not  his  own,  but  David'? 
words ;  and  this  proclaims  that  suffering  such  as  He  was  then 
bearing  had  been  borne  before  Him — the  difference  was  in  de- 
gree, not  in  kind.  The  idea  of  piety  struggling  with,  and  victo- 
rious over  evil,  had  been  exhibited  on  earth  before.  The  idea 
was  imperfectly  exhibited  in  the  sufferings  of  Israel  regard- 
ed as  typical  of  Christ.  In  Christ  alone  is  it  perfectly  pre- 
sented. So  also  that  wondrous  chapter,  the  fifty-third  of 
Isaiah,  justly  describing  both,  belongs  in  its  entireness  to 
Christ :  He  therefore  adopted  these  words  as  His  own. 

The  last  personal  ejaculation  of  our  Redeemer  was, 
"  Father,  into  Thy  hands  I  commend  my  Spirit."  We  take 
this  in  connection  with  the  preceding ;  for  if  we  do  not,  the 
two  will  be  unintelligible,  but  taking  them  together,  it  De- 
comes  plain  that  the  darkness  of  the  Redeemer's  mind  was 
but  momentary.  For  a  moment  the  Redeemer  felt  alone 
and  deserted,  and  then,  in  the  midst  of  it,  He  cried  out, 
"Father,  into  Thy  hands  I  commend  my  Spirit."  In  that 
moment  He  realized  His  inseparable  union  with  the  Father. 

And  now  I  would  observe,  if  I  may  do  it  without  being 
misunderstood,  that  the  Redeemer  speaks  as  if  not  knowing 
where  He  was  going — "  Into  Thy  hands,"  that  is  sufficient. 
It  is  as  well  to  look  at  these  things  as  simply  as  possible. 
Do  not  confuse  the  mind  with  attempting  to  draw  the  dis- 
tinction between  the  human  and  the  Divine.  He  speaks 
here  as  if  His  human  soul,  like  ours,  entered  into  the  dark 
unknown,  not  seeing  what  was  to  be  in  the  hereafter :  and 
this  is  faith,  or,  if  it  were  not  so,  there  arises  an  idea  from 
which  we  shrink,  as  if  He  were  speaking  words  He  did  not 
feel.  We  know  nothing  of  the  world  beyond,  we  are  like 
children ;  even  revelation  has  told  us  almost  nothing  con- 
cerning this,  and  an  inspired  apostle  says,  "  We  know  not 
yet  what  we  shall  be."  Then  rises  faith,  and  dares  to  say, 
"  My  Father,  I  know  nothing,  but,  be  where  I  may,  still  I 
am  with  Thee;"  "Into  Thy  hands  I  commend  my  Spirit." 
Therefore,  and  only  therefore,  do  we  dare  to  die. 

We  pass  on,  secondly,  to  the  consideration  of  those  utter- 
ances which  our  Master  spake  as  the  Saviour  of  the  world. 
The  first  is,  "  Father,  forgive  them,  for  they  know  not  what 
:hey  do."  From  this  expression  we  infer  two  things :  first, 
that  sin  needs  forgiveness  ;  and,  secondly,  that  forgiveness 
can  be  granted. 

Sin  needs  forgiveness,  or  the  Redeemer  would  not  have  so 

E rayed.     That  it  needs  forgiveness  we  also   prove,  from  the 
ict  that  it  always  connects  itself  with  penalty.     Years  may 
separate  the  present  from  your  past  misconduct,  but  the  re- 


836  The  Last  Utterances  of  Christ. 

membrance  of  it  remains;  nay,  more  than  that,  even  those 
errors  which  we  did  ignorant! y  carry  with  them  their  retri- 
bution ;  and  from  this  we  collect  the  fact  that  even  errors, 
failures  in  judgment,  need  God's  forgiveness.  Another 
proof  that  sin  needs  pardon  is  from  the  testimony  of  con- 
science. In  all  men  it  speaks,  in  some  in  but  a  feeble  wrhis- 
per,  in  others  with  an  irregular  sound,  now  a  lull,  and  then  a 
storm  of  recollection ;  in  others,  conscience  is  as  a  low  per- 
petual knell,  ever  sounding,  telling  of  the  death  going  on 
within,  proclaiming  that  the  past  has  been  accursed,  the  pres- 
ent withered,  and  that  the  future  is  one  vast  terrible  blank. 

In  these  several  forms,  conscience  tells  us  also  that  the 
sin  has  been  committed  against  our  Father.  The  perma- 
nence of  all  our  acts,  the  eternal  consequences  of  every  small 
thing  done  by  man,  all  point  to  God  as  the  One  against 
whom  the  sin  is  committed  ;  and,  therefore,  that  voice  still 
speaks,  though  the  thing  we  have  done  never  can  be  undone. 
The  other  thing  that  we  learn  from  that  utterance  of  Christ 
is,  that  the  pardon  of  sin  is  a  thing  possible,  for  the  utterance 
of  Christ  was  the  expression  of  the  voice  of  God — it  was 
but  another  form  of  the  Father  saying,  "  I  can  and  I  will  for- 
give." 

Remark  here  a  condition  imposed  by  Christ  on  the  Divine 
forgiveness  when  He  taught  His  disciples  to  pray  :  "  If  ye 
forgive  men  from  your  hearts,  your  Father  will  forgive  you; 
but  if  ye  do  not  forgive,  neither  will  your  Father  which  is  in 
heaven  forgive  you."  It  is  natural  to  forgive  on  a  dying 
bed  ;  yet  that  forgiveness  is  only  making  a  merit  of  necessity, 
for  we  can  revenge  ourselves  no  more.  There  is  abundance 
of  good-natured  charity  abroad  in  the  world;  that  charity 
which  is  indiscriminating.  It  may  co-exist  with  the  resent- 
ment of  personal  injury,  but  the  spirit  of  forgiveness  which 
we  must  have  before  we  can  be  forgiven,  can  be  ours  only 
so  far  as  our  life  is  a  representative  of  the  life  of  Christ* 
Then  it  is  possible  for  us  to  realize  God's  forgiveness. 

The  second  utterance  which  our  Lord  spake  for  others 
rather  than  Himself  was,  "To-day  shalt  thou  be  with  me  in 
paradise." 

Now,  what  we  have  here  to  observe  on  is  the  law  of  per- 
sonal influence ;  the  dying  hour  of  Christ  had  an  influence 
over  one  thief — he  became  converted.  The  first  thing  we 
remark  is,  that  indirect  influence  often  succeeds  where  di- 
rect influence  has  failed.  Thus,  when  the  Redeemer  select- 
ed His  disciples,  and  endeavored  to  teach  them  His  truth, 
that  was  direct  influence  ;  but  when  He  prayed  for  them,  and 
those  disciples  heard  Him,  and  then  came  to  Him  with  this 


The  Last  Utterances  of  Christ.  837 

petition,  "Lord,  teach  us  to  pray,"  that  was  indirect  in- 
Duence;  and  so  in  this  instance,  while  praying  for  Himself, 
He  did  influence  the  mind  of  the  dying  thief,  though  that 
influence  was  indirect.  Indirect  influence  is  often  far  more 
successful  than  that  which  is  direct ;  and  for  this  reason, 
the  direct  aims  that  we  make  to  convert  others  may  be  con- 
tradicted by  our  lives,  while  the  indirect  influence  is  our  very 
life.  What  we  really  are,  somehow  or  other,  will  ooze  out, 
in  tone,  in  look,  in  act,  and  this  tells  upon  those  who  come  in 
daily  contact  with  us.  The  law  of  personal  influence  is  mys- 
terious. The  influence  of  the  Son  of  God  told  on  the  one 
thief,  not  on  the  other ;  it  softened  and  touched  the  hearts 
of  two  of  His  hearers,  but  it  only  hardened  others.  There 
is  much  to  be  learnt  from  this,  for  some  are  disposed  to  write 
bitter  things  against  themselves  because  their  influence  on 
earth  has  failed.  Let  all  such  remember  that  some  are  too 
pure  to  act  universally  on  others.  If  our  influence  has  failed, 
the  Redeemer's  was  not  universal. 

The  third  utterance  of  our  Master  on  the  cross,  for  others, 
not  for  himself,  was,  "  Behold  thy  mother!"  He  who  was  dy- 
ing on  the  cross,  whose  name  was  Love,  was  the  great  philan- 
thropist, whose  charity  embraced  the  whole  human  race. 
His  last  dying  act  was  an  act  of  individual  attachment — ten- 
derness towards  a  mother,  fidelity  towards  a  friend.  Now 
some  well-meaning  persons  seem  to  think  that  the  larger 
charities  are  incompatible  with  the  indulgence  of  particular 
affections ;  and  therefore,  all  that  they  do,  and  aim  at,  is  on 
a  large  scale — they  occupy  themselves  with  the  desire  to 
emancipate  the  whole  mass  of  mankind.  But,  brethren,  it 
not  unfrequently  happens  that  those  who  act  in  this  manner 
are  but  selfish  after  all,  and  are  quite  inattentive  to  all  the 
fidelities  of  friendship  and  the  amenities  of-  social  life.  It 
was  not  so,  if  we  may  venture  to  say  it.  that  the  Spirit  of  the 
Redeemer  grew,  for  as  He  progressed  in  wisdom  and  knowl- 
edge, He  progressed  also  in  love.  First,  we  read  of  His  ten- 
derness and  obedience  to  His  parents,  then  the  selection  of 
twelve  to  be  near  Him  from  the  rest  of  the  disciples,  and 
then  the  selection  of  one,  more  especially,  as  a  friend.  It 
was  through  this,  that,  apparently,  His  human  soul  grew  in 
grace  and  in  love.  And  if  it  were  not  so  with  Him,  at  all 
Events  it  must  be  so  with  us.  It  is  in  vain  for  a  man  in  his 
slying  hour,  who  has  loved  no  man  individually,  to  attempt 
\o  love  the  human  race ;  every  thing  here  must  be  done  by 
legrees.  Love  is  a  habit.  God  has  given  to  us  the  love  of 
relations  and  friends,  the  love  of  father  and  mother,  brother, 
sister,  friend,  to  prepare  us  gradually  for  the  love  of  God  ;  if 


838  The  Last  Utterances  of  Christ. 

there  be  one  stone  of  the  foundation  not  securely  laid,  the 
superstructure  will  be  imperfect.  The  domestic  affections 
are  the  alphabet  of  love. 

Lastly,  our  Master  said,  "  It  is  finished,"  partly  for  others, 
partly  for  Himself.  In  the  earliest  part  of  His  life,  we  read 
that  He  said,  "  I  have  a  baptism  to  be  baptized  with  ;"  to 
Him,  as  to  every  human  soul,  this  life  had  its  side  of  darkness 
and  gloom, but  all  that  was  now  accomplished:  He  has  drunk 
His  last  earthly  drop  of  anguish,  He  has  to  drink  the  wine 
no  more  till  he  drink  it  new  in  his  Father's  kingdom.  It  was 
finished ;  all  was  over ;  and  with,  as  it  were,  a  burst  of  sub- 
dued joy,  He  says,  "  It  is  finished." 

There  is  another  aspect  in  which  we  may  regard  these 
words  as  spoken  also  for  others.  The  way  in  which  our  Re- 
deemer contemplated  this  life  was  altogether  a  peculiar  one. 
He  looked  upon  it,  not  as  a  place  of  rest  or  pleasure,  but 
simply,  solely,  as  a  place  of  duty.  He  was  here  to  do  his 
Father's  will,  not  his  own  ;  and  therefore,  now  that  life  was 
closed,  he  looked  upon  it  chiefly  as  a  duty  that  was  fulfilled. 
We  have  the  meaning  of  this  in  the  seventeenth  chapter  of 
this  Gospel :  "  I  have  glorified  Thee  on  earth,  I  have  finished 
the  work  wrhich  Thou  gavest  me  to  do."  The  duty  is  done, 
the  work  is  finished.  Let  us  each  apply  this  to  ourselves. 
That  hour  is  coming  to  us  all ;  indeed  it  is,  perhaps,  now 
come.  The  dark  night  settles  down  on  each  day. 

"It  is  finished."  We  are  ever  taking  leave  of  something 
that  will  not  come  back  again.  We  let  go,  with  a  pang, 
portion  after  portion  of  our  existence.  However  dreary  we 
may  have  felt  life  to  be  here,  yet  when  that  hour  comes — the 
winding  up  of  all  things,  the  last  grand  rush  of  darkness  on 
our  spirits,  the  hour  of  that  awful  sudden  wrench  from  all 
we  have  ever  known  or  loved,  the  long  farewell  to  sun,  moon, 
stars,  and  light — brother  men,  I  ask  you  this  day,  and  I  ask 
myself,  humbly  and  fearfully,  What  will  then  be  finished  ? 
When  it  is  finished,  what  will  it  be  ?  Will  it  be  the  butter- 
fly existence  of  pleasure,  the  mere  life  of  science,  a  life  of  un- 
interrupted sin  and  selfish  gratification ;  or  will  it  be,  "  Fa- 
ther, I  have  finished  the  work  which  Thou  gavest  me  to  do  ?* 


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